A Study On The Effectiveness Of Graded Reading In Promoting Junior High School Students' English Reading Literacy

In recent years,the importance of English reading literacy in students' language development and comprehensive development has attracted the unanimous attention of English teaching researchers and practitioners.The relationship between graded reading and English reading literacy has become a new research scope in the field of English teaching and has intrigued more and more researchers and English teachers.Graded reading has been widely applied and explored to cultivate students' reading literacy abroad.However,research on reading literacy is still in its infancy,and there are few empirical studies on the effective use of graded reading in China.Therefore,the present study aims to explore the effectiveness of graded reading in promoting English reading literacy of junior high school students in Chinese context,trying to seek answers to the following questions:(1)To what extent does graded reading help improve the reading ability of junior high school students?(2)To what extent does graded reading help cultivate the reading habits of junior high school students?(3)To what extent does graded reading help promote the reading experience of junior high school students?With this purpose,a four-month teaching experiment was conducted at Changyi Foreign Language School where the writer worked as an intern teacher in 2019.Two classes of Grade 7 in this school were randomly selected with one as the experimental class and the other as the control class.92 students from the two classes were treated as the subjects.During the experiment,the teacher carried out graded reading teaching in the experimental class and gave graded reading guidance to the students.Tests,The Lexile Framework for Reading and questionnaires were used to collect relevant data and information concerning students' reading literacy and the experiment.SPSS25.0 was employed to analyze the data.The results of the study show that graded reading is conducive to promoting English reading literacy of junior high school students.(1)Graded reading can effectively improve students' reading ability.Although the discourse knowledge of students has not shown a remarkable improvement,their reading comprehension ability has improved significantly.(2)Graded reading is of great help to cultivate students' good reading habits,and improve their reading frequency and quantity as well.(3)Graded reading can considerably promote students' reading experience.There is a significant increase in students' reading attitude and interest.Based on the findings,the present study provides the following implications for English reading classes in junior high schools:(1)For the effective implementation of graded reading,it is important for schools to create a good environment for English reading and provide students with rich graded reading materials.(2)Teachers should strengthen the integration of reading activities in and out of class to guarantee students' reading time.(3)Teachers should make good use of the guidance function of assessment to help students form good reading habits and acquire positive reading experience.