An investigation on reading stratgey use among non english specialized students at high school for gifted students

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
------------

NINH THỊ LAN ANH

AN INVESTIGATION ON READING STRATEGY USE
AMONG NON ENGLISH SPECIALIZED STUDENTS AT
HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS

Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng chiến lược đọc hiểu của học sinh
không chuyên Anh ở trường THPT Chuyên.

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10

HANOI- 2013


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
------------

NINH THỊ LAN ANH

AN INVESTIGATION ON READING STRATEGY USE
AMONG NON ENGLISH SPECIALIZED STUDENTS AT

HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS

Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng chiến lược đọc hiểu của học sinh
không chuyên Anh ở trường THPT Chuyên.

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10
Supervisor: Cao Thúy Hồng, M.A

HANOI- 2013


LIST OF ABBREVIATION
HSGS

High School for Gifted Students

SORS

Survey of Reading Strategy
LIST OF TABLES

Figure 1

A Heuristic for Thinking About Reading Comprehension

Figure 2

Sources of reading comprehension

Figure 3

Levels of the Barrett Taxonomy

Figure 4

Major Aspects of Levels of Comprehension

Figure 5

Distribution of students‘ proficiency levels

Table 1

Use of Each Strategy Category

Table 2

Use of Global Strategies

Table 3

Use of Support Strategies

Table 4

Use of Problem Solving strategies

Table 5

Five Most Frequently Used Strategies

Table 6

Five Least Frequently Used Strategies

Table 7

Reading strategy use between more and less proficient students

Table 8

Five most frequently used strategies by more and less proficient

students
Table 9

Five Least Frequently Used Strategies by high and low proficient

students

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TABLE OF CONTENT
Declaration ……………………………………………………………………….. .i
Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………..ii
Abstract………………………………………………………………………….....iii

Lists of tables ………………………………………………………………………iv
Table of contents ……………………………………………………………………v
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study…………………………………………………………....1
2. Aims of the study…………………………………………………………………2
3. The research questions…………………………………………………………....2
4. Significance of the study…………………………………………………………3
5. Scope of the study………………………………………………………………..3
6. Method of the study………………………………………………………………3
7. Design of the study……………………………………………………………….3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Definition of reading……………………………………………………………5
1.2. Purposes of reading……………………………………………………………..6
1.3. Reading process…………………………………………………………….…..7
1.3.1. Bottom-up model………………………………………………….......7
1.3.2. Top-down model……………………………………………………....8
1.3.3. Interactive model……………………………………………………..10
1.4. Reading comprehension ………………………………………………………11
1.4.1. Definition…………………………………………………………….11
1.4.2. Factors involved in reading comprehension…………………………12

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1.4.3. Levels of comprehension…………………………………………….13
1.5. Reading strategy……………………………………………………………….16
1.5.1. Definition and characteristics…………………………………….......16
1.5.2. Categories of reading strategies………………………………….......17
1.6. Related studies………………………………………………………………...19

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1. Settings…………………………………………………………………….......23
2.2. Participants…………………………………………………………………….23
2.3. Instruments data collection……………………………………………………24
2.5. Data collection procedures……………………………………………………25
2.6. Data analysis…………………………………………………………..………26
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Profile of reading strategies by non English major students at High School for
Gifted
Students………………………………………………………………….………....28
3.2. A comparison about the reading strategies employed by high proficiency and
low proficiency students…………………………………………………………...35
PART III: CONCLUSION
1. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………41
2. Pedagogical Implications……………………………………………………......41
3. Limitations and recommendations for further study……………………………43
REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………44
APPENDIX ………………………………………………………………………………I

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PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study
In the context of global integration, English plays an important role in most fields in
both personal and professional life. The need for English as an international
language has put considerable pressure on the education system of many countries.
This is the same situation in Vietnam where learning English is not only the interest
but also the practical demand for many people, especially for those who always
have an intention of studying and working abroad. Therefore, English is now taught

as a compulsory subject to students at high schools in our country.
To have a good command of English, students are required to master four closely
related language skills, namely listening, speaking, writing, and reading. Among
four skills, reading is considered to be the most important because it does not only
provide students with knowledge but also help develop other language skills.
Reading is an important way of expanding the students‘ receptive knowledge of the
language and in terms of classroom activities, it is also an effective way of
stimulating students to talk and write. Anderson (2003) states that reading is the
most important skill to master in order to ensure success in learning and
strengthened reading skills facilitates greater progress in other areas of language
learning. That is to say, teaching and learning reading effectively is a central issue
in a language classroom.
My teaching experiences at High School for Gifted Students have pointed out some
problems students encounter in reading lessons. Firstly, while students are quite
proficient in other skills, their reading comprehension and reading achievement
have not met the demand of the course. Students have had numerous difficulties in
understanding school – related academic materials. Secondly, when encountering a
long and complicated reading passage, students are confused about the way to
achieve understanding and gain information from the text. In other words, they may

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have some problems with reading strategies. Finally, despite having taken English
as a compulsory subject in the entrance examination into the school, grade 10
students in different classes in our school are at different proficiency levels in
general and at reading comprehension levels in particular. Padron and Waxman
(1988) indicates that the gap in reading comprehension levels between more
proficient and less proficient students is in close relationship with the differences in
reading strategies used. As a teacher of English, I myself think that it is essential to

conduct a research on reading strategies used among students to find out the reading
strategies used by students as well as see whether high and low proficiency group
differ in their strategy use. As a result, I decide to choose the thesis title: “An
investigation on reading strategy use among non English specialized students at
High School for Gifted Students”.
2. Aims of the study
The aim of the study is to investigate reading strategies used by non English major
students at High School for Gifted students. In particular, the study
 uncovers the overall use of reading strategies among students when reading
academic materials
 explores the frequency of reading strategies that students use while dealing
with academic reading text.
 finds out the differences (if possible) in reading strategies used by high
proficiency and low proficiency students
3. The research questions
1. What reading strategies are used by non English specialized students at
Grade 10 at High School for Gifted Students?
2. Are there any differences between the reading strategies employed by high
proficiency and low proficiency students at grade 10 at High School for
Gifted Students?

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4. Significance of the study
This study is significant for some reasons. Firstly, for teachers who are teaching
reading to high school students, it revealed students‘ general awareness and
perceived use of reading strategies while reading academic materials. Secondly, the
study uncovered reading strategies used most commonly and least commonly by the
students. Finally, it may point out the differences in reading strategies between high

and low proficiency students. Thus, teachers can identify effective reading
strategies for their students and have proper ways to promote more reading strategy
instruction in class.
5. Scope of the study
Reading strategies are interrelated with many other factors including reading
comprehension, students‘ proficiency level, text types, etc.. In the scope of this
study, reading strategies are only investigated in relationship with student‘s
proficiency levels. In addition, the sample of the study was drawn from non English
major students at Grade 10 at High School for Gifted Students.
6. Method of the study
To achieve the aims mentioned above, data were collected through the survey
questionnaire and students‘ profile of proficiency levels.
The quantitative research method is used with the aim of obtaining information on
reading strategies used among students in general and between more proficient
students and less proficient students in particular.
7. Design of the study
The study consists of three main parts: the introduction, the development and the
conclusion.

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Part I: Introduction: presents the rationale for the study, the aims, the method,
significance, the scope of the study as well as the design of the thesis.
Part II: Development: consists of three chapters
Chapter 1 discusses the theoretical background relevant to the research topic
including the reading, reading process, reading comprehension, reading strategies
and reviews research conducted in the fields of reading strategies
Chapter 2 presents the research methodology of the study, which focuses on the
participants, the instrument, data collection procedure, and data analysis.

Chapter 3 presents the results of the study, analyzes the data and solves the
requirements in the research questions.
Part III: Conclusion: offers major findings, pedagogical implications and provides
limitations for the study, also some suggestions for future study.

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PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter briefly discusses the theoretical background related to the study.
Review of aspects of reading in foreign language relevant to the study will be
included in: reading comprehension, reading process, reading comprehension level,
and reading strategies. In addition, a brief overview on related studies will be
presented.
1.1. Definition of reading
Reading is a very personal activity which can be omnipresent in various forms. By
reading a lot, people can grasp what is happening all over the world and keep pace
with the humankind civilization. At the times of explosion of information, reading
plays a greater role in our lives. However, the ability to read is such a natural part of
human being that people find it impossible to give an exact definition of reading.
Different scholars define it in different ways.
According to Smith (1985: 102), ―reading is understanding the author’s thought‖.
It means that the readers ―read the author’s mind not the author’s words.” If the
readers only understand the words in isolation in the text without understanding the
author‘s mind, their reading is useless.
Rumelhart (1997) indicates that reading involves the reader, the text, and the
interaction between reader and text. It can be seen that the reader and the text are
two essential components of reading process; it is, however, the interaction between
them that composes actual reading. Sharing the same idea with Rumelhart,

Silberstein (1994: 12) states that ―reading is a complex cognitive process in which
reader and text interact to (re)create meaningful discourse‖. From these definitions,
it is apparent that reading is a process in which the reader interacts with the text to

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gain some kind of meaning. This meaning mainly depends on the reader who is the
cognitive subject of the text.
Goodman (1971: 135) claims that reading is ―psycholinguistics process by which
the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has
been encoded by a writer as a graphic display‖. Goodman thought that this act of
reconstruction is viewed as ―a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and
confirming.‖ William (1986: 3) shares the same view on reading as Goodman,
especially on the act of reconstruction. He argues that ―written texts, then, often
contain more than we need to understand them. The efficient reader makes use of
this to take what he needs, and no more, to obtain meaning.‖
From a different perspective, Harmer (1989: 153) views reading as a mechanical
process that ―eyes receive the message and the brain has to work out the
significance of the message‖. It means that he focuses on two actions that
dominated by the eyes and the brain.
In short, each author defines reading from different perspectives. However, most of
the definitions reveal some common features, that is, the close relationship between
reading and understanding; and reading process which involves the reader, the text,
and the interaction between the reader and the text.
1.2. Purposes of reading
Reading purposes refer to readers‘ aims and objectives in reading texts. That is to
say, different readers have different purposes of reading. Therefore, reading
purposes are one of the important factors which can lead us to be successful readers.
Ruiqi (2007) claims that reader‘s reading purpose is an integral part of successful

reading.
According to Ruiqi (2007), there are two major reading purposes: reading for
getting information and reading for pure fun or enjoyment. Additionally, Grabe and

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Stoller (2002) have classified the reading purposes under seven main headings as
follows: 1) Reading to search for simple information; 2) Reading to skim quickly;
3) Reading to learn from the text; 4) Reading to integrate information; 5) Reading to
write (or search for information needed for writing); 6) Reading to critique texts; 7)
Reading for general comprehension.
In short, many scholars such as Grabe, Stoller, and Ruiqi have recognized the
importance of reading and demonstrated the reading purposes. As mentioned
earlier, there are a number of different reading purposes; therefore, recognizing the
reading purposes is one factor which can help the students succeed in their reading
tasks. For the present study, only reading academic texts has been considered.
Therefore, the main purpose of reading for this study is to read for getting the
information.
1.3. Reading process
Numerous efforts to define and explain the process of reading have done in various
research areas. These efforts have brought up different models and views of
reading, among which are: the bottom-up model (Gough, 1972), the top-down
model (Goodman, 1967) and the interactive model (Rumelhart, 1977) are most
frequently mentioned.
1.3.1. Bottom-up model
Bottom-up reading model emphasizes the written or printed text, and it indicates
that reading is compelled by text and that reading proceeds from part to whole.
Specifically, in bottom-up model, the reader begins with the written text (the
bottom), and constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases and sentences found

within, and then processes the text in a linear direction. In the process of meaning
interpretation, the language is translated from one form of symbolic representation
to another (Nunan, 1991). According to Eskey (2005), bottom-up processes are

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composed of a broad array of various complex skills, such as word recognition,
spelling, morpho-phonemic processing and morpho-syntactic parsing.
In this model, the reader seems to play a relatively passive role because the basis of
bottom – up processing is the linguistic knowledge of the reader. Samuel and Kamil
(1988) pointed out the shortcomings of these models as follows:
―Because of the lack of feedback loops in the early bottom – up models, it was
difficult to account for sentence – context effects and the role of prior knowledge of
text topic as facilitating variables in word recognition and comprehension.”
Sharing the similar viewpoint with Samuel and Kamil, Rumelhart (1977) indicates
that the linear process in the bottom-up model implies that no higher level
information ever modifies or changes lower level analysis. In some cases, readers
are able to identify a word correctly only by employing higher level semantic and
syntactic processing.
1.3.2. Top-down model
A top-down reading model is a reading approach that emphasizes what the reader
brings to the text, and it states that reading is compelled by meaning and proceeds
from whole to part. Specifically, in the top-down process, readers predict what will
come next, test their predictions and adjust or confirm them. They use background
knowledge to create inferences and decode symbols only when necessary for
comprehension. In this model it is evident that the flow of information proceeds
from the top downward so that the process of word identification is dependent upon
meaning first. Thus the higher level processes embodied in past experiences and the
reader's knowledge of the language pattern interact with and direct the flow of

information, just as listeners may anticipate what the upcoming words of speakers
might be. This view identifies reading as a kind of ―psycholinguistic guessing
game‖(Goodman, 1967).

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This approach emphasizes the interaction between the reader and the text. Readers
have a prior sense of what could be meaningful in the text, based upon their
previous experiences and their knowledge about language. Readers are not
restricted only to one source of information—the letters before their eyes, but have
applied two other important kinds of information which are available at the same
time: semantic cues (meaning), and syntactic cues (grammatical or sentence sense).
The reader proves his/ her active role in the reading process by bringing to the
interaction his/ her available knowledge of the subject, expectations about how
language works, motivation, interest and attitudes towards the content of the text
(Goodman, 1967).
Apparently, top-down models have proved their pre-eminence compared with
bottom-up models as the reader – the centre of the reading process proves his active
role. However, these models still revealed certain shortcomings by some
researchers. The top-down model focuses on the assumption that good readers
bypass the letter sound correspondence when they read because they read so
quickly. That is, because good readers read at a faster speed, they do not depend
upon the phonemic code. However, recent evidence presented by Stanovich (1980)
discredits this assumption. He claims that instead of depending on meaning only,
good readers may well markedly attend to graphic information, especially when
they are uncertain about a word. Moreover, a purely top – down concept of the
reading process makes little sense for a reader who can be confused by a text
containing a large amount of unfamiliar vocabulary. Besides, in top-down models,
the generation of hypotheses would actually be more time- consuming than

decoding (Stanovich, 1980)
In short, both processes are regarded as equally important in L2 reading. The extent
to which top-down or bottom-up reading process is involved more or less in a
particular reading context depends on the nature of the reading text, the readers‘
reading purposes, their language proficiency, their attitudes toward reading, their

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interests in reading a particular text, and their available background knowledge
associated with the text they read (Koda, 2005).
1.3.3. Interactive model
As can be seen, both top-down and bottom-up models have revealed their
shortcomings, the interactive theories that were popularized by Rumelhart (1977)
were seen as a compromise between these two models. An interactive model is one
in which bottom-up processing combines top-down processing to cooperatively
determine the most likely interpretation of the input. Roughly speaking, processing
in an interactive model of reading proceeds in the following way: the reader begins
with a set of expectations about what information is likely to be available through
visual input. These expectations, or initial hypotheses, are based on our knowledge
of the structure of letters, words, phrases, sentences, and larger pieces of discourse,
including nonlinguistic aspects of the current contextual situation. As visual
information from the page begins to become available, it strengthens those
hypotheses that are consistent with the input and weakens those that are
inconsistent. The stronger hypotheses, in turn, make even more specific predictions
about the information available in the visual input. To the degree that these
hypotheses are confirmed, they are further strengthened, and the processing is
facilitated.
Apparently, interative models place the emphasis on both the text and the reader.
From the text perspective, reading is seen as the application of three cueing systems

– graphophonic, syntactic, and semantic – in constructing meaning. From the
reader‘s perspective, reading is viewed as an active process of constructing meaning
through the interaction between the reader and the text. Specifically, the reader‘s
affective state, language competence, and prior knowledge of content and of reading
processes interact with text structure, tasks, and contexts.

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1.4. Reading comprehension
1.4.1. Definition
The RAND Reading Study Group (2002) defines reading comprehension as the
process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction
and involvement with written language. Comprehension entails three elements:
• The reader who is doing the comprehending
• The text that is to be comprehended
• The activity in which comprehension is a part.
The reader refers to all the capacities, abilities, knowledge, and experiences that a
person brings to the act of reading. Text is broadly construed to include any printed
text or electronic text. In terms of activity, the purposes, processes, and
consequences associated with the act of reading are included.
These three dimensions define a phenomenon that occurs within a larger
sociocultural context (see Figure 1) that shapes and is shaped by the reader and that
interacts with each of the three elements. The identities and capacities of readers,
the texts that are available and valued, and the activities in which readers are
engaged with those texts are all influenced by, and in some cases determined by, the
sociocultural context. The sociocultural context mediates students‘ experiences, just
as students‘ experiences influence the context. Reader, text, and activity are also
interrelated in dynamic ways that vary across pre-reading, reading, and postreading.

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Figure 1 —A Heuristic for Thinking About Reading Comprehension
1.4.2. Factors involved in reading comprehension
Gough and Tunmer (1986) proposed the simple view of reading, in which reading
comprehension is seen as the product of decoding and listening comprehension.
That is to say, the ability to decode words with the help of phonological awareness,
naming speed, orthographic awareness, phonics knowledge and listening
comprehension, specifically including verbal intelligence, vocabulary, prior
knowledge are absolutely essential for skilled reading..
Two important factors beyond decoding and listening comprehension can be
mentioned: fluency and strategies. According to (Wolf & Bowers, 1999), fluency is
not an issue in listening as the speaker controls the pace, but it is needed for reading
comprehension because of working memory limitations. If word recognition is
slow, then previous words will have faded from working memory before later words
are recognized, and their joint meaning will not be able to be processed. Strategies
(Dole et al., 1991; National Reading Panel, 2000) are important in reading, and
more useful than in listening, because the text stays present and allows reinspections. Strategies are particularly useful when the text is long and/or complex,
and the reader has many options about where to attend. We expect skilled readers to

12


extract more from text than they would from speech, and some of that comes from
strategic, goal-directed, deliberate processing. Reading strategies are the focus of
this study, so I will go into details in the next part.
Comprehension involves the relating of two or more pieces of information (Kintsch,
1999). Those pieces of information can come from long-term memory (prior
knowledge), but in reading comprehension at least one piece must come from the

text. The pieces of information can be simple or quite complex ideas. The
information to be integrated is held in working memory (Baddeley, 1986), and the
relating operation takes up space there too. As we read, we update our mental
representation of the text's meaning; these mental representations are known as
mental models (Johnson-Laird, 1983) or situation models (Kintsch, 1999)
1.4.3. Levels of comprehension
Reading is a thoughtful process; it embraces the idea of levels of comprehension.
Different readers can respond to text at different reading comprehension levels
because their ability to get the information from the text and their prior knowledge
are not similar. With relation to levels of reading comprehension, language
specialists don‘t measure reading comprehension in the same way. Barrett (1968)
gives five reading comprehension levels which were cited by Jack Richards in
Reading in a Foreign Language, Alderson & Urquhart, Longman, 1984. The Barrett
taxonomy dealt with reading and listening as well. It is a good guide to the levels at
which we are trying to measure comprehension. Five reading comprehension levels
are illustrated as follow

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Appreciation
Evaluation
Inferential
Comprehension
Reorganization

Literal Comprehension
Figure 3: Levels of the Barrett Taxonomy

+ Level 1: Literal comprehension

Literal comprehension is the lowest level and requires the reader to be able to tell
what the book says, it means that the reader concerns with information stated
explicitly in the text.
+ Level 2: Reorganization
At this level, readers have their ability to analyze, synthesize, and organize
information that has been stated explicitly in the text.
+ Level 3: Inferential comprehension
Readers can use information explicitly stated along with their own personal
experience as a basis for conjecture and hypothesis.
+ Level 4: Evaluation
Readers can give their judgments and decisions concerning value and worth.
+ Level 5: Appreciation
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It is the highest reading comprehension level at which there is psychological and
aesthetic impact of the text on the reader.
However, Vacca & Vacca (1989: 155) show levels of comprehension in terms of 3
major aspects. They are presented in the diagram below:

Levels of Comprehension

Getting the
information
gist
Integrating
information and
making inferences

Reading the lines

Literal

Reading between
the lines

Interpretive

Using information to
express opinions and
form new ideas

Applied

Reading beyond
the lines

Figure 4: Major Aspects of Levels of Comprehension

The literal level is another way of saying readers can ―read the lines‖ of content
materials. They can stay with print sufficiently to get the gist of the author‘s
message. In simple terms, a literal recognition of that message determines what the
author says.
The second level of comprehension-interpretation-requires the reader to work out
ideas that not stated, to read between the lines. The interpretive level is laced with
inferences about the author‘s intended meaning. How the reader conceptualizes
implied ideas by integrating information in light of what they already know is part
and parcel of the interpretive process. Recognizing the thought relationships that the
author weaves together helps the reader to make inferences that are implicit in the
material.

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The highest level- applied level is undoubtedly akin to the act of discovery. It
underscores the constructive nature of reading comprehension. Also, Standal &
Betza (1990: 80-83) share the same view with Vacca & Vacca (1989), they range
reading questions due to three comprehension levels: Literal level, Inferential level
and Higher-Than-Inferential Level. In general, all three views on reading
comprehension levels clearly reflect levels of readers‘ understanding.
1.5. Reading strategy
1.5.1. Definition and characteristics
Reading strategies are referred to as behaviors that a reader engages in at the time of
reading and that are related to some goals, or as the mental operations or processes
involved when a reader purposefully approaches a text to make sense of what he
reads (Cohen, 1990). However, while Cohen (1990) claims that reading strategies
are consciously applied, Barnett (1989) states that they could either be conscious
techniques controlled by the reader or unconscious processes applied automatically.
The term ‗reading skills‘ and ‗reading strategies‘ have confused scholars, teachers,
and students. Afflerbach et al. (2008) clarified the differences between these two
terms as follows: ―Reading strategies are deliberate, goal-directed attempts to
control and modify the reader’s efforts to decode text, understand words, and
construct meanings of text. Reading skills are automatic actions that result in
decoding and comprehension with speed, efficiency, and fluency and usually occur
without awareness of the components or control involved.‖ Carrell et al. (1998)
pointed out the different involvement of reader in the comprehension process: ―The
term strategies emphasizes reader‘s active participation and actual way of doing
something, or the reader‘s performance, whereas the term skills may suggest the
reader‘s competence or only passive abilities which are not necessarily activated‖
(p. 97). In this study, reading strategies are used to refer to intentional, carefully

planned techniques by which readers monitor or manage their reading

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comprehension, actions and procedures that the readers use while working directly
with a text, and basic support mechanisms intended to aid the readers in
comprehending the text (Mokhtari & Sheorey, 2002).
Reading strategies have at least three features. The first is that strategies are
effective when they are related to solutions in specific ways. Second, they are
systematic. Readers do not create or come across the best strategies, instead reading
strategies are drawn from experience and employed systematically. Finally, the
strategies are finite; that is to say, a limited number of strategies can be identified
(Bialystok, 1990).
1.5.2. Categories of reading strategies
Numerous studies have categorized reading strategies into different types.
Traditionally, recognized reading strategies are clasified as the following: skimming
and scanning, rereading, contextual guessing or skipping unknown words, tolerating
ambiguity, making predictions, confirming or disconfirming inferences, using
cognates, activating background knowledge or schemata, and recognizing text
structure (Carrell et al., 1998).
As reading research progresses, researchers have been interested in identifying the
variety of reading strategies used by language learners and classifying those
strategies. Some studies have demonstrated three groups of strategies involved in
any academic reading, namely the cognitive, metacognitive, and affective strategies
(Weinsten and Mayor, 1987; Alexander and Jetton, 2000). O‘Malley, Russo, and
Kupper (1985) assumed that metacognitive strategies involve thinking about the
learning process, planning for learning, monitoring of comprehension or production
while it is taking place, and self-evaluation of learning after the language activity is
completed. Cognitive strategies are more directly related to individual learning tasks

and entail direct manipulation or transformation of the learning materials. The
cognitive strategies include adjusting speed of reading, guessing the meaning of

17


unknown words, skipping a word, rereading the text to improve comprehension, and
visualizing information in the text. However, Grabe (2009) recently claims that
there are no distinct metacognitive strategies as a counterpart of cognitive strategies.
Rather, readers use reading strategies with varying levels of metacognitive
awareness according to their reading goals or purposes. Finally, affective strategies
are the procedures that readers use to make the reading environment conducive
(Teoh, 1996). Weinstein and Mayer (1987), on the other hand, proposed that
affective strategies are strategies that readers use to focus attention, maintain
concentration, manage performance anxiety, establish and maintain motivation, and
manage time effectively. Normally these are done before reading so as to enable the
readers to ‗approach the reading tasks with ease and comfort‘.
Mokhtari and Sheorey‘s (2002) used another classification scheme to classify the
reading strategies. SORS classifies the reading strategies into three different types
of strategies: Global, Problem-solving, and Support strategies. Global Reading
Strategies (GLOB), which can be thought of as generalized or global reading
strategies aimed at setting the stage for the reading act (for instance, setting purpose
for reading, previewing text content, predicting what the text is about, etc.).
Problem-Solving Strategies (PROB), which are localized, focused problem-solving
or repair strategies used when problems develop in understanding textual
information (for instance, checking one‘s understanding upon encountering
conflicting information, re-reading for better understanding, etc.). Support Reading
Strategies (SUP), which involve using the support mechanisms or tools aimed at
sustaining responsiveness to reading (for instance, use of reference materials like
dictionaries and other support systems). These three classes of strategies interact

with and support each other when used in the process of constructing meaning from
text.
From my point of view, SORS is quite clear and suitable for instructing and using
reading strategies in modern language learning context. In addition, SORS has been

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revised and tested for internal reliability (Cronbach‘s Alpha =.89 or better).
Therefore, the application of this classification is convenient in terms of the
practicality and effectiveness.
1.6. Related studies
Most of the researchers investigate the strategies of L2 readers in comparison with
L1 reading strategies or some of them compare the strategies of good and poor;
successful and unsuccessful; or skilled and not so much skilled L2 readers.
Hosenfeld (1977) explored the variations in strategy use of successful and
unsuccessful L2 readers through the implementation of think-aloud procedure. The
study reveals that the successful reader keeps the meaning of the passage in mind
while reading, reads in broad phrases, skips words that are seen unimportant, and
has a positive self-concept. In contrast, the unsuccessful reader loses the meaning of
sentences as soon as they are decoded, reads in short phrases, seldom skips
unimportant words, and has a negative self-concept (p. 120).
Anderson (1991) attempts to identify 28 Spanish adult ESL students‘ individual
differences in reading strategy use through think-aloud protocol procedure. The
findings of the study indicate that high scorers and low scorers of the reading
measures seem to use the same strategies while performing the reading activity and
taking reading tests. He concludes that ―strategic reading is not only a matter of
knowing what strategy to use, but also the reader must know how to use a strategy
successfully and orchestrate its use with other strategies. It is not sufficient to know
about strategies; a reader must also be able to apply them strategically‖ (pp. 468-9).

Some researchers diverted their attention to the use of metacognitive strategies and
metacognitive awareness of L2 readers. Flavell defines metacognition as
―knowledge that takes as its object or regulates any aspect of any cognitive
endeavour‖ (as cited in Baker & Brown, 1984, p. 353). For Baker and Brown, this
definition covers two aspects; knowledge about cognition and regulation of

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cognition. Knowledge of cognition consists of the readers‘ knowledge about her or
his own cognitive resources, and the compatibility between the reader and the
reading situation. The researchers claimed that ‗metacognition‘ included checking
the outcome of any trial to solve problems, planning the next action, monitoring the
effectiveness of an action, and testing, revising, and evaluating one‘s strategies for
learning (Baker & Brown, 1984).
Carrell (1989) attempt to explore the metacognitive awareness of L2 readers about
their reading strategies and the impact of perceived reading strategy use on reading
comprehension in both first and second language. The participants were grouped
into two at different proficiency levels. Group one consisted of 45 native speakers
of Spanish whereas group two consisted of 75 native speakers of English. A
metacognitive questionnaire and reading texts were used to achieve the data. The
results revealed that for reading in the first language, local strategies or bottom- up
strategies tended to be negatively correlated with reading comprehension. For
reading in the second language, ‗global‘ or top-down strategies tended to be
positively correlated with reading comprehension Also, that local strategies tended
to correlate negatively with reading comprehension, perhaps because those with the
low proficiency may have been dependent on decoding skills.
Sheorey and Mokhtari (2001) examined differences in the reported use of reading
strategies of native and non-native English speakers when reading academic
materials. Participants were 150 native-English- speaking US and 152 ESL

students. The data on perceived reading strategy use was collected through
metacognitive awareness of reading strategies inventory. The results revealed that
the high reading ability participants reported higher frequency of the perceived use
of reading strategies than low reading ability participants. Secondly, the five most
reading strategies used and the five least reading strategies used for US and ESL
participants were the same. Thirdly, both US and ESL participants showed
awareness of almost all of the strategies contained in the survey.

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