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Advisor: Dr. Raung-fu Chung
Graduate: Ju-chuan Chen
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Background and Motivation
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Problems of the Study
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Purposes of the Study
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Research Questions
Background and Motivation
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Reading is one of the most important skills for
ESL/EFL learners to master.
Different strategy use may distinguish good
readers from poor readers.
Strategy instruction help poor readers to achieve
effective and efficient reading as proficient
readers do.
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There have been a lot of research studies
examining the use of reading strategies among
EFL students in Taiwan (Chang, 1998; Cheng,
2000; Hsu, 2000; Joe, 1995; Shih, 1992; Yi, 1994;
Yuan & Nash, 1992).
Most
college
Little
Senior high school
Problems of the Study
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Not effective in promoting students’ reading
ability through the instruction of reading
strategies.
Readers who can not use strategies flexibly to
achieve effective and efficient reading.
Purposes of the Study
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The effects of the explicit instruction of
reading strategies on senior high school
students’ reading comprehension.
Students’ perceptions of reading strategies
and their attitudes toward English reading.
Whether the strategy instruction is effective
in improving students’ comprehension for
different types of questions, and whether
the strategy instruction is beneficial to them.
Research Questions
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What are the subjects’ perceptions of the
instructed strategies before and after
the treatment, and what is their
reaction toward the learning of each
strategy?
Does the strategy instruction change the
subjects’ attitudes toward English reading?
Does the strategy instruction improve the
subjects’ reading comprehension?
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Which of the groups, higher, intermediate
or lower proficiency group, would
benefit most from the strategy instruction?
Which types of reading comprehension
questions (main idea questions, detail
questions, inference questions, and wordguessing questions) would be influenced by
the strategy instruction?
What are the subjects’ responses to the
explicit strategy instruction?
Strategy Instruction and Reading Comprehension
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Paris, Cross & Lipson’s (1984)
Students’ knowledge about reading strategies
improved significantly after they received the
comprehension reading curriculum that focused on
teaching comprehension processes and content
strategies.
 Song,
1998; Shih, 1992; Carrell et al., 1989;
Kern, 1989; Barnett, 1988
Reading strategy training did help improve
students’ reading comprehension.
The Role of Reading Strategies
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Song, 1998; Kern 1989
Lower proficiency subjects responded more
favorably to strategy instruction than did
intermediate and higher proficiency subjects.
Explicit Comprehension Instruction
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Hansen & Pearson’s (1983)
More proficient readers did not seem to benefit
much from the strategy instruction because they
had developed adequate strategies on their own.
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Steven’s (1988)
There were significant effects of strategy training on
students’ ability to identify the main idea.
Song’s (1998)
Students improved their ability to grasp main idea
and to make inference after the strategy training.
Hansen & Pearson’s (1983)
Students’ answers to both literal and inferential
questions improved through the inference training.
Kern’s (1989)
Strategy instruction improved students’ ability to
infer the meanings of unfamiliar words from context.
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Oxford (1992)
Strategy training could help students make
effective use of multiple strategies.
Steven’s (1988)
Many students were not proficient in recognizing
the main idea or theme of passages.
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Model of Reading
Types
Definition
The Schema Theory
The role of background knowledge
in language comprehension.
Bottom-up Models
Letters → Letter clusters → Words
→ Phrases → Sentences → Longer
text → Meaning
Top-down Models
Cycles of sampling, predicting,
testing, and confirming.
Interactive Models
Involves both the bottom-up and
top-down approaches of
information processing.
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Subjects
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Instruments
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Procedures
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Data Analysis
Subjects
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89 third-year students came from two classes and
from Hsiao-Kang Senior High School in Kaohsiung
City.
Five subjects were absent sometimes, so they were
excluded from the data for the statistical analysis.
They were categorized into three levels of English
proficiency, including higher, intermediate, and
lower proficiency group.
The researcher herself was the instructor in the
treatment.
Instruments
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Materials for the training of the selected strategies
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Materials for the Practice of the Instructed Strategies
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The pre- and post-treatment reading comprehension tests
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The questionnaires used before and after the treatment.
Materials for the Strategy Instruction
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Active: Skills for Reading
Skimming for the main idea
Identifying main ideas
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Reading Power
Writing out topic and main idea
Making predictions
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Baumann’s (1986) lesson plans
Writing out main idea outline
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Project Achievement
Making inferences
Guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words
Materials for the Practice of the Instructed Strategies
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The selected texts in the subjects’ English textbook (Senior High
School English Textbook, Book 5)
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College entrance examination papers
Reading Comprehension Test
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The English textbooks provided for the third-year
senior high students in Taiwan is seven (Fry,
1991, cited in Hung, 2001).
The researcher chose two passages at level seven.
A little beyond the subjects’ current proficiency
level may help stimulate students to use more
strategies, thus three eight-level passages were
chosen.
Questionnaires
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I. Students’ Attitudes toward English Reading
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II. Students’ Perceptions of Reading Strategies
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III. Students’ Responses toward the Explicit
Strategy Instruction
Students’ Attitudes toward English Reading
 Learning interests toward English reading
 Self-initiative learning toward English reading
 Opinions toward English reading
 Perceptions of their English reading ability
→ Five-point scale
Students’ Perceptions of Reading Strategies
 Each questionnaire included six items, with
five yes-no questions and one open-ended
question.
Students’ Responses toward the Explicit Strategy Instruction
Part I: Four areas
Students’ acquisition of the instructed strategies
 Students’ application of the instructed strategies in tests
 Students’ reaction to the strategy instruction
 Students’ feedback on the strategy instruction
→ Five-point scale
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Part II: Students’ liking of the instructed strategies
and their comments on the benefits obtained
from the strategy instruction.
Procedures
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Conducting the pilot study and revising and adjusting
the pilot questionnaire
Asking students to take the pre-treatment test and
answer the pre-treatment questionnaire
Instructing the five selected reading strategies for ten weeks
and asking students to answer the series questionnaires after
the instruction of each strategy
Guiding students to practice the instructed reading strategies
for two weeks
Students’ independent practice of their acquired reading
strategies
Asking students to take the post-treatment test and answer
the post-treatment questionnaires
Data analysis
Data Analysis
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The data collected was analyzed both quantitatively
and qualitatively.
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SPSS
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Pre-test and post-test: Paired-samples T test
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The comparison of students’ attitudes toward English
reading: Paired-samples T test and chi-square test.
The subjects’ comments on the strategy instruction
were analyzed qualitatively.
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Students’ Perceptions of Reading Strategies
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Students’ Attitudes Toward English Reading
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Effects of the Strategy Instruction on Students’
Reading Comprehension
Students’ Responses to the Strategy Instruction.
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Item 1 (I have an idea of the strategy before the treatment)
Item 2 (I know how to use the strategy before the treatment)
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Item 2 (I know how to use the strategy before the treatment)
Item 3 (I do not know how to use the strategy until the
treatment)
Students’ Perceptions of Reading Strategies
RQ1: What are the subjects’ perceptions of the instructed
strategies before and after the treatment, and what
is their reaction toward the learning of each
strategy?
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Most of the subjects do not have a clear idea of the
instructed strategies before the treatment,
especially that of how to use them.
The explicit strategy instruction is effective in
enhancing students’ knowledge and use of reading
strategies.
Students’ Attitudes Toward English Reading
RQ2: Does the strategy instruction change the
subjects’ attitudes toward English reading?
Effects of the Strategy Instruction on Students’ Reading Comprehension
RQ3: Does the strategy instruction improve the subjects’
reading comprehension?
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The strategy instruction helps improve the subjects’ reading
comprehension.
RQ4: Which of the groups, higher, intermediate or
lower proficiency group, would benefit most
from the strategy instruction?
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Higher proficiency subjects did benefit from the
treatment, but not as much as the intermediate and
lower proficiency subjects.
Effects of the Strategy Instruction on Types of Reading Comprehension Questions
RQ5: Which types of reading comprehension questions
(main idea questions, detail questions, inference
questions, and word-guessing questions) would be
influenced by the strategy instruction?
<Possible Reasons for
guessing wordsmeaning>
• Depend heavily on the
dictionary
Students’ Responses to the Strategy
Instruction
RQ6: What are the subjects’ responses to the
explicit strategy instruction?
Students’ Acquisition of the Instructed Strategies
•The explicit strategy
instruction helped
facilitate the subjects’
acquisition of these
strategies.
• Training students to write
out topics and implied
main ideas.
Students’ Application of the Instructed Strategies in Reading Comprehension Tests
Useful
• Skimming for the main idea
• Making inferences
• Guessing the meanings of
unfamiliar words from
context
Not Useful
• Making predictions
• Identifying topics and main
ideas
<Possible Reasons>
• Types of questions in most
reading comprehension
test
• Multiple choice question
Students’ Reaction to the Strategy Instruction
Students’ Feedback on the Strategy Instruction
Students’ Liking of the Instructed Strategies
Students’ Comments on the Strategy Instruction
Conclusions
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Enhance EFL high school students’ reading ability,
especially the students with lower English
proficiency.
Improve students’ comprehension of main idea, detail and
inference questions.
Most of the students increased their interests in English
reading and had more confidence in using strategies to
achieve effective reading.
Positive responses to the learning of reading strategies.
Pedagogical Implications
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Adopt the explicit approach of strategy
instruction to help students improve their
reading ability.
Incorporate strategy training into their regular
English class to help students develop their
long-term use of reading strategies.
Cultivate interest and motivation for English
reading.
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Students should be trained to be an active role to
construct meaning by the flexible use of both
top-down and bottom-up strategies (reading for
meaning).
EFL teachers should design pre-, while, and postreading activities to involve students in the
learning of high-level strategies as well as
assessing them both textually explicit and
implicit questions.
Thank you !