English reading strategies by students from northern moutainous provinces at the faculty of information technology, thai nguyen university

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& PHÙNG THỊ THANH TÚ

ENGLISH READING STRATEGIES BY STUDENTS FROM NORTHERN MOUTAINOUS PROVINES AT THE FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

CHIẾN LƯỢC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN CÁC TỈNH MIỀN NÚI PHÍA BẮC TẠI KHOA CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN - ĐẠI

HỌC THÁI NGUYÊN

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

Ha Noi - 2010

PHÙNG THỊ THANH TÚ

ENGLISH READING STRATEGIES BY STUDENTS FROM NORTHERN MOUTAINOUS PROVINES AT THE FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

CHIẾN LƯỢC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN CÁC TỈNH MIỀN NÚI PHÍA BẮC TẠI KHOA CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN - ĐẠI

HỌC THÁI NGUYÊN

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

Supervisor: HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN HOA, Ph.D.

HaNoi - 2010

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

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1 Rationale

2 Aims of the study

3 Methods of the study

4 Scope of the study:

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.3 Teaching reading strategies

1.3.1 Teaching reading strategies

1.3.2 Teaching reading activities

1.4 Research on teaching and learning reading strategies in second language learning

1.4.1 Research on teaching reading strategies in second language learning

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1.4.2 Research on learning reading strategies in second language learning

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CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

2.1 The context of the study

2.1.1 Setting of the study

2.1.2 Sampling and participants

2.2 Instruments of data collection

2.3 Data collection procedures

2.4 Data analysis

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

3.1 FIT students' opinions and reading strategies

3.1.1 FIT students’ attitude to reading strategies

3.1.2 Strategies taught to FIT students

3.1.3 Reading strategies employed in students' reading

3.2 FIT English teachers' opinions and reading strategies

3.4 Implications of the study

PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS

APPENDIX 1: Questionnaires for students

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APPENDIX 2: Questionnaires for teachers

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Reading is an essential way of obtaining information in contemporary society.Research discovered that readers spontaneously use reading strategies in the readingprocess (Pritchard, 1990) Literature also suggested that the use of appropriate readingstrategies may improve reading comprehension (Oxford, 1990) Using reading strategiescan be of great help to non-native readers because it may serve as an effective way ofovercoming language deficiency and obtaining better reading achievement both for regularschool assignments and on language proficiency tests (Zhang, 1992)

Reading is an activity with a purpose A person may read in order to gain information

or verify existing knowledge, or in order to critique a writer's ideas or writing style.Another person may also read for enjoyment, or to enhance knowledge of the languagebeing read The purpose(s) for reading guide the reader's selection of texts Readingstrategies help readers to acquire a text quickly Successful language learners know how touse reading strategies efficiently In language learning, students read to learn the language,

to broaden their knowledge, and to do assignments The purposes of reading strategies are

to have general knowledge, to get a specific detail, to find out the main idea or theme, tolearn, to remember, to delight, to summarize and to do research

In the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT), Thai Nguyen University, English hasbeen considered as the important subject due to the fact that many informationaltechnology documents are now written in English Once students master the Englishlanguage, or are capable of comprehending satisfactorily documents written in it, they canmore easily grasp new technology than those weaker in this language

There is a new rule for (FIT) students enrolling this academic year: After graduation,students need to attain an English competency equivalence of 400 points (TOEFL-PBT).This seems to be a bit high of a requirement for the students; however, this is a motivationfor them to study and concentrate more on the language

It is natural that in order to master a language, learners often want to improve in allfour skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing For the FIT students, the mostimportant skill is reading as almost all English books about Information Technology are

written in English Moreover, Vietnamese books about Information Technology aresometimes out of date and difficult to understand due to bad translation FIT students aretaught reading skills from their first academic year Through observing English readingclasses, this author has realized that most students read the text and then translate it intoVietnamese They don’t know what or how to use reading strategies to comprehend thetext When dealing with a reading lesson, students often suffer from a lack of readingstrategies which are essential for them to overcome the reading comprehension challenges

in the classroom A large body of research has found that effective readers are aware of thestrategies they use and that they use strategies flexibly and efficiently (Garner, 1987;Presley, Beard EL, Dinary & Brown, 1992 cited in Nguyen (2007)) Researchers believedthat these strategies can be taught to ineffective language learners so that they can thenbecome more successful at language learning

Besides developing reading proficiency for students, teachers who train students to usereading strategies can also help them become autonomous language learners.Consequently, teaching students learning strategies is an important duty of the languageteachers since learning strategies can help students monitor and take responsibility for theirown learning Helping students understand good language learning strategies and trainingthem to develop and use them can be considered the desired characteristics of a goodlanguage teacher (Lessard C., 1997:3)

Due to the aforementioned reasons, it's necessary for this author to investigate whatEnglish reading strategies students use and ascertain what reading strategies Englishteachers in FIT teach Therefore, implications for teaching and learning reading strategiescan be obtained via the results of the research titled "English Reading strategies byStudents from the Northern Mountainous Provinces at the Faculty of InformationTechnology, Thai Nguyen University"

2. Aims of the study

This study aims to:

- Investigate what reading strategies FIT students employ when reading in English

- Explore what reading strategies FIT English teachers teach

In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims of the study, the following major

research questions will be posed:

- What are the reading strategies in English used by students at Faculty of Information Technology, Thai Nguyen University?

- What reading strategies do the English teachers in FIT teach?

3. Methods of the study

In order to achieve the aims mentioned previously, the study employed quantitativemethods including survey questionnaires for students The survey questionnaires forstudents were used to determine what reading strategies employed by the students whenreading in English And survey questionnaires for teachers were also administered toexplore what reading strategies English teachers in FIT taught

After the data is analyzed and discussed, all comments, remarks, recommendations,assumptions and conclusions pertaining to the study will be available and somesuggestions will then be raised concerning the thesis

4 Scope of the study:

A learners' success or failure in acquiring a language can be affected by manyinterrelated factors Among these factors, the teaching of reading strategies should be takeninto consideration However, this study only focuses on the learning reading strategies ofstudents at the Faculty of Information Technology – Thai Nguyen University and includessuggestions for employing these strategies in those classrooms

In order to survey learners' reading strategies and investigate the teachers' teachingmethods, numerous ways of collecting data may be used However, the present studyemploys only the questionnaire Therefore, there is a limitation concerning the reliability ofthe data used As Dornyei Z (2003) states questionnaires have some serious limitations,and some of these have led certain researchers to claim that questionnaire data are notreliable or valid

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews theories related to reading and reading activities in general andreading strategies in particular It also reviews current research on teaching and learningreading strategies that have been conducted so far All of these serve as a basis for aninvestigation into reading strategies in English employed by students from northernmountainous provinces at Faculty of Information Technology, Thai Nguyen Universitywhich is carried out and presented in the next chapter

1.1 Reading

1.1.1 What is reading?

The definition of reading has changed substantially during the past few decades, from

a focus on reading as decoding or as set of decontextualized or context free skills, to a view

of reading as information processing (Goodman, 1967, Pang S.E., Muaka A., Bernhardt B

E and Kamil L M., 2003) or as an interactive process in which reader is actively involved

in using available content knowledge to construct the meaning of the text (Anderson &Pearson, 1984, Richards and Schmidt, 2002, Anderson, 2003)

Richards and Schmidt (2002) define reading in Pang S.E., Muaka A., Bernhardt B E

and Kamil L M.(2003) perceiving a written text in order to understand its contents This

can be done silently called silent reading The understanding that results is called readingcomprehension Saying a written text aloud which can be done with or without anunderstanding of the contents is called oral reading

Pang S.E., Muaka A., Bernhardt B E and Kamil L M.(2003:6) also consider "reading

is about understanding written texts Reading is a complex activity that consists of tworelated processes: word recognition and comprehension Word recognition refers to theprocess of perceiving how written symbols correspond to one’s spoken language.Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text.Readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammaticalknowledge, experience with text and other strategies to help them understand written text"

1.1.2 Models of reading

Researchers have created models that describe what happens when people read.According to Aebersold J A & Field M L (1997), in Hudson T (2007), there are threemain model of how reading occurs identified as bottom-up, top-down and interactive

* Bottom-up theory

In bottom-up theory, the smallest units of a text from letters to words to phrases tosentences, etc are constructed by a reader Bottom-up processing focuses on how readersextract information from the printed page, claiming that readers deal with letters and words

in a relatively complete and systematic fashion According to Nunan (1991), reading wasviewed as ― "the process of meaning interpretation'' in which ―the language is "translatedfrom one form of symbolic representation to another" The bottom-up theory (Hudson T.(2007) to reading focus fairly on text rapid processing and word identification By mappingthe input directly on to some independent representational form in the mental lexicon, thereader can have the ability to recognize words in isolation Researchers of bottom-upmodel are primarily interested in how a reader reads rather than in what the readercomprehends The view from Perfetti (1997) in Hudson T (2007) is that readingcomprehension is equal to language comprehension, plus decoding, plus some minor othercontributing variable In other words, in the bottom – up model, the reader begins with thewritten text (the bottom) and constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases and sentencesfound within, and then processes the text in a linear fashion Theories of reading that stressbottom-up processing claim that the reader processes all of the letters in the last word ofthe sentence, regardless of its predictability Obviously, in the view of this driven model,the reader seems to play a relatively passive role because the basis of bottom – upprocessing is the linguistic knowledge of the reader

Another shortcoming of the bottom-up model shown by Samuel and Kamil (1988: 31)

is that "because of the lack of feedback loops in the early bottom – up models, it wasdifficult to account for as facilitating variables in word recognition and comprehension".Because of this drawback, and as well as the introduction of the top-down model ofreading, many researchers was not interested in the bottom-up model

* Top-down theory

Top-down model rejects the notion that identification of letters to form words, and thederivation of meaning from these words is efficient reading On the contrary, it assumesthat efficient reading requires the readers to make predictions and hypothesis about the textcontent by relating the new information to their prior knowledge and by using as fewlanguage clues as possible It is further assumed that the readers can check whether thehypothesis are correct or not by sampling the text.

Kenneth Goodman and Frank Smith are the researchers who are most closelyidentified with top-down theory to the reading process Goodman use the term

"psycholinguistic guessing game" (also Carrell, 1998: 2) to "value the cognitive economy

of linguistic information over graphemic information" He specifies four processes inreading: predicting, sampling, confirming, and correcting In top-down process, the readerguesses the meaning of the text and samples the print to confirm or disconfirm the guess

In other words, the reader brings to bear not only knowledge of the language, but alsointernal concepts of how language is processed, past experiential background and generalconceptual background

The top-down model is influenced by schema theory, which emphasizes theimportance of the reader’s background knowledge in the reading process (Carrell, 1998:4).According to this theory, so as to comprehend a text, readers make use of both the text andtheir background knowledge Therefore, interaction of the background knowledge and thetext is essential for efficient reading

Smith (1971, 1994) in Hudson T (2007) see that reading instruction should take placewhen comprehension of a text is possible, rather than focus on isolated phoneme-graphemecorrespondence activities and drills

The readers bring a great deal of knowledge, expectations, assumptions, and questions

to the text and, given a basic understanding of the vocabulary, they continue to read as long

as the text confirms their expectations (Goodman, 1976)

Apparently, according to Eskey (1988), the top-down model tends to emphasize higherlevel skills as the prediction of meaning by means of context clues or backgroundknowledge at the expense of lower skills like the rapid and accurate identification of lexicaland grammatical forms In making the perfectly valid point that fluent reading is

primarily a cognitive process, they tend to deemphasize the perceptual and decodingdimensions of that process This model is good for the skillful, fluent reader for whomperception and decoding have become automatic, not for the less proficient, developingreader Stanovich (1988) stated that ― the generation of hypotheses would actually bemore time – consuming than decoding Therefore, a top-down model of reading isessentially a model of the fluent reader and does not account for all the needs of studentswho are acquiring reading skills.

For many reading theorists who recognized the importance of both the text and thereader in the reading process, a combination of the two emerged the interactive model

* Interactive theory

Presently, interactive model of reading is accepted by most researchers and teachers(Hudson T (2007) Reading is seen as a skill that can be understood independently fromissues of general comprehension Context can aid in the process, but has less directinfluence than the cognitive processing of print The interactive model reflected in Smith(1994) that language has a surface structure, the observable characteristics of language as itexists in print or speech, and it also has a deep structure, the meaning obtained from themessage In such views of the interactive nature of reading, priority is given to the process

of sampling the text, making predictions about the intended meaning, and then evaluatingthe message through subsequent reading The third orientation focuses on the necessity ofaddressing social context, and is associated with the new literacy studies This orientationsees reading and writing together rather than as separate skills The interactive models ofreading assume that skills at all levels are interactively available to process and interpretthe text In this model, good readers are both good decoders and good interpreters of text,their decoding skills becoming more automatic but no less important as their reading skilldevelops

In short, the interactive process of reading involves not only the processing of text on apage or elsewhere, and cultural background knowledge, but also the power relationships inthe society which have produced concepts of the reading process

To sum up, the advent and popularity of interactive models show that interactivemodels can maximize the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses of both bottom – up andtop –down models.

1.1.3 Classroom approaches to reading

Williams E (1996:37) tries to deal with some of the problems that language teachersreport He looks at exploitation in terms of three phases including the pre-, while- and post-reading which "helps not only with the problems of motivation, but also with the otherproblems of language, and the selection or construction of reading"

The pre-reading phase tries to:

1) Introduce and arouse interest in the topic

2) Motivate learners by giving a reason for reading

3) Provide some language preparation for the text

The while-reading phase's aims are:

1) to help understand the writer's purpose

2) to help understand the textual structure

3) to clarify textual content

The post-reading phase is to:

1) consolidate or reflect upon what has been read

2) to relate the text to the learners' own knowledge, interests or views

Apparently, the three phases are not necessary to carry out in one lesson However,these following advantages are the evidences to perform this three phases approach First,

it elicits students to share their own knowledge or knowledge of the world and uses this as

a basis for involvement, motivation, and progress Second, the reading lesson is not simplyisolated as it is performed with integrated skills

1.2 Reading strategies

1.2.1 What are reading strategies?

Reading strategies have been studied by many researchers Therefore, many readingstrategy definitions are given According to Wallace, reading strategies involve ways ofprocessing a text that will vary with the nature of the text, the reader's purpose, and thecontext of the situation (Wallace C., 1992: 57) Duffy G G (2009:13, 14) states that , inreading, making predictions is a strategy because readers are thoughtful in using text cluesand prior knowledge to make an initial prediction, but they remain ready to change oradjust a prediction when subsequent text clues provide more information Barnett (1988)calls reading strategies the mental operations involved when readers approach a texteffectively and make sense of what they read

According to Hudson T., 2007:107 a reading strategy can be described as:

"any interactive process that has the goal of obtaining meaning from connectedtext, and reading skills operate within the context of such reading strategies Thestrategies of predicting, confirming, monitoring, reflecting, and evaluating areconsciously brought to bear Strategies operate to lessen demands on workingmemory by facilitating comprehension processing"

In this definition, the author gives quite clearly and comprehendingly the explanation

of reading strategies Therefore, the present study utilized this definition as the keydirection in its investigation

1.2.2 Reading strategies

There are many reading strategies that appear to be very important according to a largenumber of researchers It is a difficult task to decide which strategies are the mostsignificant According to Oxford and Burry-Stock (1995), there are six categories oflanguage learning strategies They are memory strategies, cognitive strategies,compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies.They are also applied to Oxford’s six dimensions of strategy classification for the StrategyInventory for Language Learning (SILL) However, this inventory is not used in the

present study but a more refined instrument called Survey Of Reading Strategies (SORS) isadapted and used instead This survey was originally developed as a tool for measuringnative English speaking students’ awareness and perceived use of reading strategies whilereading academic or school-related materials and it was called the MetacognitiveAwareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) devised by Mokhtari and Reichard(2000).

1.3 Teaching reading strategies

1.3.1 Teaching reading strategies

As mentioned previously, there should be three phases in teaching a reading lesson.There are many variations on what strategies to use for teaching in each phase, but they alldraw out a similar pattern

The importance of vocabulary instruction is also well documented The danger here isthat looking up words in the dictionary is universally considered ineffective It is better thatstudents learn words within their context, or derive meaning from root words, prefixes, andsuffixes

Read

During reading, it is important that students are able to decode the text style to find themain ideas and extract meaning This must be modeled in the classroom Another strategythat is recommended is reciprocal reading Students work in small groups to posequestions, make predictions, summarize, clarify what they have read This would also have

to be started as a teacher moderated activity until the students are able to moderate theirown groups.

A combined set of strategies, really involves many of the skills already listed Itcombines accessing prior knowledge, monitoring comprehension, posing questions, sortingquestions into categories, developing a web of information from the reading, connectingquestion categories to web, and reflection

Whatever strategies are used it is strongly suggested that they be modeled in a settingthat ensures success so that students will be able to see the value Another recommendation

by the same author is to add a few strategies at a time It is not effective to suddenly expectthe students to use six or seven different skills The intent must be for the students to build

a set of skills that they will use independently

Post-read

The purpose of post-reading strategies is to extend the reading experience by helpingthe reader to: (1) consolidate or reflect upon what has been read; (2) relate the text to thelearners' own knowledge, interests, or views It is suggested that summarizing andpredicting the ending of the text are good strategies to use In addition, taking notes aboutwhat they have read and how much they have read mean to reinforce strategic behavior and

to encourage transfer of strategies training to other tasks

1.3.2 Teaching reading activities

The design of useful reading activities is one of the teacher’s responsibilities inhelping students develop their reading ability And in designing the reading activities, athree-phase procedure involving pre-, while-, and post-reading stages should be taken intoconsideration The intention is to ensure that reading is ―taught‖ in the sense of helpingreaders develop increasing ability to tackle texts Actually each phase has a different goaland deals with different reading strategies The overall aim is to train the students to beefficient readers in the foreign language Other aspects have to be considered as wellthough, such as the student’ interest and motivation

A variety of activities can be developed to help students acquire more appropriatereading skills and strategies; to expand their vocabulary, structural knowledge, anddiscourse knowledge; and to become more effective English language reader.

To encourage students to use effective strategies when reading in a second language,the teacher can develop simple activities to elicit information via targeted strategies Theseactivities can be divided by the stage of reading at which they occur

Pre-reading activities introduce students to a particular text, elicit or provideappropriate background knowledge, and activate necessary schemata Previewing a textwith students should arouse their interest and help them approach the text in a moremeaningful and purposeful manner as the discussion compels them to think about thesituation or points raised in a text The pre-reading phase helps students define selectioncriteria for the central theme of a story or the major argument of an essay Pre-readingactivities include: discussing author or text type, brainstorming, reviewing familiar stories,considering illustrations and titles, skimming and scanning (for structure, main points, andfuture directions)

While-reading activities help students develop reading strategies, improve their control

of the second language, and decode problematic text passages Helping students to employstrategies while reading can be difficult because individual students control and needdifferent strategies Nevertheless, the teacher can pinpoint valuable strategies, explainwhich strategies individuals most need to practice, and offer concrete exercises in the form

of "guided reading" activity sheets Such practice activities might include guessing wordmeanings by using context clues, word formation clues, or cognate practice; consideringsyntax and sentence structure by noting the grammatical functions of unknown words,analyzing reference words, and predicting text content; reading for specific pieces ofinformation; and learning to use the dictionary effectively

Post-reading activities first check students' comprehension and then lead students to adeeper analysis of the text, when warranted Because the goals of most real world readingare not to memorize an author's point of view or to summarize text content, but rather tosee into another mind, or to mesh new information into what one already knows, secondlanguage reading must go beyond detail-eliciting comprehension drills to help students

recognize that different strategies are appropriate with different text types For example,scanning is an appropriate strategy to use with newspaper advertisements whereaspredicting and following text cohesion are effective strategies to use with short stories Bydiscussing in groups what they have understood, students focus on information they did notcomprehend, or did not comprehend correctly Discussions of this nature can lead thestudent directly to text analysis as class discussion proceeds from determining facts toexploring deeper consequences of the texts.

Integrative activities use text language and ideas in second language listening,speaking, and/or writing Integrative skills exercises include such activities as studentsreacting to texts with summaries, new endings, or pastiches; reenacting text; dramatizinginterviews based on the text; carefully listening for key words or phrases in authentic video

or audio tapes; and creating role-play situations or simulations of cultural experiences

1.4 Research on teaching and learning reading strategies in second language

learning.

1.4.1 Research on teaching reading strategies in second language learning.

There have been a number of intervention studies in second language readingstrategies which have focused on reading strategies training

Carrel (1985) provided explicit instruction in text-structure in order to determinewhether such instruction would facilitate reading comprehension The participants were 25high-intermediate proficiency English as Second Language (ESL) students in an intensiveEnglish program The subjects received text-structure training for five successive one-hoursections during a one-week period The training sections included four text structures: 1)collection of descriptions; 2) causation; 3) problem/solution; and 4) comparison Subjectswere given study packets explaining the benefits of the strategy, and checklists for themonitoring and regulating of their own learning The results indicated that the treatmentgroup showed a significant gain in their recognition and use of the text structure while thecontrol group did not In addition, the treatment group recalled a significantly largernumber of idea units from the test passages than the control group, indicating an effect onreading comprehension of the text structure training Finally, Carrell concluded that

training in text structure can benefit at least relatively high-level second language readers'reading comprehension.

Barnett (1988) investigated the relationships among reading strategies and perceivedstrategies use on reading - comprehension in a two-part study He firstly looked at thestrategies use, and secondly looked at the effect of a teaching intervention designed to helpstudents develop more effective reading strategies before, during, and after reading Theparticipants were 272 college level students in fourth-semester French classes The readingstrategies training included skimming, scanning, guessing, and predicting The resultsindicated that students had better reading comprehension with use of reading strategiesthrough context They also increased their self-perception of effective strategies use.Additionally, the treatment group had significantly higher scores for strategy use However,the groups did not differ in term of perceived strategy use as well as their comprehensionscores This finding may show the importance of quality and intensity of the strategyinstruction

Kern (1989) has shown the effects of strategy instruction on the study "the effects ofstrategy instruction on the reading comprehension and inferential ability of intermediate-level French students" The study focused not only on whether direct strategy instructionwas effective, but also whether it was differentially effective depending upon secondlanguage reading ability The subjects were fifty-three French students in the third-semester, who were divided into two groups: 1) the experimental group that receivedexplicit instruction in reading strategy use added to normal course content; and 2) controlgroup that received the normal course content without the strategy training The strategiesfor the experimental group included: 1) word analysis (cognates, prefixes, etc.); 2) sentenceanalysis (questioning strategies, attention to cohesive devices); 3) discourse analysis(diagramming, cloze, inferring word meaning from context, hypothesis formation aboutprediction, main idea identification); and 4) reading for specific purposes (solve aparticular problem being presented) The results indicated that, for the comprehensionmeasure, there was a statistically significant difference in comprehension gain between thestrategy-training group and the control group subjects within the low-ability level.However, this was not found for the middle- or high-ability level For the inferencemeasure, the strategy-training group showed a significantly higher gain than the control

group, but there were no differential effects based on level of ability Thus the study hasshown that strategy instruction affects comprehension, but the degree to which it isdifferential depending upon reading ability level is still not clear answered.

A case study was presented by Jiménez (1997), which studied on how instructionaffects strategy use and perception The participants were five bilingual Latino studentswith low literacy levels in English The author assumed that a reading program thatemphasizes comprehension and the use of strategic reading processes can improve wordrecognition and reading fluency The program included the components of: 1) culturallyrelevant and familiar text; 2) a focus on comprehension, stressing important readingstrategies; and 3) provision of opportunities to build reading fluency The strategies thatwere taught included: 1) resolving the meaning of unknown vocabulary; 2) how toinvestigate prior knowledge; and 3) how to formulate questions The results shown thatstudents took more active role in their reading They actively asked questions andconnected textual information with their prior knowledge They believed that theawareness of reading requires thinking and on occasion explicitly labeled their strategy usesuch as questioning Several of them also developed explicit strategies for addressingunknown vocabulary The study provides insight into how reading can be made a little lessmysterious and how selection of appropriate text is an important tool in strategy training

1.4.2 Research on learning reading strategies in second language learning.

Hosenfeld (1977) in an early second language reading study examined therelationships between different reading strategies and successful or unsuccessful readersusing think-aloud protocols The participants were 40 students who half identified asproficient and half identified as non-proficient Hosenfeld found that her successfulreaders: 1) kept the meaning of the passage in mind during reading; 2) read (translated) inbroad phrases; 3) skipped words viewed as unimportant to total phrases meaning; and 4)had a positive self-concept as a reader In contrast, her unsuccessful readers 1) forgot themeaning of sentences as soon as they decoded them; 2) read in short phrases; 3) seldomskipped words as unimportant, viewing words as equal in term of their contribution to totalmeaning; and 4) had a negative self concept as a reader

Block (1986) examined the strategies employed by first language and second languagereaders The participants were three native and six non-native speakers enrolled infreshman remedial reading courses in the US Each student was given two self-containedreading selections rated at approximately the ninth-grade readability level After think-aloud session, the students retold the story as closely as possible, and answered a 20questions multiple choice test The results show that there was not a systematic non-nativepattern of strategy use different from a native speaker pattern for the readers in theremedial courses Moreover, one of the readers in each language group integratedinformation more consistently than the others, recognized text structure more frequently,and referred to personal experiences less frequently than the others They also made moreprogress in developing their reading skill and demonstrated greater success after onesemester On the other hand, the other readers in each group tent to make associations in areflexive manner, failing to integrate information from the text effectively, and seemingunaware of text structure They also made less progress in their reading skill developmentover the semester.

Padron and Waxman (1988) conducted a study on the reading strategies of young EFLreaders The purpose of this research was to identify the strategies the students felt thatthey used The population of the study was 82 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade Hispanic EFLstudents They were asked to complete a 14 item reading strategies questionnaire and twostandardized reading comprehension tests in order to identify which strategies they felt thatthey used and to examine the relationship between the self-reported reading strategies andreading comprehension Padron and Waxman found that seven of the strategies were found

to be positively related to students' reading as follows:

1. Summarizing in writing

2. Underlining important parts of the story to see if everything is remembered

3. Self-generated questions

4. Checking through the story to see if everything is remembered

5. Asking questions about parts of the story not understood

6. Taking notes

7 Imaging or picturing the story mentally.

These seven strategies were found to be negatively related to their achievement

1. Think about something else while reading

2. Writing down every word

3. Skipping the parts not understanding

4. Reading as fast as possible

5. Saying every word over and over

6. Looking up words in the dictionary

7. Saying the main idea over and over

The results indicated that lower-achieving students used less sophisticated and at timesinappropriate reading strategies during reading And there was a relationship betweensecond language reading proficiency and the types of reading strategies that were used

"Relative strategy use by bilinguals in their first language and second language is animportant concern in the teaching and assessment of second language reading" (Hudson,2007) Calero-Breckheimer and Goetz (1993) studied on how strategy use differed in thetwo languages: English and Spanish 26 bi-literate third and fourth-grade students whosefirst language was Spanish took part in the study In this bilingual program, the studentsparticipated in provided instruction in the students' first language while offering structuredand sequenced instruction for mastery in English The students were given two stories inSpanish and English version at the second and third-grade difficulty level Each story waspresented one line at a time via a computer that recorded the reading time for each line.After finishing reading the story, each student was asked what kind of strategies had beenused, completed a strategy checklist, retold the gist of what happened in the story, andanswered a multiple choice test The results show that the students reported about the samenumber of strategies regardless of language The study indicates that reading skills initiallydeveloped in the first language can be transferred to the second language relatively quickly