An Investigation Of English Reading Strategies Used By Senior High School Students A Study In Affiliated High School To Inner Mongolia Normal University

Reading is an important means for people to obtain information, increaseknowledge and perceive the world. As a key skill of learning English, readingcan reflect students’ ability to use English. What’s more, it is an importantpart in English teaching. In previous college entrance exams, readingquestions take a large percentage. In our country, reading in senior highschools has been paid great attention to. However, reading teaching focuseson amounts of language points and translation of the text. Thus, theexamination-oriented education system can’t improve students’reading abilityefficiently but to become a burden of students. Sometimes, it even becomesthe bottleneck of many students in learning English.In the new century, studies on reading strategies have increased withpeople’s in-depth and careful researches on English teaching. In addition,New English Curriculum Standard has put forward a higher requirement forsenior high school students in reading strategies. Except for being able to read,students are required to have the ability to make inference and acquireinformation. Reading strategies are the actions taken by readers to readefficiently, which also contain readers’ behaviors used to regulate readingprocess with consciousness. Reading strategies reveal the process of readingand its inherent laws, helping students to improve their reading efficiency.The thesis first introduces the background and significance of readingstrategies study. The definitions, classifications and related studies on readingstrategies at home and abroad are illustrated as well. Based on theclassification of some scholars and New English Curriculum Standard, theauthor divides reading strategies into cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies. At the same time, thepaper has a detailed explanation in reading models and other related theories.The study is finished through questionnaire and supplemented by interview.The subjects chosen are the students in Grade Two from Affiliated HighSchool to Inner Mongolia Normal University. The purpose of the paper is tolearn the situation of using reading strategies of senior high students and thedifferences on the use of reading strategies between high-scored students andlow-scored students. According to the investigation, there is a sharp differencebetween high-scored students and low-scored students, which shows that theformer students are better at using strategies than the latter ones. Comparedwith low-scored students, high-scored students can use the strategies flexiblyand effectively. However, the frequency of using reading strategies bystudents is not high. The most used frequently strategies by students arecognitive strategies, and the least used strategies are social strategies.Affective strategies and metacognitive strategies are the second least usedstrategies by students. In terms of the problems appeared in the study, theauthor puts forward some suggestions to reading teaching to help studentsimprove reading ability.