Research On High School Students' English Fast Reading Ability Based On Extracurricular Reading

Reading is an important component in four English skills.We live in a world full of information pieces every day,and reading speed influences one's achievements.Meanwhile,the quantity of extracurricular reading and reading speed are also emphasized in the New Curriculum Standard of English for Senior High School(2003).Fast reading aims at reading at a high speed,but not at the cost of comprehension.Therefore,fast reading strategies are needed to improve students'fast reading ability.Recently,there are many researches on fast reading both in English and Chinese in order to improve reading efficiency and many of them have reached the conclusion that reading strategies can enhance fast reading achievements.However,how to train strategy use effectively is still in experimental stage.This thesis intends to discuss the efficiency of fast reading strategy training in high school English based on extra curricular reading materials.101 students,who came from two parallel classes in Senior Two in Lingshi No.1Middle School,were chosen as the research subjects in the experiment.They were selected as the experimental class and the control class.The training process lasted fifteen weeks from September to December.Both classes were given the same extracurricular reading materials.During this experiment,reading materials are mainly from 21~stt Century English Newspaper and the book English Fast Reading for Senior Two,which was published by East China Normal University Press in 2006.In the control class,students were taught by traditional reading approach,while in the experimental class,students were under the guidance of SBI model which is short for Strategy-Based Instruction.Before the training,the researcher analyzed pre-tests of two classes'and ensured there was no significant difference in fast reading and English proficiency level between the two classes.The questionnaire of fast reading strategy was used to know students'frequency of strategy use before the experiment.After the training,the same questionnaire was used to compare the results before and after the training.Meanwhile,fast reading tests and English proficiency tests were also used after the training.The research mainly discusses three questions as follows:1.What effects does the training have on students'frequency of using fast reading strategies?2.What effects does the training have on students'reading speed and reading achievement?3.What effects does the training have on students'English language proficiency?After the data collection and analysis,major findings are as follows:First,after comparing the questionnaires before and after the training,the frequency of reading strategies used in the experimental class has improved significantly.However,not all the strategies are improved at the same time.The frequency of cognitive strategies has improved while the affective strategies do not seem to improve.Thus,the training is more effective in improving cognitive strategies.Second,after the analysis of the fast reading tests,students'fast reading achievement in the experimental class has improved but not significant compared with the pre-test while its reading speed has improved significantly after training.Third,the training has an effect on students'fast reading ability but does not improve the students'overall English levels such as writing and knowledge of grammar.To sum up,fast reading strategy training is efficient in improving strategy use and reading speed.Based on the findings,the researcher suggests that teachers should change their teaching concepts,provide students with more guidance in strategy use,adjust students'bad reading habits and motivate students'interest in extracurricular reading.