Research on Reading Strategy Instruction Effectiveness

暢洋 劉晶 李雪濛

Literature Review

For the past forty decades， the language learning strategy has always been the research focus because teaching students how to think is of same importance as teaching them what to think （Harris 1982）. Reading is not merely about decoding letters and words， but largely depends on comprehension. It is widely agreed that reading involves a large amount of strategy use to reach the comprehension target.

At the beginning， researchers mainly focus on exploring relationships between cognitive strategies and successful or less successful readers to explain better or poorer comprehension （Block 1986； Hosenfeld 1977）. Later on， the emphasis was shifted to how they are applied in the language classroom （Anderson 2005； Klapwijk 2015）. Being able to appropriately and skillfully apply reading strategies can not only help learners use time more efficiently but also increase longer reading time， and to this end， it is necessary to provide learners with relative strategy instruction so that they can plan， monitor and regulate strategy efficiently.

To guide the reading teaching in classroom， a number of instruction frameworks have been developed in the past decades. Palincsar and Brown （1984） put forward Reciprocal Teaching in the form of conversations between students and teachers. Pressley （1998） also comes up with the Transactional Strategies Instruction involving direct explanation and teacher modeling of various strategies. In a recent study， Klapwijk （2015） created a formula EMC2 = comprehension framework， in which EMC comes from the first letter of the name of each stage—establish， maintain and consolidate. It helps learners use strategies in a continuous cycle of reading- predicting- checking， in line with the recursive nature of reading process.

Research Design

Rationale and context

In China， research on English reading strategy instruction has also been paid attention in recent years （Li 2013； Zhang 2014）， however， most stay in the level of simply borrowing concepts and frameworks. Among the research works， there is less inquiry of integrating the reading strategy instruction into the discipline content course for the English-major students in their first year of study. Li and Munby （1996） have claimed that English-major students are confronted with more academic reading， which requires them to constantly control and monitor their reading process， and for first-year students， the higher level of rigorous academic reading might put a threat to them， which might influence their learning motivation， attitude and cause anxiety. If students can be skillfully trained， they would not only improve reading proficiency for exams but also raise learning motivations.

Research questions

This article aims to implement a two-month reading strategy instruction among first-year English-major students and examine its effectiveness， trying to provide implications for language learners， instructors， etc. The two research questions are：

（1） Are there any differences between the strategy use for English-major freshmen before and after the reading strategy instruction？

（2） Is the instruction effective for experimental group by comparing their post-test scores with the control group？

Research sample

First-year English-major students in one university in Beijing are chosen. Two classes of the similar English proficiency level， altogether approximately 80 participants will be selected to be the experimental group and control group， each having about 40 students. Participants are mostly intermediate-level EFL learners. The teacher is the researcher. The experimental group will be instructed in a two-month period， with two reading lessons each week， and the control group will be taught as what the teaching guidelines requires without much explicit instruction for reading strategy.

Research method

Over the past years of investigation into language learning strategy （LLS）， the methodological toolbox such as questionnaires， observation， verbal reports， oral interviews， and recollection studies， have been refined continuously （Cohen， 1998）. One of the most prevalent approaches is using self-report questionnaires， among which the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning （SILL， Oxford 1990） is most frequently employed. One to mention here is the Survey of Reading Strategies （SORS） developed for non-native speakers of English. It is a five-Likert scale incorporating subscales such as Global Reading Strategies， Problem Solving Strategies， and Support Reading Strategies. Besides， other approaches also serve as essential introspective tools in language research， which provide detailed and rich data on different perspectives of individuals and raise students metacognitive awareness of their language learning （Cohen， 1998）.

Based on the analysis above， this research will adopt a mixed-method design with combination of both quantitative and qualitative approaches， possessing the strength of complementing each other. Therefore， they are： （a） the Survey of Reading Strategies （SORS） rating scales， （b） two different TEM-4 tests-paper from previous years， and （c） open interviews to inquire their elicitation of strategy use.

Procedures

Before the reading strategy instruction， the two groups of students all participate in the questionnaires and TEM-4 reading tests. Also， participants are asked whether they are willing to have further interviews， and then mark the volunteers with number for the convenience of data analysis. Among these volunteers， researcher randomly choose about 6 in each group to conduct the interviews， asking them what kind of reading strategies do they use most frequently and let them recall and retrospect the mental process while they are taking the TEM-4 reading tests. Then transcribe the interviews and try to categorize their strategy to see how much are they in line with the SORS.

The instruction is only carried out on experimental group. The framework to follow is the EMC2=comprehension model. Reading materials can be real test papers or tests of similar type. In before-reading phase， the teacher raises learners awareness of strategy use and provides initial scaffolding of activating text knowledge and previous knowledge. In during-reading phase， both students and teachers are active participants to monitor their understanding and reading behavior. In after-reading stage， the instructor asks learners to answer the reading questions to check their predictions， and can provide explicit explanations to the choice of answers. The EMC framework is a recyclable and continuous process. During each phase， the instructor can explicitly elaborate his or her mental process to provide reference for learners， with the role gradually turning to the supervisor and monitor， with lessened scaffolding until students can take initiative to use the strategies independently （Klapwijk， 2015）. After the instruction process， the two groups of participants are asked to answer the same questionnaire （SORS） and another TEM-4 reading test paper. Similar to previous procedures， followed semi-structured interviews （the same group of participants） will be conducted to investigate their strategy use and to examine whether any changes have taken place.

The data analysis

For the quantitative data gained from questionnaires and reading tests， SPSS toolkit is adopted to investigate two research questions. Pie charts will be demonstrated to show the percentage of each subscale stategies and can compare the change of percentage of different subscale strategies. As for the qualitative data， the transcribed interview data will be scrutinized by discourse analysis and thematic coding approach， gathering similar sentences according to a same theme， and try to categorize their strategies in line with the subscales on SORS.

Potential implications for teaching

Potential implications of this study can be considered from several aspects. Firstly， reading plays an essential role in English learning， and should be learned and taught in a more efficient way. A great responsibility of teachers is to teach students how to learn， how to manage their cognitive and metecognitive process to better monitor the learning process instead of merely rigorous word and grammar instruction （Harris 1982）. And teacher training course can also equip teachers with more strategy instruction to better prepare more qualified teachers. Once teachers decide to instruct strategies， they should be aware that no framework is perfect and adaptable to all teaching situations， thus the ability to combining various strategies and appropriately using them should be more important. When instructing strategies， teachers are supposed to take the initiative and provide scaffolding where needed， but only in the beginning， the real purpose is to equip students with the capacity to monitor and manage their strategy use， therefore， teachers ought to be facilitators and supervisors instead of controller. If the effectiveness of reading strategy instruction is proved， it is not hard to relate it other aspects of English learning， which is worth further thinking. There is still little empirical research on reading strategy instruction effectiveness in China， which can be attributed to the time-consuming process， however， if more research can verify its benefits， then more curriculum designers should take into consideration of incorporating reading strategy instruction into the existing courses or open a separate course to specifically teaching learning strategy.

References：

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[11]Pressley M （1998） Comprehension Strategies Instruction. In Osborn J and Lehr FA （eds） Literacy for All： Issues in teaching and learning. New York： The Guilford Press.

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