An Action Research On Improving Senior High Students’ English Reading Competency Based On Sustained Silent Reading

The New English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School（2017 edition）changes the overall goal of English courses to the cultivation of English subject key competency.Reading teaching plays a great role in cultivating students’ key competency.During the one-month internship in senior high school,it is found that many teachers still pay much attention to the translation and explanation of various reading tests in reading teaching.This problem-oriented reading mode is bound to influence students’ English reading competency.In recent studies,there are more and more discussions about cultivating students’ English reading competency using a variety of reading activities,and sustained silent reading（SSR）is very popular.However,what aspects of students’ English reading competency will be affected by SSR needs to be further explored.The study aims to explore the effects of SSR on senior high students’ English reading competency including English reading motivation and English reading ability.In order to answer the problem,this study takes 35 senior two students in Shenyang as the research subjects and carries out SSR activities for three months.In the research process,it is conducted the combination of reading input,reading output and reflection.Then,questionnaires,interviews,teacher reflection diaries,and tests are used to analyze students’ English reading motivation,vocabulary knowledge and retrieving information ability.Descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA（Analysis of Variance）from SPSS 26 are used to analyze the data.It is found that,firstly,students’ external reading motivation is far greater than their internal reading motivation.Students’ words learning lacks context.Students have difficulties in identifying the relationship between sentences.Secondly,In the process of SSR,input activities should be combined with output activities,and students’ self-reflection should be combined with teachers’ guidance.Thirdly,SSR mode plays a positive role in improving students’ English reading motivation,enhancing vocabulary knowledge and developing retrieving information ability.This study contributes to an in-depth understanding of the interaction between the external environment,learners’ reading cognition and reading behavior.At the same time,it can verify whether learners’ dual investment in reading can improve the reading effect.In addition,for students,SSR can improve their English reading competency.For teachers,it can help teachers realize the importance of English extracurricular reading and enrich reading guidance and teaching methods.