A Study On English Reading Strategies Used By Senior High School Students

Reading is an extremely valuable skill for foreign language learners and it plays an important role in students’ language learning.In addition,English language reading ability is an essential tool for people to obtain various information of the world,the importance of which is self-evident.According to National English Curriculum Standards for General High School,the ability of obtaining and handling information is one of the abilities that we should put great emphasis on.The stage of senior high school is a key period for senior high school students to learn English well.During this time,most teachers and students focus on the teaching of reading comprehension,however,students’ reading ability has improved comparatively slowly,and the results of teaching are also not satisfying.So nowadays,how to improve students’ reading ability has become one of the most important research issues for teachers,and the use of English reading strategy plays a significant part in the improvement of students’ reading ability.The main purpose of this paper is to explore the situations in which the reading strategies are used by senior school students,to analyze students’ concrete application ability of reading strategies,and making some feasible suggestions on the teaching of English reading.The participants are two hundred and ninety senior two students from three different senior high schools of Huaibei City(There are two classes from each school,including one arts class and one science class).The investigation consists of two parts:a questionnaire and a reading comprehension test.The author uses the questionnaire to examine the frequency of reading strategy use and compare the differences between high-score group and low-score group in using reading strategies.The reading comprehension test is used to analyze students’ concrete ability of using reading strategies.The main conclusions are as follows: in terms of the use condition ofreading strategies,senior two students is not satisfying for they use less reading strategies;there is a big difference in the use of reading strategies between high-score group and low-score group;students’ ability of using reading strategies still need to be improved.At last,based on the research and their possible causes,the author makes some suggestions on improving the teaching of English reading.The suggestions include:changing teaching concept and helping students to set up scientific reading concept;paying more attention to the explanation of reading comprehension,and improving students’ awareness of using reading strategies;organizing effective teaching of reading strategies,and enhancing students’ ability of using reading strategies;putting more emphasis on the students’ ability of guessing meaning from the context,inference,and expansion;carrying out extracurricular reading actively and cultivating students’ ability of using reading strategies in social practice.