On The Reading Strategies Training To Improve Senior Middle School Students' English Reading Abilities

Reading strategy is an important aspect of English reading. But many senior students' reading abilities are far below where they should be, and discrepancy between students turns to be greater. This has drawn close attention of many linguists and researchers. In this paper, the author investigated the present status of the reading strategy usage of senior students, validated several reading strategies which win much recognition, and tried to prove benefit of including it in a program by an experimental study.Firstly Studies and researches on senior students' reading abilities are analyzed. And a theoretical study is made. Based on Cognitive Learning Theory and Schema Reading Theory, the paper illustrates the significant role the reading strategy plays in reading comprehension. Reading strategies employment results in efficient reading comprehension. From cognitive perspective, reading strategies may begin as declarative knowledge, and then turn into procedural knowledge with repeated practice. Once turned to be procedural,reading strategies benefit students in improving reading abilities. It comes to light that students should learn and use them in order to improve their reading abilitiesThen 100 students in two parallel classes from Senior Grade Two of a key school were chosen as the subjects for questionnaire investigation, which was developed on the basis of reading strategies. The results of questionnaire show that many students couldn't use reading strategies efficiently in reading activities; the results also show that reading strategy learning is almost neglected by both students and teachers. Considering the questionnaire investigation results and the theoretical study, a strategy-based instruction and training plan has been made. It was put to practice and then to test. Statistic results of the experiment show the strategy-based instruction and training plan is practical and valuable. These results support the idea that reading strategies aid in improving reading ability.It is found out that majority of senior students fail to use reading strategies in reading activities. Views are held that lack of reading strategies is one of the main factors that affect the improvement of reading ability. The results support that strategy-based instruction and training are practical and valid.