A Study On The Effects Of Narrow Reading On Students' English Reading Ability And Reading Anxiety In Senior High Schools

Reading is a main means of language acquisition and has been playing an important role in English teaching.However,although the current reading course occupies a major position in English teaching in senior high schools,teachers mainly adopt careful reading method,which emphasizes the correctness of reading comprehension and the acquisition of language skills.The training of reading speed is often ignored.English reading teaching is usually time-consuming but low-efficient.Besides,The English reading topic in college entrance examination is more and more diversified,which has higher requirements for students' English reading comprehension ability.“Narrow Reading” was put forward by Krashen in 1981,referring to read the same topic,same genre,or the works by the same author within a certain period of time to strengthen the relevance of the input materials,thereby providing the opportunity for readers to constantly review the specific vocabulary,background knowledge and structure.The related researches have revealed that narrow reading has positive effects on learners' reading comprehension ability,reading speed and vocabulary acquisition.Currently,empirical studies on narrow reading are mostly focused on college stage,but few researches are involved with English reading in senior high schools.Moreover,the existing researches on narrow reading have not been combined with speed reading strategies.This study applies narrow reading to speed reading training to explore the effects of this teaching method on senior high school students' reading ability and reading anxiety.The study focuses on discussing the following two questions:(1)Can narrow reading effectively improve senior high school students' English reading ability? If yes,how?(2)Can narrow reading help reduce senior high school students' English reading anxiety? If yes,how?Two groups(one as the experimental group and the other as the control group)from a senior high school were involved in 11-week reading test period.In the experimental group(EG),a combination of narrow reading and speed reading training was adopted for reading teaching while the control group(CG)received the speed reading training.The results revealed that there was an improvement of reading ability in experimental group(EG)especially from the perspective of understanding the main idea,finding detailed information and comprehending the vocabulary.As for control group(CG),there was no significant change in students' reading ability.In addition,the decrease of reading anxiety in experimental group(EG)mainly focused on reading learning difficulty and reading confidence degree,while the overall decrease of reading anxiety in control group(CG)was not very obvious.Based on the above results,we can know that compared with the traditional speed reading training(pursue the reading speed and ignore the relevance of reading materials),the application of narrow reading to speed reading training in senior high schools can more effectively improve students' reading ability and reduce students' reading anxiety.Therefore,it is feasible to carry out the application of narrow reading to speed reading training in English reading teaching class in senior high schools.