Research On The Differences Between Successful Readers And Unsuccessful Readers In Junior Middle School From The Perspective Of Metacognitive Strategy Theory

In today’s society,the requirements for English reading ability are getting higher and higher.The reform of the new curriculum standards and the examination outline also put forward higher requirements for junior high school English reading ability and strategies.Learning strategies play an important role in improving reading ability.The metacognitive reading strategy is the core element of learning strategies,which concerns the entire process of English reading.However,in the current junior high school English reading teaching,teachers and students lack systematic cognition of the theory and current situation of metacognitive reading strategies.In addition,there are few researches on the differences in the use of metacognitive reading strategies by junior high school learners.This research raises the following research questions:(1)What is the overall situation of the use of metacognitive strategies in the process of ESL reading of junior high school students?(2)What are the differences of the use of metacognitive strategies between successful readers and unsuccessful readers in junior high school? And why? The purpose is to understand the current situation,and to analyze and compare the differences in the use of metacognitive strategies.In this research,226 students in the eighth grade of an ordinary junior high school in Ganzhou city,Jiangxi province,were selected as the subjects of the questionnaire test.The aim is to obtain the general situation of the use of metacognitive reading strategies in junior high school learners;the overall correlation between reading efficiency and the use of metacognitive strategies;and the differences in the use of metacognitive reading strategies between the successful readers and unsuccessful readers groups.In order to confirm the results of the questionnaire test and reach a more specific conclusion,this research took 10 eighth grade students from another school in Ganzhou City,Jiangxi Province as the subjects of a think-aloud test.They were divided into two groups according to their normal English reading scores.This part analyzes and compares the individual differences in the use of metacognitive strategies in the four kinds of major metacognitive strategies.The questionnaire data are analyzed by SPSS 23.0,and the data and material of the think-aloud test are analyzed by the author according to the sound thinking method.The following conclusions are drawn from the research of metacognitive reading strategies of the group and individual readers in junior high school: 1.Generally,it is medium that the frequency of use of metacognitive strategies for junior high school English readers;Metacognitive strategies were positively correlated with reading achievement.2.In the process of reading,successful readers of junior high school English constantly interact with articles,but unsuccessful readers pay attention to the processing of words in the text.3.There are obvious differences in the use of planning,selective attention,monitoring,and evaluation metacognitive strategies:(1)Successful readers have clearer reading purpose than unsuccessful readers,and they can filter irrelevant information more easily.(2)Successful readers are able to understand the full text as a whole,while unsuccessful readers are limited to understanding the part of the article.(3)Successful readers are more consciously to use metacognitive strategies to deal with reading materials.The differences are more obvious,especially in the word processing and the structure analysis of the article.(4)In the reading process,junior high school students are too much use of the mother tongue to participate in the use of metacognitive strategies,and successful readers use it more frequently than unsuccessful readers.Successful readers can think of metacognitive strategies in both English and mother tongues,while unsuccessful readers are likely to limited to using their mother tongue to translate and think.(5)Successful readers use metacognitive reading strategies more frequently and efficiently,especially in the use of metacognitive monitoring and evaluation strategies,while unsuccessful readers use less frequently and more simply.Finally,based on the research results and the teacher interviews,this research puts forward suggestions for teacher teaching and student self-learning centered on metacognitive strategies.