A Study On English Reading Strategies Of High-score And Low-score Learners In Senior High School

In Chinese EFL teaching, reading is universally and officially acknowledged to be a prior language skill. However, the results of the teaching in reading are not so satisfactory. Since Goodman's psycholinguistic model was posed, reading has been viewed as an interactive process and a cognitive skill rather than a passive and static process. As a result, the focus of reading research has been shifted from the outcome of reading to a description and investigation of the reading process, which gives rise to the issue of reading strategies.Improving students' reading abilities is one of the objectives of senior English teaching. But the fact is that many senior students' reading abilities are far below what they should be, and discrepancy turns to be greater. This has drawn close attention of many linguists and researchers working in this field. Based on a theory study and questionnaire investigation, the present study intends to solve the following questions. And at the same time, the present study hopes to be of some help to the teaching of reading in senior high schools of China. The questions are:1. What are the characteristics of reading strategies used by the senior high school students?2. What are the differences in strategy use between high-score and low-score groups?3. Is there any correlation between the subjects'strategy use and their English reading proficiency?The thesis consists of five Chapters.In Chapter One, the feasibility and necessity as well as the purpose of studying the use of reading strategies are discussed.Chapter Two is the literature review, exploring the theoretical framework of reading models and the study of learning strategies and reading strategies at home and abroad. Four principal reading models and taxonomy of learning strategies and reading strategies are introduced. At the same time, the importance of interaction between the reader and text is emphasized.Chapter Three discusses the method and procedure of study. The first procedure is quantitative study. The data of the learners'strategy use are collected through a written questionnaire. The participants selected are from Grade Three in 3 levels of high schools in a City. The result of reading comprehension in a test among the Senior 3 students in a City is used to assess learners'reading proficiency. The second procedure is a qualitative analysis, focusing on comparing the different strategy use by high-score and low-score learners in case study.Chapter Four is the findings of the quantitative and qualitative study. T-test is used to analyze the differences in strategy use between high-score and low-score learners. Pearson Product moment correlation is used to examine the correlation between learners'reading strategy employment and their reading proficiency. The following are the research findings:1. Generally speaking, senior students sometimes employ English learning strategies. Cognitive strategies are employed the most frequently, and are followed by metacognitive strategies. The least frequently used strategies are social strategies. Some factors may contribute to such characteristics, such as the test -oriented nature of English teaching in senior high schools, physiological features of senior high school students, and their EFL learning context.2. The students with high reading achievements have a better command over reading strategies than those with low reading achievements.3. All the three learning strategy categories significantly correlate with reading proficiency in some degree.In Chapter Five, the researcher discusses pedagogical implications yielded from the findings and limitations of the present study.