The Validity Of Schema Theory In Improving Students’ English Reading Ability Of Senior High School

Reading is indisputably one of the most important means of getting access to information about the world in its written form, and the development of this basic language skill is crucial but also difficult for high school language learners in an English reading class. This paper, based on a validity test of reading strategies through teaching practice in high school English reading class, verifies the effectiveness of schema theory in the improvement of students’ English reading ability.Chapter one focuses on the background, purpose and significance of the study. The reason why schema theory is recommended is that traditional theory and cognitive theory each have their own limitations and imperfections, while the schema theory, with an emphasis on the interaction between the writer and the readers, could effectively make up for the deficiencies of the former ones. Chapter two is about the literature review. It expounds on the definition and the essence of reading comprehension respectively, states the limitations of traditional reading method, the classification of schematic theory and its functions in the enhancement of reading comprehension, and last but not least, the activation and expansion of schema interaction are presented. Chapter three makes a general introduction to the necessity and methods for the application of schematic theory to the teaching practice of an English reading class. Chapter four illustrates in detail an experimental study to 190 students of grade one, which carried out by the author in No. 20 High school of Huangshi with the guidance of schema theory on the development of students’ reading skills. Chapter five makes an analysis of the experiment data, and a discussion around the study. Chapter six, the conclusion, is a restatement of the significance of schema theory in the development of efficient English reading skills and some unsolved problems.This study aims to deal with the following problems: How to read effectively to bring a good result with the aid of schema theory? How could the schema theory possibly be applied to the teaching of English reading comprehension and in what way could teachers help the students activate and expand the schemata stored in their minds?In this paper, with detailed literature review and rigorous classroom experiments, the positive role of schema theory in the improvement of English reading teaching class and the enhancement of students’ reading skills is reasonably confirmed by the author.