An Empirical Study Of English Reading Strategy Teaching Based On Students' Thinking Styles

Reading strategy is a special learning approach which is combined with learner's mode of thinking. But different students have different thinking styles and preferences for different strategies. Strategy performance has a great influence on students'reading comprehension and problem solving skills. Therefore, based on students' thinking styles, the author seeks ways to optimize their reading strategies, so as to improve students' English reading comprehension.Based on related theories about thinking styles and reading strategy, the author collects data aiming at answering the following questions:1) what is high school students' thinking style inclination? 2) Do students have mismatches in reading strategy? 3) Are there any changes in frequency of reading strategy use after the experiment? 4) Based on students'thinking styles, can students improve their English reading performance by optimizing their reading strategies?In this research, two classes in Grade Two in The Fifteenth Senior High School of Fuzhou are chosen as subjects, one as the experimental class, in which reading strategy training is given, the other as control class, in which no specific training is carried out. Questionnaires are handed out for the purpose of collecting data in the two month study, which are analyzed by using Excel and spssl3.0. The findings are as follows:1) The dominant inclinations of thinking style of senior high school students are found out to be executive, oligarchic, anarchic, local, internal and conservative.2) Due to students'varied thinking styles, mismatches in reading strategies sometimes take place.3) The frequency of deliberate reading strategy use has improved for the students after the experiment.4) It is proved that students may improve their English reading performance by optimizing their reading strategies according to their thinking styles.It must be pointed out that learning to use reading strategies is a long-term process. While the two-month experiment showed that students have improved their awareness of using proper reading strategies, their progress is not substantial due to the limitation of conditions. Nevertheless, the empirical study conducted by the author indicates that exploring effective teaching in optimizing students'reading strategy choice on the basis of students'thinking styles would provide a new perspective for English reading strategy teaching and learning.