Research Into Factors Influencing Students’ Reading Ability In English

Reading is one of the most important cognitive activities, and effective reading comprehension is the purpose of reading. On the basis of prior researches on factors influencing second language reading comprehension done both abroad and at home, and theoretically supported by the theories about reading comprehension in cognitive science and cognitive mediation, this study examines the role of vocabulary, syntactic knowledge and reading strategies in English reading comprehension with 44 vocational school students in Grade One majoring in Pharmacy. The key research questions are whether vocabulary, syntactic knowledge and reading strategies have an effect on English reading comprehension for the vocational school students in Grade One and how they work; whether diversity of vocabulary, syntactic knowledge and reading strategies exists between good English readers and poor ones and what it is if there is any. Throughout the study, questionnaires, tests and interviews are applied to get the results. Five assessments are administered, with English Reading Ability Test and English Reading Status Questionnaire as the first part and then with English Vocabulary Test, Syntactic Knowledge Test and Reading Strategies Questionnaire as the second part. The results are as follows:1. Vocabulary and syntactic knowledge have an observable effect on English reading comprehension for vocational school students in Grade One and vocabulary is highly correlated with syntactic knowledge, while reading strategies has no distinct effect on English reading comprehension for vocational school students in Grade One, with reading strategies in Chinese having a remarkable effect on reading strategies in English.2. Poor readers in English are weaker than good readers in vocabulary and syntactic knowledge while reading strategies have a weaker relationship to reading comprehension for both poor and good readers.The above results are useful as a guide to English reading teaching in vocational schools, especially for the teachers teaching in Grade One. While teaching English reading, teachers should try to improve students’vocabulary; enrich their syntactic knowledge; train them to be strategic readers and use proper reading strategies in English reading; the common multiple choice format to test reading comprehension should be modified and more ways of reading testing are encouraged to arouse students’interest in English reading and bring about more critical and creative reading; and also employ reading materials that can satisfy students’needs and get them interested in English reading.