The Application Of Graded Reading To English Language Teaching

Zhongshan city,as an important node city in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area,attaches great importance to English teaching.Primary schools there begin offering normal English course for pupils at grade one.To explore some shortcuts to proficiency in listening,speaking,reading and writing will be an effective assistance to English teaching,which also will promote pupils to be more proficient in English use and practice.In fact,the English reading materials in English textbooks used in primary schools in Zhongshan city are limited,where pupils are in urgent need of active English reading experience and developing a good habit of English reading.Thus,it is necessary to provide more proper English reading materials and help pupils to acquire more reading tactics under teachers'instruction.In this paper,the author attempts to discuss the influences of graded English reading teaching on senior-grade pupils' proficiency in reading at primary schools.The author takes a primary school at Xiaolan town of Zhongshan city,Guangdong as a case study and then analyzes the status quo of graded English reading teaching after surveying all English teachers and 424 senior-grade pupils at this school.The result reveals the principal problems in graded English reading in senior grades at this primary school:difference in teachers' cognition,lack of proper reading resource,inflexible teaching method,lack of effective evaluation of graded reading,students' passive reading,missing reading experience and students' need-to-be-improved English reading comprehension.Based on foreign experience in graded reading and relevant research achievements in China,the author analyzed the effect of graded English reading in the aspects of reading comprehension,reading habit and reading experience after conducting a practical research for a whole semester.Based on factor analysis and multiple regression analysis,the research results show that graded reading can improve pupils' English reading comprehension,help them to develop a good reading habit and have a positive reading experience,which will effectively promote the development of pupils' English literacy.Moreover,graded reading teaching can help teachers advance pupils' development step by step,can analyze reading materials so as to select proper ones for pupils,can provide scientific guidance and improve teaching quality and can break the tradition and encourage personal experience,all of which contribute to the effective development of pupils' proficiency in English reading.