(SKKN 2022) a study into useful reading strategies for grade 10 students

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HOÁ TRƯỜNG THPT LANG CHÁNH SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM A STUDY INTO USEFUL READING STRATEGIES FOR GRADE 10 STUDENTS Người thực hiện: Trịnh Văn Cương Chức vụ: Giáo viên SKKN thuộc lĩnh vực: Ngoại ngữ (Tiếng Anh) THE TABLE OF CONTENTS PARTS CONTENTS Reasons for choosing the topic Aims of the study THANH HÓA, NĂM 2022 PAGES I Significance of the study INTRODUCTION II CONTENTS III CONCLUSION REFERENCES Scope of the study 5.Method of study Theoretical background Practical background Methods for implementation General summary Recommendation Websites Textbooks 2 2-8 8-11 11-15 16 16 18 I INTRODUCTION Reasons for choosing the topic: To have a good command of English, students are required to master four closely related language skills, namely listening, speaking, writing, and reading Among four skills, reading is considered to be the most important because it not only provides students with knowledge but also helps develop other language skills According to Krashen (1993), reading is extremely important in learning English He emphasizes reading is the only way to “become a good reader, develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary, advanced grammar”, and the only way to “become a good speller” That is to say, teaching and learning reading effectively is a central issue in a language classroom Traditionally, researchers have agreed that reading was a passive or receptive process in which the reader attempted to decode the intended meaning of the author through recognizing the letters and words as meaningful units, the reader was merely a recipient of information from the printed pages and brought nothing to the text ( Barnett, 1988) However, modern research on reading has found the reading process active rather than passive as well as individualized and complicated My teaching experiences at Lang Chanh High School have pointed out some problems students encounter in English reading lessons When dealing with reading lessons, students, especially grade 10 students often lack reading strategies which are essential for them to overcome the challenges in the classroom Many researchers indicate that EFL students find it difficult to comprehend the texts and achieve their goal of reading success (Rumelhart, 1977; Stanovic, 1980) Recent researchers have also found that becoming more aware of what readers when they read, becoming conscious of their own reading processes is a power tool for improving reading efficiency To become better readers, students need to become aware of how they are reading and what they could to improve it As a teacher of English, I myself think that it is essential to conduct a research on useful reading strategies for grade 10 as well as to provide them with some efficient strategies to improve their English reading As a result, I decide to choose the thesis entitled: “A study into the useful reading strategies for grade 10 students” for my study Aims of the study: The major purposes of this study are: * To investigate what English reading strategies being used by grade 10 students at Lang Chanh School * To suggest some English reading suggestions that help students improve their English reading comprehension Significance of the study: This study has been carried out to search for a better and more effective way to develop students’ reading skills Its findings hopefully would help the 10th-form students find out the suitable way for improving their reading skills Regarding teachers, the study would raise their awareness concerning the topic and provide them with useful pedagogical suggestions in deciding to use the new teaching method to better develop their learners’ reading skills Finally, with regard to researchers, those who happen to share the same interest in the topic could certainly rely on this research to find reliable and useful information for their related studies in the future Scope of the study: To improve reading (skills and comprehension) for Lang Chanh High School 10th – form students, the teachers can make use of various techniques and a number of things should be done However, in this study, the author only focuses on the perceived English reading strategies by the 10th – form students and opinions of English teachers of Lang Chanh High School to suggest some reading strategies that can be applied in teaching and learning English reading so as to help the students to become effective readers Method of the study: To achieve the aims mentioned above, data were collected through the survey questionnaire Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to obtain information on reading strategies used by 10th – form students II CONTENTS Theoretical background: 1.1 The importance of English Language: The English language has become an international language Among nations it serves as a lingua franca It is spoken, learnt and understood even in those countries where it is not a native’s language English is playing a major role in many sectors including medicine, engineering, education, advanced studies, business, technology, banking, computing, tourism etc All our software development today, the communication facilities available to us through internet, our access to a variety of websites, are all being carried out in English Most of the research works are conducted and compiled in English Anything written and recorded in this language is read and listened to, in wider circles As a result, English is being taught and learned around the world as a second language today (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Reaking_Skills) 1.2 The importance of reading in foreign language learning: Reading helps readers: - To improve pronunciation Reading aloud helps learners learn better, especially pronunciation Whisper reading can help learners understand the conceptual information and inspire their imagination as well as guessing Both types of reading are very useful for learners Determining when we should use intensive and extensive or combination of both is really important - To enrich vocabulary: Through reading, readers gain a vast vocabulary and essential knowledge, structures of individual sentence as well as a piece of writing Therefore, the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read It is understandable that anyone who has a large vocabulary is usually a good reader - To enhance the writing skill Reading and writing are the mutual interactive skills There is a close relationship between reading and writing format The more they read, the better their writing ability is and the more skillful in using words in writing is - To continuously update knowledge Reading helps the readers to stay in-touch with contemporary information and makes them sensitive to global issues and helps them catch in hand what is going on around them 1.3 Factors in teaching and learning reading: 1.3.1 Teacher’s role Many linguists state that the teacher is the most important factor in teaching reading In a reading class, the teacher plays so many roles, such as an organizer, a manager and a counselor, an instructional expert, so he or she should be a guide to assist, encourage them, employ various types to support the students develop reading skills He or she is also the person who provides the students with an anxiety-free atmosphere which helps them feel free to join new reading style, practise to master new strategies, work under pressure of time Besides, linguists point out an essential element of the teacher’s role-a model reader According to Nuttall (1982: 192) “showing that you are a reader means carrying books around with you, referring to books as you teach, reading out brief passages that may interest students, talking about what you are reading at the moment, and handling books as if you loved them” He also states that “teacher’s job as providing, first, suitable texts and second, activities that will focus the students’ attention on the texts” 1.3.2 Students’ role Nuttall (2000:33) mentions several main roles of the students in a reading lesson They are as follows: - Taking an active part in learning: This is the first and foremost responsibility of the learner They have to be active and take charge of what they - Monitoring comprehension: Students need to understand how texts work and what they when they read - Learning text talk: It is clear that a good reader carries on a dialogue with the text Consequently, the students have to learn how to this A way to promote this skill is to talk about texts in class - Taking risks: Students have to take the risk of making mistakes because a mistake is an opportunity to learn - Learning not to cheat oneself: Learning to read is learning to give students enormous advantages in life It may lead to better jobs, to personal development, interest and enjoyment Students who not want to learn to read can easily cheat but they are only cheating themselves 1.3.3 The reading texts Reading texts play a crucial role in teaching and learning reading because through them, new grammar, phonetic and lexical items of the target language are introduced Furthermore, texts are also a means to help students enrich their background knowledge and vocabulary as well In reading lessons, students are supposed to understand the texts correctly as much as possible, learn some new language items e.g words, structures, and use what they have got from the text through reading tasks and communication activities that follow Therefore, in teaching reading, the teacher should pay much attention to the following aspects such as language content, vocabulary and grammatical structures, types of reading activities, though it is not simple things to as Buck, G (2001) points out because it takes time, effort and expertise 1.4 Classification of Reading Strategies: Scholars classified reading strategies in various ways The differences can be observed only on the way they express the concept For example, Rubin (1987) and O’Malley and Chamot (1990) grouped the strategies into three clusters: learning strategies, communication strategies and social strategies On the other hand, the difference that we see in Cohen’s (1996) classification is that he named the communication and social strategies as use strategies In the literature on language learning strategies at the end of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st centrury, reading strategies are grouped into three categories These are meta cognitive, cognitive and social or affective strategies (O’ Malley and Chamot, 1990), Oxford (1990; 2002) - Meta Cognitive reading strategies This strategy involves the general management of the course and the outcomes of the cognitive process, like planning for the process, controlling or monitoring the process and checking or evaluating the achievement of the specific task goal To be specific, it constitutes three sub- strategies in which there are more activities to be performed by the reader - Planning: which involves identifying the nature of the task, clarifying the purpose, setting goals and organizing - Monitoring: which requires controlling the degree of understanding, tolerating ambiguity and disruption, monitoring the effectiveness of the strategy being used and changing (modifying) ineffective strategy, adjusting the reading speed and making selective attention? - Evaluation: which requires checking whether the goals are being achieved or not, testing comprehension and testing concentration or attention - Cognitive reading strategies Cognitive reading strategies are cognitive activities or processes that the reader executes in his attempt to construct the meaning out of a text These include both the bottom up processing, when the reader focuses on the analysis of linguistic features, and the top down processing, when the reader focuses on sampling and predicting, testing the prediction, getting the gist, making inference, etc using available resources to guess or complete the missing information In general, the specific sub strategies included cognitive strategies are listed as follows: - Over viewing: reading headings, sub headings and summaries - Predicting: anticipating what the passage is about - Scanning: reading quickly to get the specific points - Skimming: reading quickly to get the general idea of the passage - Confirm/reject: checking whether the anticipation is right or wrong - Activating prior knowledge: relating the content to one’s prior knowledge and identifying the main ideas and the details - Recognizing text organization: understanding the coherence and the cohesion between paragraphs and parts and understand reference - Visualization: forming mental picture of ideas in the parts of the passage - Problem solving: rereading, keep on reading to clear ambiguity, guessing meaning of words from the context, using affixes to guess the meaning of the new words, skipping the unknown word (but less important word), using dictionary and verbalizing the word or the phrase - Taking notes: writing notes on the edge of the paper using personal abbreviations - Summarizing: writing summary of the text - Underlining/highlighting: underlining the parts needed to be remembered - Using cognates: using cognates in L1 and L2 to facilitate understanding and translate words/ phrases/ sentences into L1 - Reacting to the text: questioning the truthfulness and the relevance of the idea - Making inferences: inferring the less explicitly stated idea of the writer using the context and the prior knowledge - Referencing: making anaphoric and cataphoric references and using tables, pictures and charts - Social (Affective) reading strategies The main features of these strategies are co- operation or working with peers, and creating motivational and mental readiness for a task Affective reading strategies are techniques for managing emotions, feelings and motivations It involves relaxing oneself and making positive statement about the task and one’s ability (Chamot, 1990) These strategies are applicable to all learning activities, but less directly than the cognitive and meta cognitive ones The sub strategies of the social/ affective strategies are: - Working with peers: seek opportunities to work with peers and asking for clarification - Convenience: choosing a convenient place and situation for reading and the right setting or position - Motivating oneself: making positive statement about yourself and the reading task - Collect attention: relaxing oneself to reduce anxiety by muscle relaxation and deep breathing, listening to music, etc Practical background: 2.1 Background of the study: 2.1.1 Description of the English syllabus at high schools At upper secondary schools, there are three levels of English: English 10, 11 and English 12 In the past the textbooks used here are the three-year-course ones, the seven- year-course books have been used lately English is now a compulsory subject in schools Students have English lessons during the first term and second term of the school year The textbooks chosen are English 10, 11, 12 by Nha Xuat Ban Giao Duc Each consists of 16 lessons which have been covered through out the school year with mid-term and term tests in between Each lesson is divided into periods with the aim of giving the students basic knowledge of English and practice four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing skill By using this textbook, we can develop our students’ communicative competence and our students can learn real things from daily life The textbooks also develop students’ reading and writing skill At the end of each term, students have an exam for four skills 2.1.2 Description of the students at high schools Most of students at high school have already learned English for at least four years at lower secondary school but many of them are at the low level of English proficiency Another fact is that most of the students are from rural areas in diferent districts Consequently, individual differences in learning styles, identities, attitudes, motivation… etc are unavoidable and may cause the teachers some problems during their teaching In addition, their lack of awareness on the importance of English as well as motivation makes them not interested in learning English Although most of them have already learnt English for at least four years at lower secondary school, their knowledge of English is still poor and limited Some students can even hardly say a complete sentence in the target language 2.1.3 Description of the teachers at high schools In terms of methodology, the teachers in high schools usually employ the traditional methods of teaching especially Grammar-translation method They often apply this method in teaching English In other words, they focus on analyzing the grammar rules, not on the acquisition of language skills They spend most of the classroom time explaining new words, analyzing grammar structures and translating texts into Vietnamese Students often listen and take notes passively This leads to low motivation in students and creates very few chances for them to improve their communicative competence 2.1.4 Description of physical setting In most upper secondary schools, English teaching and learning activities are mostly carried out inside the classrooms which are designed for lecture lessons with the only classroom equipment: a blackboard, tables and a desk The only type of teaching aid that the English group has is some cassette recorders and pictures In term of class size, the number of students in an English class is quite large, from 40 to 50 This large number causes a great deal of difficulties for the teaching and learning activities The materials for reference and self-study are not available for teachers and students at schools In the school library, there are only some English books that are not really helpful for teachers and students 2.2 Students’ Lack of motivation: The students are still deeply affected by the old and passive learning methods such as Translation or Audio-lingual Method and the learning environment at lower secondary school where speaking was not fully taken into consideration They only learn what the teacher supply in the classroom The information from the data collected clearly shows that students’ limitation of vocabulary and grammatical structures, their lack of vocabularies and their background knowledge are students’ main difficulties, which influence their motivation for speaking as well as their presentation Not only the students but also the teachers faced many problems when dealing with speaking lessons Students had very limited vocabulary, and were too dependent on teachers, peers dictionaries Moreover, students often have a fearful psychology, considering listening to foreign language is a challenge.They not believe in themselves and become worried when speaking.Therefore, their learning will be difficult to take effect It can be said that lack of confidence is also a major limitation affecting ability to make sense of their communication 2.3 The reality of quality of English at Lang Chanh High School: Most of my students come from various villages in Lang Chanh district They have no opportunity to interact with foreigners directly Therefore, it will be difficult for them to understand linguistic phenomena such as linking, contracted forms, omitted words or sometimes speakers use incorrect grammar sentences…In addition, they also have few chances to contact with native speakers, the environment for communication in English is not available On the other hand, students are still influenced by the old ways of teaching and learning, not focusing on developing communication skills Therefore, they not have many opportunities to practice and develop speaking skills Moreover, at Lang Chanh high school, students only focus on grammar and vocabulary.They are hardly allowed to practice communication skill, and learning grammar is very merchanical, mainly reading, memorizing,and coppying, sometimes it is not highly effective Students in Lang Chanh high school not have conditions to practice skills such as listening and speaking because there is no room for practice The textbook knowledge is old and has not been modified The curriculum is too grammar-heavy, turning them into a "walking grammar book" With such learning conditions, even specialized language students also have difficulty in listening and pronouncing, much less are mountainous students However, the implementation of innovation of teaching method in Lang Chanh High school in general, in Foreign Language group particularly has initially gained encouraging results during the last ten years There are many active methods and technique applied on the topic of the lessons and the knowledge level of each group From what I have experienced in my teaching process, I have figured out that one of the most practical methods at Lang Chanh High School is getting students to work in groups and encourage them to communicate during the English lessons As a result, the quality of students' English learning at our school has been gradually improved They become more confident to read fluently Nevertheless, using active methods into reading lesson effectively is not simple Therefore, in this study I really want to discuss about how to “A STUDY INTO USEFUL READING STRATEGIES FOR GRADE 10 STUDENTS” Methods for implementation: In this part, the collected data are presented by means of tables via descriptive statistics of parentages Each table is followed by an analysis of the data and their discussion 3.1 Questionnaire for the students: The data show that all the students aged 16; 98 students are female (54.4%), 82 students are male (45.6%) The percentage of the students rated themselves good at English was 22.2% (40 students), 90 students (accounting for 50%) considered themselves at average level of English 50 students (27.8%) rated themselves weak at English None of them rated excellent level The second part of the questionnaire contains 30 questions which particularly probe the learners’ experience in using reading strategies during reading lessons Furthermore, these questions are grouped into three categories: Meta cognitive, Cognitive and Affective/ social reading strategies Thus, the responses are tabulated accordingly via descriptive statistics of percentages 3.1.1 Meta cognitive reading strategy Table 1: Planning and evaluating strategies Never Rarely How often you have a purpose in your mind when you read? How often you think about whether the content of the text fits your reading purpose? How often you critically analyze and evaluate the information presented in the text? How often you check your understanding whenever you come across conflicting ideas? How often you check if your guesses are right or wrong? Frequently Always No Questions Sometimes Reported use in % Total 13.1 11.3 30.2 23.6 21.8 100 5.5 10.6 33.4 33.6 16.9 100 3.6 9.0 8.3 37.8 43.3 100 4.9 7.3 42.8 20.2 25.9 100 9.5 12.1 29.6 26.7 22.1 100 Table 2: Strategies of monitoring and tackling challenges of comprehension 6.2 5,4 Never 4.5 Rarely Frequently How often you read a text aloud when it is difficult for you to understand? Always No Questions Sometimes Reported use in % 12.1 71.8 Total 100 22.6 29.6 5.6 9.8 100 32.3 14.9 17.7 6.5 100 13.8 30.6 14.8 7.9 100 10.4 16.7 27.7 35 100 16.7 22.2 41.6 14.5 100 Rarely How often you read slowly, but carefully to understand what you 32.4 are reading? How often you try to get on to your track when you lose 30.6 concentration? How often you adjust your reading speed according to what 32.9 you are reading? How often you pay attention to the text you read when it becomes 10.2 difficult for you? How often you stop from time to time to think about what you are reading? 3.1.2 Cognitive reading strategies Total Table 3: Strategies of extracting and working on ideas from a text 13.9 32.3 23.2 12.1 100 4.6 63.3 6.0 17.7 8.4 100 24 40.6 23.3 5.5 6.6 100 3.8 13.8 23.2 43.5 15.7 100 18.5 35.3 23.2 18.5 4.5 100 Total Never 18.5 Rarely Frequently How often you take notes while reading to help you understand what you read? How often you summary the important information in the text ? How often you underline or circle information in the text to help you remember it? How often you restate ideas from the text you read in your own words? How often go forth and back in the text to find relationships among ideas? Always No Questions Sometimes Reported use in % Table 4: Strategies of using noting features and supplementary aids Never Sometimes Frequently No Questions Always Reported use in % How often you skim the text by noting the characteristics like length and organization? How often you use reference materials such as dictionaries to help you to understand what you read? How often you use tables, figures and pictures in the text to increase your understanding? How often you use contextual clues to help you better understand what you are reading? How often you use typological aids such as bold face and italics to identify key points? 3.5 14.3 36.9 28.7 16.6 100 19.5 45.4 21.2 7.6 6.3 100 12.9 13.1 12.9 28.7 32.4 100 11.8 36.1 28.7 17.7 5.7 100 24 34.3 22.3 11.5 7.9 100 Table 5: Guessing and deciding on ideas from a text Never Rarely Total 34.4 27.2 34 100 35.1 45.5 7.3 100 32.3 35.1 16.6 100 27.6 4.5 1.1 100 24 38.8 28.3 100 Rarely How often you think about what you know before reading a 1.7 2.7 given text? How often you decide what to 2.7 9.4 read closely and what to ignore? How often you guess what the 4.5 11.5 text is about when you read? How often you reread the text when it seems difficult to 24 42.8 understand? How often you ask yourself a question which you like to be 2.4 6.5 answered in the text? 3.1.3 Social (Affective) reading strategy Sometimes Frequently No Questions Always Reported use in % Total Table 6: Social/Affective reading strategies Never Sometimes Frequently No Questions Always Reported use in % 10 How often you discuss what you read with your friends to check your understanding? How often you choose a place convenient for you when you read? How often you motivate yourself assuming that you can read and understand? How often you relax yourself and reduce anxiety by progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing or listening to music? 24 34.3 20.3 12.1 9.3 100 37.9 28.7 18.5 12.1 2.8 100 43.5 23.2 15.6 12.3 5.4 100 36.3 34.3 15.7 8.3 5.4 100 3.2 What reading strategies are often used by Grade 10 students at Lang Chanh High School? Investigating students’ experience of using reading strategies, the reading strategies are categorized into three: meta cognitive, cognitive and affective/social reading strategy The meta cognitive reading strategies are divided into planning and evaluating and monitoring and tackling challenges According to the data, learners are poor in using planning and evaluating strategies Almost none practises the strategies such as: critically analyzing and evaluating the information, thinking about whether the content of the text fits their reading purpose, checking if their guesses are right or wrong However, they are relatively good in exploiting the strategies of monitoring and tackling challenges such as, making a slow and careful reading, adjusting reading speed, trying to get on to your track when loosing concentration As a whole, we can say that meta cognitive reading strategies are not being exploited by the learners effectively On the other hand, there are cognitive reading strategies which are sub divided into three, such as strategies of extracting and working on ideas from a text, strategies of using the noting features and supplementary aids and strategies of guessing and deciding on the ideas from the text Among these strategies, the learners are the best in using extracting ideas from the text The majority of the students exploit the strategy of summarizing the important information in the text and underlining or circling information in the text effectively Though they are using the strategies of the noting features and supplementary aids and strategies of guessing and deciding on the ideas from the text, most of them use them only sometimes and rarely Surprisingly, the students are poor in deciding what to read closely and what to ignore and asking themselves a question Generally, in comparison with the meta cognitive reading strategies, cognitive reading strategies are being used in a better way But, it is still not satisfactory The affective/social reading strategy contains a list of strategies like discussing what you read with your friends, choosing convenient place for 11 reading, motivating oneself and reducing anxiety The learners are using these strategies effectively In sum, although there is variability among students in strategy use, the study clearly shows that the students are not properly trained to use reading strategies Thus, the learners are using limited number of reading strategies during the lesson 3.3 What effective English reading suggestions could be suggested to help 10th - grade students at Lang Chanh High School improve their reading comprehension? According to the collected data, although students at Lang Chanh High School applied some different strategies in a reading lesson, their reading skills were not very effective and satisfactory The number of the students being effective readers was modest while the majority of the students are ineffective ones Thus, it is time the teachers did something to improve students’ reading comprehension It is very necessary to give out some suggestions to improve reading skills to students The suggestions suggested below hopefully can serve as a tool to enable teachers of reading at Lang Chanh High School to become more successful Firstly, teachers should give explicit reading strategy training in the reading lesson consistently so as to make the learners aware of them to use in the different reading lessons and tasks appropriately The responsibilities of teachers are to guide students to determine their own purpose and strategies to use all these strategies according to their levels, interests, and needs If the students know what they are doing and their benefits, they are going to enhance their efficiency of reading skill to become independent which is the aim of the foreign language teachers The effective strategy instruction should consist of an explicit description of the strategy including when and how to use it, teacher’s modeling, student’s modeling accompanied by the teacher’s explanation of each step, guided practice with gradual release of responsibility, and independent use This encourages students to try to use these strategies, and as they do, they construct detailed understanding of how the strategy works, the benefits it produces, and how it can be used in a variety of situations (Duffy et al., 1987; Pressley, 2000) With guided practice, the teacher can help students figure out how and when to use the strategy themselves, and give feedbacks so that they can adjust their strategy use Finally, independent use of the strategy provides students opportunities to apply the strategy on their own to other texts so that they can learn to monitor their strategy use Secondly, teachers can help students improve the effectiveness of reading strategies use by developing exercises that elicit information using some targeted strategies These exercises can be divided by the stages of reading at which they happen such as before reading, while reading and after reading In before reading part, teachers show students a particular text, give pre-reading questions, elicit or provide appropriate background knowledge Students can discuss text type, brainstorm and review familiar stories During-reading activities include guessing word meanings by using context clues, underlining the key words, skimming to find the main idea, scanning the text to understand 12 it specifically and to the tasks given in the text Finally, after-reading activities such as sumarizing the text, translating into Vietnamese or answering the questions relating the text help to check students' comprehension and then lead students to a deeper analysis of the text Thirdly, reading strategies are categorized in three: meta cognitive, cognitive and affective/social reading strategy According to the data, the students are very poor in using meta cognitive strategies such as planning and evaluating reading and monitoring and tackling reading challenges Therefore, the experience of using the strategies with different kinds of reading texts should be encouraged by developing tasks and activities In addition, teachers should emphasize vocabulary learning at all levels Because vocabulary is one of the most difficult factor that the students have to face when reading This does not mean that vocabulary should be the only focus of language instruction Finally, using the time wisely for reading is another way to help teachers improve their students’ reading III CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION Summary of the study: Although there are many efforts to read, explore, share experiences from colleagues, learn from practical teaching to draw some effective methods of teaching English speaking skills at high school, but I noticed that some of the issues raised in the topic were not in-depth, the illustrative examples were not much However, the problem in this topic is very common and real, leading great passion for students in English It can be said that this is a useful document for each teacher, helping teachers (especially for teachers who are new to the industry) to enrich their methods of imparting knowledge to students in class Over the past few years, the application of these techniques and strategies for improving reading skill has been widely adopted Students now feel more confident to reading English Their vocabulary, their background knowledge of communication have been improved.As a result they can communicate by English more successfully than before Recommendation: Based on what I have coped with during my teaching process, I have some practical recommendations as following: Firstly, students frequently use the strategies of monitoring and tackling challenges such as: making a slow and careful reading, adjusting reading However, they are poor in using planning and evaluating strategies, such as reading with purpose, analysing and evaluating texts critically, checking guesses, etc Secondly, the teachers did teach reading strategies to the students to some extent but the degree of frequency was quite limited The teachers only focus on a small number reading strategies in class such as guessing the meaning of the new words, teaching vocabulary, relating students’ prior knowledge, skimming and summarizing They also gave some reasons such as students’ limitation of 13 vocabulary and lack of knowledge of grammar as well as limited time that made them only teach some simple reading strategies Finally, the research also presents some useful suggestions which hopefully can be employed to help the 10th form students at Lang Chanh High School improve their reading comprehension XÁC NHẬN CỦA THỦ TRƯỞNG ĐƠN VỊ Thanh Hóa, ngày 10 tháng năm 2022 Tôi xin cam đoan SKKN viết, khơng chép nội dung người khác NGƯỜI VIẾT SKKN Trịnh Văn Cương REFERENCES Websites - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Reaking_Skills - https://www.fluentu.com/blog/english/english-reading (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Reaking_Skills) The textbook Aebersold, J A & Field, M L (1997), From Reader to Reading Teacher New York: Cambridge University Press Alderson, J C (2000), Assessing reading Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Anderson, N (2003), Reading In D Nunan (Ed.), Practical English language teaching China: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc and Higher Education Press Anderson, N (1999) Aebersold, J A & Field, M L (1997), From Reader to Reading Teacher New York: Cambridge University Press Brown, H D (2001), Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Padagogy (Second ed.) New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc Carrell, P L., Devine, J & Eskey, D E (1998), Interactive approaches to second language reading (first ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Carrell, P L & Eisterhold, J C (1983), Schema theory and ESL reading pedagogy TESOL Quarterly, 17 Cohen, A D (1998), Strategies in learning and using a second language Essex, U.K 14 Gebhard, D C., Motivation: The responsibility of the teacher ELT Journal 10 Goodman, K (1988), The Reading Process in Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres 15 ... an adequate vocabulary, advanced grammar”, and the only way to “become a good speller” That is to say, teaching and learning reading effectively is a central issue in a language classroom Traditionally,... pictures and charts - Social (Affective) reading strategies The main features of these strategies are co- operation or working with peers, and creating motivational and mental readiness for a task Affective... using reading strategies, the reading strategies are categorized into three: meta cognitive, cognitive and affective/social reading strategy The meta cognitive reading strategies are divided into