The Effects Of Unknown Word Density And Topic Familiarity On Senior High School Students' English Reading Comprehension

Reading,which occupies a really vital position in senior high school teaching,is an important tool in acquiring information and language learning.The paper,based on the schema theory,explores the factors affecting reading comprehension in which readers need not only linguistic knowledge but also background information.In the past few decades,many scholars found that the background knowledge and vocabulary are important factors that affect reading comprehension,in ignorance of the influence of topic familiarity and unknown word density on reading comprehension.In this study,120 students of grade 2 in a senior high school from Zhangzhou participated in this experiment,who were tested with four passages on four different topics taken from National College Entrance Examination paper.There are three experimental tools,namely the topic familiarity questionnaire,the reading test and the free recall test.This study adopts multiple factors 2×3 mixed factorial design and these subjects need to finish six different reading comprehension tests,which are based on the combination of three levels of unknown word density and two levels of topic familiarity.Two research questions are put forward:1.Do the topic familiarity and the unknown word density have a significant influence on the reading comprehension respectively? 2.Is there an interactive effect between the topic familiarity and the unknown word density? If there is,to what extent does it exert on each other? The experimental statistics were analyzed by the software SPSS 21.0,including the descriptive analysis,two-way ANOVA and simple effect test.It is shown that no matter it is done by the reading test or in the free recall test,the significant difference(Sig)of unknown word density and topic familiarity is shown respectively 0.000,which indicates the influence of both on reading comprehension is respectively very significant and is verified in the main effect diagram of the variance analysis.Besides,the Sig 0.000 of both variables and interaction diagram show that there also exists an interactive effect between topic familiarity and unknown word density,which is verified in the results of simple effect.However,there are still some differences between them.In the reading test,unknown word density shows inconsistent influence on the two levels of the topic familiarity.When students read the topic-unfamiliar passages,the scores are nearly not affected by it.When it comes to the topic-familiar passages,the higher the unknown word density,the lower the scores,the lower the unknown word density,the higher the scores.The topic familiarity shows inconsistent influence on the three levels of the unknown word density.There is no significant difference in the 10% unknown word density for the two levels of topic familiarity,however,there exists significant differences in the other two levels of the unknown word density.In the free recall test,the unknown word density also shows inconsistent influence on the two levels of the topic familiarity,the result of which is accordance with that of reading test,but the trend is more gentle than that in the reading test.The topic familiarity also shows inconsistent influence on the three levels of the unknown word density and there are significant differences on the three levels of the unknown word density for the two levels of topic familiarity,the result of which is not accordance with that of reading test.According to the results of the research,some pedagogical suggestions for the teaching of senior high school are put forward,for example,when choosing reading materials,teachers are expected to consider the topic familiarity and the unknown word density.This study based on a few researches has shortcomings,but it can not only broaden the scope of research,but also find specific situation in reading comprehension through free recall tests,which provides a reference for teaching.