The Correlation Between Reading Strategy Instruction And Students’ English Reading Proficiency In Grade Nine

Reading is the most useful means of accessing information and it is one of the main skills of teaching. Reading strategy helps the students to improve their English reading efficiency and enhance their English proficiency. Reading strategies teaching has achieved good results in L1and L2fields. Grade Nine students are facing the Entrance Examination for High School. Reading comprehension is crucial to the overall result of English. It is helpful for the students to cope with the high school reading tasks if they master reading strategies. How to guide the students to be able to recognize and understand the strategies and how to make them use the strategies flexibly and complete the reading task independently are very arduous for the author and students.This study focused on the reading strategy instruction in Grade Nine. The subjects of the experiment were the72students of Class1and Class3selected from Jinying Middle School.In the Experimental Class, the reading strategy instruction was carried out integrated with interactive reading model. The strategy teaching process was designed to conduct in5steps. They were presentation, modeling of strategies, scaffolding, evaluation and expansion. These5steps were included in the3stages of interactive reading teaching. The first stage was pre-reading stage. In this stage, the teacher presented and modeled the strategies. It was the interaction between the teacher and the students. The second stage was while-reading stage. The teacher guided the students to practice using the strategies during doing the reading comprehension. During this period, the teacher evaluated the students timely to ecourage the students to use the strategies. It was the interaction between the readers and the text. Post-reading was the third stage. Reading tasks were assigned for the students to consolidate the strategies. It was the interaction between the users and the strategies. In Control Class, traditional teaching methods were adopted. During the experiment, there was no explicit strategy instruction in the Control Class.Before, during and after the experiment, the students in Experimental Class and in Control Class participated in3reading comprehension tests at the same time. Before the experiment, the students’awareness of reading strategies was assessed through questionnaire and their attitude toward English reading was assessed through the first interview. After the experiment, the students’attitude toward the strategies was got through the second interview. The students in Experimental Class completed the same questionnaire for the second time. The data collected from the questionnaire, the3tests and the2interviews was analyzed with SPSS16. The author aimed to get the answers to the following issues:1) What is the situation of the use of reading strategies for the students in Grade Nine?2) Is there a positive correlation between reading strategy instruction and the students’reading proficiency in Grade Nine?The results of this study show that the reading strategy instruction integrated with interactive reading model can obtain a significant effect on students’s English reading proficiency. Meanwhile, this kind of teaching method can be accepted by most of the students in Grade Nine.