A Study On The Article Length In Senior English Text Reading

Just as the Curriculum for the English Course in Senior High has demanded, all senior students should finish as many as300,000words’reading during the three years, which seems to be a severe challenge to both teachers and students. To seek a way out, I’ve made a careful study of essays on teaching reading both at home and abroad.Having read related researches and investigations made by experts and scholars, I consider it possible to establish an appropriate standard on the length of reading comprehension passages.In order to investigate the most suitable length in a piece of reading for a senior student, I attempt to research and analyze the real situation in teaching reading in and outside class. Therefore, a survey on the impact of the length of reading passages has been made among a thousand students at my school through questionnaires. Meanwhile, some of the students are chosen to take four tests to check their ability of reading English materials of different lengths.By analyzing the data collected from the questionnaires, the four tests, the length of reading passages and interviews with teachers, students and their parents, I manage to find the most suitable length for senior students.The result indicates that the most suitable length is positively related with students’examination results. And data collected shows that a350-word reading passage is most suitable for an ordinary senior student. The length of the350words passage has a positive effect on testing senior students’ reading comprehension.It has also been found that the contents, the number of new words, the students’ interest as well as the length of sentences are also necessarily considered at the same time. In the thesis, constructive suggestions are provided to teachers, textbook compilers and exam paper designers. The findings in the study support the conclusion that350-word passage are neither too long nor too short for an ordinary senior student, and that as long as we stick to the standard, it is guaranteed that our students will gain better reading ability and they will become more interested in English reading.