A Study On The Reading Strategies And The Improvement Of Senior Middle School Students' English Reading Abilities

Improving students' reading abilities is one of the objectives of senior English teaching. But the fact is that many senior students' reading abilities are far below where they should be, and discrepancy turns to be greater. This has drawn close attention of many linguists and researchers working in this field. Based on a questionnaire investigation and theory study, this paper has made a brief study on senior students' English reading. It focuses largely on reading strategies, illustrating the necessity of reading strategies so that the concrete approaches can be determined. Five sections are included:In the first section, a brief introduction is given. Studies and researches on senior students' reading abilities improvement are analyzed.In the second section, fifty effective readers and another fifty ineffective readers from key schools were chosen as the subjects for questionnaire investigation, which was developed on the basis of reading strategies. The results show that a low percentage of senior students use reading strategies in reading activities; a lower percentage of ineffective readers use reading strategies, compared with effective readers; the results also show that reading strategy learning is almost neglected altogether.In the third section, a theory study is made. Based on Cognitive Learning Theory and Schema Reading Theory, the paper illustrates the significant role that the learning strategy plays in second language acquisition. Reading strategies employment results in efficient reading comprehension. From cognitive perspective, reading strategies may begin as declarative knowledge, and then turn into procedural knowledge with repeated practice. Once turned to be procedural, reading strategies benefit students in improving reading abilities. It comes to light that students should learn and use them in order to improve their reading abilities.In the fourth section, with considering the questionnaire investigation results and the theoretical study, a strategy-based instruction and training plan has beenmade. It was put to practice and then to test. Statistic results show the plan is practical and valuable. These results also support the idea that reading strategies aid in improving reading ability and reducing discrepancy.The fifth section is the conclusion. It is found out that majority of senior students fail to use reading strategies in reading activities. Views are held that lack of reading strategies is one of the main factors that affect the improvement of reading ability. The results of experiment made by the author support the idea. Results also show that strategy-based instruction and training are practical and valid.