Secondary Vocational School Students' English Reading Ability, Individual Differences Investigation And Analysis

The present study is done under the guidance of the reading theories of contemporary cognitive psychology. Starting with an analysis of the reading process, it aims to provide a factual survey on the differences between declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge and find the main causes of difficulties for professional school students in reading. It is found that declarative knowledge is static, represented by schemata, while procedural knowledge is dynamic, represented by the "IF-THEN" model. Besides, this is also a tentative study of the influences of the Schema Theory on the English reading comprehension so as to verify the relevant researches on reading made by Cognitive Psychologists and to propose some measures to improve relevant teaching activities.This paper consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction with a summary of a number of recent researches on English reading. It is followed by Chapter 2, which covers a brief discussion on various factors involved in individual Chinese students' differences in English reading competence. The focus is on the correlation between reading and declarative knowledge as well as procedural knowledge. An analysis on the relationship between reading and declarative knowledge is conducted in accordance with Schema Theory, which shows that schemas are significantly related to effective reading. An analysis on the relationship between reading and procedural knowledge is made regarding the differences in the process of decoding, literal comprehending, deducting and monitoring. It is found that decoding is divided into two branches-matching and receding, literal comprehending into lexical access and parsing, deducting into integration, summarization and elaboration, and that monitoring process involves goal-setting, strategy selection, goal-checking and remediation.Chapter 3 concerns the experiments and researches made on individual secondary professional school students' English reading competence, focusing on the correlation between the two sorts of knowledge and effective reading. Chapter 4 discusses the specific experiments and their results. The findings and conclusions drawn thereofgenerally concur with the researches on reading made by cognitive psychologists. Research evidence shows that difficulties in reading vary from person to person. Problems may either result from lack of declarative knowledge or procedural knowledge. So long as they are diagnosed and solved, effective reading can be expected. The last chapter brings forward some constructive suggestions as to how to improve the teaching and learning of English reading in senior high schools especially those secondary professional ones.