Effects Of Metacognitive Knowledge,Vocabulary Size And Syntactic Awareness On English Reading Comprehension

This study is intended to explore the effects of metacognitive knowledge,vocabulary size and syntactic awareness on English reading comprehension.Based on the component skills approach to reading,the researcher seeks to address the following questions:(1)What are the significant differences in the performance of good readers and poor readers on metacognitive knowledge,vocabulary size and syntactic awareness?(2)How does students' performance on metacognitive knowledge,vocabulary size and syntactic awareness correlate with reading comprehension performance?(3)What contributions do the three variables make to reading comprehension?The 67 participants of the present study were second-year English majors from four intact classes of Shandong University.When the study was conducted,they just began their studies in the third semester.The instruments adopted to measure students'performance included a metacognitive knowledge questionnaire,a vocabulary size test,a syntactic awareness test and a reading comprehension test.Data collected for this study were obtained via the paper-pencil tests.These tests were administered in one class after another;in each class,two periods of 40 minutes were used to conduct these tests.Firstly,the vocabulary size test and the syntactic awareness test were organized;the metacognitive knowledge questionnaire and the reading comprehension test were conducted for the second time.All the tests were completed within one week.SPSS 19.0 was employed for data analysis.On the basis of reading comprehension test,the top 1/3 of the sample were identified as the group of good readers,while those with reading scores at the bottom 1/3 were identified as the group of poor readers.Independent samples t-test,correlation analyses and regression analyses were implemented respectively.Results show that good readers and poor readers have significant differences in both vocabulary size and syntactic awareness,but not in metacognitive knowledge.Among the three variables metacognitive knowledge,vocabulary size and syntactic awareness,significant correlations could be found between vocabulary size and reading comprehension,and between syntactic awareness and reading comprehension,but no significant correlation exists between metacognitive knowledge and reading comprehension.As for the predictive power,both vocabulary size and syntactic awareness are relatively significant in their prediction of reading comprehension.But this is not the case for metacognitive knowledge.The present study carries significance both theoretically and practically.Theoretically,this study enriches the empirical reading research in L2 context and corroborates the applicability of the component skills approach.Practically,it has significant implications for reading instruction and curriculum design.Thus,teachers are advised to modify their class activities and curriculum guidelines by combining different factors into the reading teaching activities.