An Investigation On High School Students English Reading Strategies Based On College Entrance Examination Reform

The Implementation Suggestions on Deepening the Reform of Examination and Enrollment System was formally issued by the State Council of China in 2014 and it put forward the proposition of reforms for College Entrance Examination(CEE).The experimental programs corresponding to these reforms were introduced in Zhejiang province thereafter,and the Education Department of Zhejiang has carried out new English examinations for CEE twice a year since 2016 by making significant adjustments on the time,form and structure of the examination.Despite these changes,the reading comprehension remains the foremost part in the examination because it occupies the largest proportion of the total score.Therefore,it has become increasingly important for high school students to adopt proper reading strategies to help them get good grades and read more effectively.Although scholars at home and abroad have already conducted studies on reading strategies from different perspectives,little research has been dedicated to reading strategies employed by senior high school students since the reforms for CEE.For this reason,it is both necessary and urgent for researchers to initiate fresh investigations on reading strategies employed by senior high school students in Zhejiang province.To be more specific,observations and investigations on this topic may bring up new ways to improve students' reading abilities and cultivate their comprehensive language competence.In addition,such investigations may provide positive backwash to reading-based English teaching and learning activities in senior high schools in Zhejiang province and more generally China.In light of that,this study conducts an investigation in a target middle school in Quzhou,Zhejiang to see the frequency and tendency of English reading strategies adopted by high school students and to explore the correlation between reading strategies and their reading achievements.The investigation is conducted in three steps.In the first place,it involves distributing the English Reading StrategiesQuestionnaire(adapted based on Gu Xinyu,2007)to subjects chosen from this target middle school for understanding the current status of English reading strategies employed by senior high school students.Secondly,an English proficiency test is administered to explore the internal relationship between reading strategies and reading achievements,in order to confirm whether the cultivation of reading strategies plays an important role in improving English reading abilities.Thirdly,interviews are carried out to specially selected students to verify the findings of the questionnaire survey and English proficiency test.Through an analysis of the data obtained from the research,major findings can be summarized as follows: 1)The current use frequency of English reading strategies by high school students is not high,and the use frequency of meta-cognitive reading strategies is the highest.2)Significant and obvious differences exist between high scoring and low scoring students in any category of reading strategies,whereas,differences are not evident between male and female students in the use of reading strategies.3)The English reading achievement is positively correlated with the adoption of reading strategies,especially the meta-cognitive reading strategies.Based on these major findings,the study explores implications for the teaching and learning of English reading practices by covering three aspects,namely,implications for schools,implications for teachers and implications for students.