INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the problems and rationale of the study
1.1 Statement of the problems and rationale of the study
Internationally, teaching English has changed tremendously over the last few decades More significantly, the traditional teacher-centered approach has been replaced with the learner-centered one, which reflects a desire to explore ways of making responsive to learner’s need and interests and allowing to learners to play a more active and participatory role in the day-to-day teaching and learning processes Therefore, no longer does the teacher act as the centre of all instructions, controlling every aspect of the learning process Learners themselves now, more than ever, are sharing the responsibility for successful language acquisition and in doing so, are becoming less dependent on the language teacher for meeting their own individual language needs Students are advised to become more autonomous, to diagnose some of their own learning strengths and weaknesses and to self-direct the process of language development
In the field of second language acquisition research, focus has been shifted away from finding perfect teaching methodologies to investigating why some learners are very successful in their language learning while others are not although they have made much effort learning the language Several studies have been carried out by Oxford (1990), O’Malley and Chamot (1990) Nunan (1991), Rubin and Thomson (1994) and Cohen (1998) have discovered that one of the most significant factors that distinguish successful learners from unsuccessful one is their learning strategies In other words, successful learners do use some effective strategies to deal with the problems that emerge during their learning process while unsuccessful ones are not aware of learning strategies or they may use unsuccessful ones or inappropriate or ineffective strategies resulting in their failure in their language learning This finding has provoked interests among researchers and teachers in identifying learning strategies employed by good language learners with a view to training bad learners to be aware of effective learning strategies and use effective strategies in their English study
In Vietnam, the English language plays an important role in the increasing development of science, technology, politics, culture and international relation There is a greater demand for teaching and learning through the country for different purposes
Moreover, English has become a compulsory subject in the state examination and it is one of three subjects for the entrance examination of some universities Some studies into this field have been conducted with different types of learners to find out particular strategies employed by effective and ineffective students in order to help the effective ones aware of leaning strategies such as Huyen Tran’s study (2004) on vocabulary learning strategies used by students of English at Qui Nhon university or Mai Duong’s study (2005) on writing strategies employed by the first – year students at HaNoi National University
However, Such studies are scare, thus, more research should be done to help more learners use appropriate strategies in their different settings
At Yen Vien high school, students are supposed to master all four skills presented in the standard text books “Tieng Anh 10”, “Tieng Anh 11”and “Tieng Anh 12” After three years at high school, they have to pass the GCSE and the entrance examination of some universities and colleges with rather challenging tests Students can not pass such examinations without being equipped with effect strategies However, with the limitations of a high school, the number of students who even do not know learning strategies is not small With ten-year experience of teaching English at Yen Vien high school, reading is considered one of the most difficult skill for Yen Vien’s students especially the 11 th grade ones Although they know the importance of reading and they have also tried their best, their test scores are not satisfactory due to both subjective and objective causes Their low reading comprehension results from not only their own causes as their lack of vocabulary, grammar and background knowledge, but also some other factors such as the textbook, motivation in class, the teaching staff and their reading teaching methods, schedule, administration and so on With a view to bettering the situation, Both teachers and learners have to adapt However, it is necessary for students to have appropriate reading strategies
Therefore, I intend to examine the awareness of English reading (henceforth called reading) strategies of 11 th grade students at Yen Vien high school in this study and find out the differences in the strategies used by students of higher reading abilities and those of lower reading abilities Based on the finding, I am going to make some recommendations to improve the students’ reading proficiency
The study aims at finding out the strategies Vietnamese 11 th grade students use when they read English so that improvement of the quality of teaching and learning English reading as a second language in the upper secondary education for Vietnamese students could be achieved
To achieve this aim, the study sets out to obtain these specific objectives:
1 To investigate the awareness and possible use of reading strategies of 11 th grade students at a Vietnamese high school when they read English,
2 To explore possible ways for improving the students’ English reading proficiency level
To achieve the aims of the thesis, the following research questions were proposed with questions 1 and 2 addressing the first aim and question 3 the second aim):
1) What are the levels of awareness and use of English reading comprehension strategies of Vietnamese 11 th grade students?
2) Do the good readers (11 th grade students) have different awareness and use of reading strategies from the medium and weak ones?
3) What can be done to help Vietnamese grade 11 th poor readers to improve their reading comprehension level?
This study is to be conducted as a descriptive one that employed a written questionnaire and interview to collect information about students’ awareness and possible use of reading strategies The data collected were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively to help the author achieve the aim of the study, that is answers to research questions 1 and 2 to deal with aim number 1 and research question 3 with aim 2
The study is designed to explore the 11 th students’ awareness and possible use of reading strategies in Yen Vien high school in order to make some methodological recommendations for English learners This study is, therefore, descriptive by nature
The subjects of the study are three groups of 11 th grade students in seven classes
Three hundred and eighteen students divided into three groups based on the levels of English measured by end-term English test scores All of them are living in Gia Lam district They all have learned English for five years ( four years in lower secondary school and one year in upper secondary school) Based on their English test score of the final examination and the whole year, I divide three hundred and eighteen 11 th grade students into three groups: 1 st group consists of 68 students (with the total test score from 7 to 10),
2 nd group consists of 200 students (with the total test core from 5 to 6) and 50 students in the third group (with the total test below 5)
The study helps solve the problem of uplifting the quality of English reading of Vietnamese grade 11 students It would enable the teaching and learning of English to be more effective and efficient Above all, it would help to promote reading power of students and this is very important to them in study as well as in their future jobs
It is also hoped that the study would make some valuable contributions to the field of language teaching methodology Results obtained from the study can help English teachers to enhance their teaching with Vietnamese students especially with poor readers
On the other hand, students can use the suggested techniques to self-improve their English learning
1 7 Design of the Study: This study consists of 3 parts with part 2 dividing into 3 chapters:
Part 1 : Introduction This part supplies an overview of the study with specific reference to the rationale, the aims, the methodology and the design
Part 2: Chapter 1 deals with an exploration of the theoretical background of the research It is concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research such as reading and reading comprehension, classification of reading, strategies and the importance of strategy training as well as the teacher’s role in strategy training
Chapter 2: The methodology of this study is presented This chapter presents the background information of the subjects of the study, the instrument used to collect the data, the procedure of data collection
Chapter 3: is aimed at describing data analysis in detail and a thorough discussion of the findings of the study Some explanations and interpretations of the findings are also presented in this chapter
DEVELOPMENT
2.1 What is Reading and Reading Comprehension?
Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is So far reading has been defined differently by lots of scholars, however no single definition is acceptable to everyone
Goodman (1971, p.135) stated that reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” In his opinion, readers not only learn how to read the text, to master grammatical structures…but also understand the content expressed in the text
Having the same point with Goodman, William, E (1990, p.2) said that “reading is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written” According William, in reading process, there are also two parallel activities: looking and understanding Therefore, readers have to “encode” meanings of a word depend on the context in which it appears
One more definition offered by Harmer (1989, p.153) showed us his opinion and two above authors have a lot of things in common “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages”
Reading is a completely individual activity which takes place in all types such as newspapers, magazines, written texts, telephone directories, labels on medicine bottles, etc
The ability to read is such a natural part of human beings These views are divided into three groups named the bottle - up, the top – down and the interactive ones
Reading is viewed as “the process of meaning interpretation” in which “the language is translated” from on form of symbolic representation to another” (Nunan, 1991)
It was also understood as the process of recognizing the printed letters and words and building up a meaning from the smallest textual units at the bottom (letters and words)
LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 What is Reading and Reading Comprehension?
What is Reading Comprehension?
Reading comprehension results in the fact that when readers know which skills and strategies are appropriate for types of texts and understand how to apply them to accomplish reading purpose Swan (1975, p.1) stated that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding” It is obvious that the student can show his understanding only by doing some tasks such as summarizing the text, answering questions, making true or false etc
To sum up, reading becomes meaningless without comprehension since only reading comprehension can appreciate how much readers understand the text Therefore, how to help students have effective reading comprehension methods is considered to be the most important part in reading teaching Thus, learners should be aware of reading skills/ strategies and use them appropriately as well as effectively
According to manner
According to Doff (1988), reading is divided into two main types: reading aloud and silent reading
Reading aloud involves "looking at the text, understanding it and also saying it" (Doff: 70) and he considers reading aloud as a way to convey necessary information to someone else
Very few people are required to read aloud as a matter of daily routine The readers are asked to read the text so loudly that other people can hear it Reading aloud does not happen outside the classroom as Doff (1988: 67) said, "reading aloud is not an activity we engage in very often outside the classroom" Reading aloud has both advantages and disadvantages Natal (1966) sees reading aloud as an important aid for beginners to improve their pronunciation It helps students to make the connection between sounds and spelling of letters and words and also assists the teacher to check students' pronunciation
However, Greenwood (1985) criticizes this idea; he claims that students may unable to focus adequately on the text's meaning when they highly concentrate on pronouncing the words His point of view implied that there are also some negative effects that should betaken into account in the process of teaching and learning that involves reading aloud
First of all, when reading aloud, students only focus on the pronunciation not on the meaning of the text The second thing is that when students take turn to read a text aloud, only one student is active; the others will do something else, since they do not have to read
In addition, this way of reading usually waste much time because students read in turn so they have to wait one after one It can be inferred that there is little value in reading aloud if we want to improve the readers' reading skills Therefore, students should decide whether to apply reading aloud or not as a reading strategy
Silent reading is "the method we normally use with our native language and on the whole quickest and most efficient" Lewis (1985: ll0) Sharing the same idea, Doff (1988:
67) defined silent reading as followed: “silent reading involves looking at sentence and understanding the message it conveys, in other words making sense of a written text It does not normally involve saying the words we read nor even silently in our heads"
Therefore, we can see that silent reading is an effective skill for reading comprehension since students do not need to read all the words of a text, they can read at their own speed and in case they do not understand a sentence they can go back to read again When reading silently, students not only obtain its main ideas in the shortest length of time but also deeply understand its details and can answer the questions as well
To summarize, silent reading is one effective skill for reading process in general and reading comprehension in particular Therefore, it should be applied in teaching and learning a foreign language.
According to the purposes of reading
Theorists have tried to set up a catalogue of reading strategies (reading skills and reading strategies have been used interchangeably) and establish their relationship with one another, but the issues remain controversial As we have seen, different theorists look at strategies/skills with different views
Nutall (1982: 36) defines: "Intensive reading involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the student to focus on the text" Thus, intensive reading is usually a classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic or semantic details of a message to extract specific information Intensive reading calls students' attention to grammatical forms, discourse markers and other surface structures, rhetorical relationships and the like Intensive reading aims at understanding not only of what the text means, but of how the meaning is produced The "how" and the
"what" are equally received Consequently, intensive reading lessons train primarily strategies for students to encounter with other texts There are two sub-distinction of intensive reading; they are skills-based and text-based While the former focuses on a particular skill (for example: distinguish the main idea of a text from the details, inferences from content), the latter, on the other hand refers to the lesson focus in the text itself and students try to understand it as fully as necessary, using all acquired skills
The purpose of extensive reading is to train students to read directly and fluently in a foreign language for his own enjoyment, without the aid of the teacher to achieve a general sense of the text, skimming for the gist and scanning for some key details
Extensive reading is a relatively rapid and efficient process of reading a text for global or general meaning
Actually, skimming is the act of looking at some prominent parts of an article By catching a few words only, the readers can get an overall picture of the “what”, of course only on a rather superficial level Because of its nature, the key to skimming is to know where to find the main idea of different paragraphs and to be able to synthesize them by way of generalization
Scanning is another useful skill to locate specific item of information that we need and often we do not even follow the linearity of the message, but focus only on the needed information In contrast with skimming, scanning is far more limited since it only means retrieving needed information
In the teaching of reading as a language skill, Kenedy and Bolitho (1991: 74) designate some necessary reading skills: skimming, scanning, reference skills, relating diagram to text, predicting and sequencing the structure of a text and reading notices and instructions
However, students will never read efficiently unless they can adapt their reading speed and techniques to their aims when reading So the main conclusion to be drawn from all above mentioned is that students would waste time and fail to remember points of importance to them because they would absorb too much non-essential information if they are not helped to read appropriately Hence, to understand a text effectively, the readers should not select types of reading separately but in combination of purpose oriented strategies so that they can cope with more and more sophisticated texts and tasks, and deal with them efficiently: quickly, appropriately, and skillfully
Besides, we will have to consider the seven main factors connected with reading success They are: Physical condition, Speed of reading, Oral reading, Vocabulary , Reading comprehension , Ability to use references, Pattern of reading All these relate to the success for the students in developing the skills, habits, and attitudes that contribute to efficient reading Among these factors, whether students make use of effective reading strategies for their comprehension or not is chosen as a theme of this study as it is within the reach of students or students can be better trained for these purposes.
Reading strategies and the importance of strategy training
Nunan (1991) defined learning strategies as “a communicative procedure learners use in order to learn and use a language” According to Scarcella and Oxford (1992: 63) learning strategies are “ specific actions, behavior, steps, or techniques – such as seeking out conversation partner, or giving oneself encouragement to tackle a difficult language task – used by students to enhance their own learning” Language learning strategies have been classified by many scholars For example, Rubin classified them as language learning strategies, Communication Strategies and Social strategies Oxford (1990: 9) divided language strategies into two main classes, direct and indirect The former consists of memory, cognitive and compensation strategies while the latter includes metacognitive, affective and social strategies
According to Stern (1992:262-266), there are five main language learning strategies, these are Management and Planning Strategies, Cognitive Strategies, Communicative- Experiential Strategies, Interpersonal Strategies, Affective Strategies
O’Malley and Chamot’s framework has been the most useful and generally accepted
In their framework, there are three major types name as metacognitve, cognitive, social awareness
“Metacognitive” strategies are responsible for planning, and arranging learning, centering one’s learning, and self-monitoring
“Cognitive” strategies involve more direct manipulation of the learning material itself and are responsible for marking new words in a text, memorizing by sentences, taking notes, etc
“Socio/affective” strategies have to do with cooperation with other learners, relaxation, asking questions (see Table 2.1)
Table 2.1 Learning strategy definition and classification (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990:119)
Learning strategy definition and classification (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990:119) Learning strategies Definition
Planning advance organizers Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the material to be learned, often by skimming the text for the organizing principle
|Directed attention Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning task and to ignore irrelevant distracters
Functional planning Planning for and rehearing linguistic components necessary to carry out an upcoming task
Selective attention Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of input, often by scanning for key words, concepts and/ or linguistic markers
Self - management Understanding the conditions that help one learn and arranging for the presence of those conditions
Self - monitoring Checking one's comprehension during listening or reading checking the accuracy and/or appropriateness of one's oral or written production while it is taking place
Self - evaluation Checking the outcomes of one's own language against a standard after it has been completed
Resourcing Using target language reference materials such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, or textbooks Repetition
Imitating a language model, including overt practice and silent rehearsal
Classifying words, terminology or concepts according to the attributes or meaning
Deduction Applying rules to understand or produce the second language making up rules based on language analysis
Imaginary Using visual images (either mental or actual) to understand or remember new information
Auditory representation Planning back in one's mind the sound of a word, phrase or longer language sequence
Key word method Remember a new word in the second language by: (l) identifying a familiar word in the first language that sounds like or otherwise resembles the new word, and
(2) generating easily recalled images of some relationship with the first language homonym and the new word in the second language
Elaboration Relating new information to prior knowledge, relating different parts of new information to each other, or making meaningful personal associations with the new information
Transfer Using previous linguistic knowledge or prior skills to assist comprehension or production
Inferencing Using available information to guess meaning of new items, predict outcomes or fill in missing information
Notetaking Writing down key words or concepts in abbreviated verbal, graphic or numerical form while listening or reading summarizing Making a mental, oral or written summary of new information gained through listening or reading
Recombination Constructing a meaningful sentence or larger language by combining known elements in a new way
Translation Using the first language as a base for understanding and/or producing the second language
Question for clarification Eliciting from a teacher or peer additional explanations, rephrasing, examples or verification
Cooperation Working together with one or more peers to solve a problem, pool information, check a learning task, model a language activity, or get feedback on oral or written performance
Self – talk Reducing anxiety by using mental techniques that make one feel competent to do the learning task
2.3.2 The importance of strategy training
Training is a key component on the adoption of a new system and the efficient and effective use by the end users Just think of all the ‘shelf-ware’ and wasted money because nobody knew how to use the software Also think of all the times that users have complained that the tool does not work, yet the real cause is inadequate training To assist in this a training strategy must be developed
A training strategy is basically an explanation of the process that will be used to provide training Below are some of the things to consider when creating a training strategy
+ Identify your targets training needs in terms of their involvement with the software being deployed Ensure that you also include the value each target group will receive by taking training
+ Review the training needs and define and current gaps and any potential future gaps
+ Create the training action plan (for each target audience) This should also define the necessary systems that are required to deliver training, and also define the training delivery mechanisms
+ Define how the training content will be created
+ Define how the training will be monitored
+ Define how the training will be assessed + Define the schedule training revisions.
The teacher’s role in strategy training
The language teacher aiming at training his students in using language learning strategies should learn about the students, their interests, motivations, and learning styles
The teacher can learn what language learning strategies students already appear to be using, observing their behavior in class Do they ask for clarification, verification or correction?
Do they cooperate with their peers or seem to have much contact outside of class with proficient foreign language users? Besides observing their behavior in class, the teacher can prepare a short questionnaire so that students can fill in at the beginning of a course to describe themselves and their language learning Thus, the teacher can learn the purpose of their learning a language, their favorite / least favorite kinds of class activities, and the reason why they learn a language The teacher can have adequate knowledge about the students, their goals, motivations, language learning strategies, and their understanding of the course to be taught (Lessard-Clouston 1997:5) It is a fact that each learner within the same classroom may have different learning styles and varied awareness of the use of strategies The teacher cannot attribute importance to only one group and support the analytical approach or only give input by using the auditory mode The language teacher should, therefore, provide a wide range of learning strategies in order to meet the needs and expectations of his students possessing different learning styles, motivations, strategy preferences, etc Therefore, it can be stated that the most important teacher role in foreign language teaching is the provision of a range of tasks to match varied learning styles (Hall 1997:4)
In addition to the students, the language teacher should also analyze his textbook to see whether the textbook already includes language learning strategies or language learning strategies training The language teacher should look for new texts or other teaching materials if language learning strategies are not already included within his materials
The language teacher should also study his own teaching method and overall classroom style Analyzing his lesson plans, the language teacher can determine whether his lesson plans give learners chance to use a variety of learning styles and strategies or not
The teacher can see whether his teaching allows learners to approach the task at hand in different ways or not The language teacher can also be aware of whether his strategy training is implicit, explicit, or both It should be emphasized that questioning himself about what he plans to do before each lesson and evaluating his lesson plan after the lesson in terms of strategy training, the teacher can become better prepared to focus on language learning strategies and strategy training during the process of his teaching (Lessard- Clouston 1997:5)
The review of literature above points to the need to investigate the awareness and possible use of reading strategies so that improvement could be done that is the aim of the current study which seeks answers to the three research questions:
1 What are the levels of awareness and use of English reading comprehension strategies of Vietnamese 11 th grade students?
2 Do the good readers (11 th grade students) have different awareness and use of reading strategies from the medium and weak ones?
3 What can be done to help Vietnamese grade 11 th poor readers to improve their reading comprehension level?
METHODOLOGY
Participants and settings of the study
The research was carried out at Yen Vien high school with the participation of 318
11 th form students, aged 16, both males and females To students, English is a compulsory subject in the schedule the English The classification of good readers, weak readers and average or medium readers was based on their English final results and their marks in second term examination with the assumption that the tests of English are both valid and reliable Good readers were the ones who got above 7, bad readers were the ones who got below 5 and the medium readers are the ones who got their marks from 5 to 7
The present study was conducted from early April to mid June 2011 when they were in the second semester of the school year Up to the time of the study, they have been studying English at Yen Vien high school for nearly two years and all of them have learned English for 6 or 7 years.
Instruments of data collection
To obtain data for the study, two different instruments were employed: a survey questionnaire and interview a The questionnaire
The questionnaire was designed with two main parts Part one asked about the students’ attitude towards the importance of reading skill (question 1) and the factors affecting this skill (question 2) Part two was about their reading strategies b The interview
Besides questionnaires, interviews are regarded as a useful tool for collecting data in second language acquisition research and they are proved to be a very effective instrument for data collection in strategies study Twelve students were chosen randomly from these three groups for more in-depth data which mainly focus on their awareness and possible use of strategies including metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies
The reason why I used multiple approaches to data collection is that different method of data collection procedures may lead to different conclusions about their awareness of reading strategies Individual structured interviews were used to supplement the data collected from survey questionnaires Interviews were conducted in Vietnamese with three different groups of good, medium and weak readers in order to know the level of awareness and use of reading strategies and identify differences among them These interviews have truly provided a lot of valuable information about the reading habits of the subjects
However, this process took me a lot of time and effort to complete Another disadvantage of interviews is it they may introduce elements of subjectivity and personal bias, and rapport may cause interviewees to respond in a certain way to please the interviewer To avoid these problems I had to assure my students that their answers did not affect the way I judged them so that they should answer honestly I also told them that only true answers contributed to the success of my study
The collected data from questionnaire and interview were then analyzed both quantitatively (for descriptive statistics) and qualitatively (for tendency and patterns) according to the “interpretive model” proposed by Hatch (2002).
Summary
This chapter reported the methodology employed for the study in terms of collection methods, participants, data collection procedures Description of participants and settings of the study was given The data collection instruments including questionnaires and interviews were also presented.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Results
The questionnaire that was administered to three hundred and eighteen 11 th grade English learners including 68 good ones, 200 medium ones and 50 bad ones (respectively the school result of English reported at the end of the school year 2010-2011) There were
22 questions, of them, the first two questions asked about students' personal opinions on the importance of reading comprehension, their ideas of some factors affecting reading comprehension The rest of 20 questions investigated their reading strategies
3.1.1.1 Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension Question 1 asks the participants how important reading comprehension is to their purpose for English learning by circling the most suitable option
A Not important at all B Not important
C A little important D Important E Very important Table 3.1 presents the different answers of the importance of reading comprehension among these three groups to the first question
Table 3.1 Analysis of questionnaires: Question 1 The importance of reading comprehension
Im Un Im Un Im Un
As can be seen in table 3.1, there was a significant difference among the good readers', medium readers’ and weak readers' answers to the first question of the importance of English reading comprehension Most 11 grade students at Yen Vien high school including good, medium ones think that reading comprehension important They were aware of the benefits of learning English The data about the importance of reading comprehension showed that 91.18% of the participants in good group and 86.50 % of the participants in average ones learn reading skill purposely For weak students, 26% students like English and they know that English is really important for them However, 74.00 % of weak students don’t know what they learn English for This gap really made me worried Almost all of participants thought that reading comprehension was important to their purpose of English learning The number of students who didn’t know that reading skill is important in these three groups, they didn’t pay attention to improving their reading efficiency or in other words they learned English without motivation Students having this attitude towards reading skill especially the weak ones must be taken into consideration
Therefore, it is the teachers’ responsibility to change their attitudes and draw their attentions to this skill during their lesson Motivation and interest appear to be keys to any learning, especially to a foreign language It is easy to assume that without the strong motivation of the students, reading lesson would become boring and inefficient Teachers should vary pre-reading techniques and use them appropriate and flexibly such as using visual aids, using brainstorming web and giving pre-reading questions and so on so that they can make their lessons more attractive to weak learners and the others
3.1.1 2 Readers’ factors affecting reading comprehension
Question 2a asks the 11 th form student if they are aware of reading strategies for effective reading comprehension
Analysis of questionnaires: Question 2a Factors contributing to good reading comprehension
Looking at the chart, we can find out that poor readers are not as much aware of reading strategies as the good and the medium ones 73.58% of good readers used reading strategies while reading meanwhile only 10% of poor readers paid attention to reading strategies Only nearly half of the medium students do not concentrate on reading strategies This can inferred that English reading strategies are not much used by 11 th grade students at Yen Vien high school
Question 2b asks the 11 th form student to indicate the importance of the following factors to reading comprehension by circling the most suitable option
B have a good knowledge of English grammar
C have a good knowledge of the reading topic
Table 3.2 Analysis of questionnaires: Question 2b Factors contributing to good reading comprehension
Im Un Im Un Im Un
This table was illustrated in the following chart below
Im Un Im Un Im Un
Table 3.2 presents the results of good readers and bad readers' answers to the second question in the questionnaire
As clearly shown in the table, there was no significant difference among responses given by good, medium and weak readers to question 2b A The good learners’ response to the importance of vocabulary totaled 89.71% (61/68), the average learners’ response accounted to 99% (188/200) and 90% (45/50) was the percentage of the weak group The greater percentage of participants of these three groups thought that a large English vocabulary was important to reading comprehension Vocabulary, actually, is a language component that plays an important role in deciding a learner’s language proficiency It is central to language because it is considered as the basic building block of language, the unit of meaning from which larger structures such as sentences, paragraphs and the whole text are formed For methodologists, vocabulary is considered as the strong foundation for learners to build up their communicative castles Concerning the significance of vocabulary, Wilkin (1972: 110) stated that “vocabulary is one of the three dimensions of a language Without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.”
I am very excited at the figure collected in the survey However, it will not be an advantage if learners pay too much attention on the meaning of words without concerning other factors
For question 2b.B, students’ response on the importance of grammar was considered As can be seen from the chart, medium students had the largest percentage of students who were in favor of having a good grammar in reading comprehension ( 89% ), There was a slight fall in the number of weak students who considered grammar important (84%) While weak and medium readers were at nearly the same, those of good readers were a little varied 76% of them thought that grammar was important to their good reading comprehension In all, less students denied the importance of grammar when they did reading comprehension This trend was understandable At high schools, tests, examinations and event homework checking are grammar based Teachers and students focused on it most of the time However, in reading comprehension, paying too much attention to grammar may not lead to success
For question 2b.C, attitudes of readers towards the importance of having a good knowledge of English grammar was measured From the chart, the differences between the responses given by the good and medium groups was small 70.59 percentage of good students and 72.50 percentage of medium cared for the content of their reading lessons but only 34 percentage of weak readers understand the reading topics when doing reading test
Therefore, both good readers and medium readers thought that identifying the content of the reading was necessary On the other hand, only 34 % of the weak students agreed on the importance and 66% of them didn’t think the content of the reading was important
This gap may be a barrier banning the weak students have better marks and made them less successful
As opposed to the results of the above questions, the last question (2b.D) concerning with the importance of reading strategies on reading comprehension showed a significant difference among the three groups 86.76% of good readers, 56.50% of medium readers and 60% of weak ones were in favor of the importance of reading strategies on reading comprehension The good readers claimed that effective reading strategies were important whereas nearly half of the bad and medium readers thought they were not important to reading comprehension
The next 20 questions were about the subjects' reading strategies These strategies were classified into metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies on the basis of O'Malley and Chamot's framework (1990) The following analysis utilized this framework in order to clarify the differences and similarities in the reading strategies employed by three different groups
The first part deals with the analysis of 11 th form learners’ metacognitive reading strategies As discussed in the previous chapter, the metacognitive reading strategies was categorized into three subtypes including advance organizers, directed attention and selective attention and there were two questions for each subtype
I preview the headings and illustrations to get the main idea of the text before reading
To save time I read the text once or twice and I scan for key words or concepts that are closely related to the questions in order to answer them at the same time
Before reading, I read the comprehension questions to decide important information that should be noted
I choose reading strategies according to your reading purposes
I skim through the text to understand main ideas before focusing on details
I skip the words that are not essential for comprehending the texts while reading
I scan for key words or concepts that are closely to the questions so that I can answer them
I check if my answers to the questions are correct or wrong after reading
Table 3 3 Analysis of questionnaires : Metacognitive reading strategies [%, number reported in (n)]
Regular Irregular Regular Irregular Regular Irregular
Regular-Regularly used; Irregular-Irregularly used
As shown in the table, there were some significant differences in the answers given by good readers and poor readers concerning the use of metacognitive reading strategies For advance organizers, the first subtype of metacognitive reading strategies, there were two questions, question 3 and 8 The response by good readers, weak readers and medium ones varied 58.82 % of good students find it important to preview the headings and illustrations to get the main idea of the text before reading, while that of weak readers was 40.00% and that of medium was 46.00% This indicated that the good readers’ mean response was significantly different from that of bad and medium readers More good readers previewed the heading illustrations to get the main ideas of the text before reading than the bad readers However, these figure pointed out that nearly half of participants in the survey students were not aware of this strategy Surprisingly, the next question in advance organizers was question 8, there was a difference between the good readers and weak ones Only 26.47 % of good learners used this strategy, but the figure reported for weak ones differed, it was 36% (9% higher than the good learners were) Therefore, not many of the 318 participants in the survey skimmed through the text to understand the main ideas before focusing on details
Interviews
In this study, structured interviews were individually conducted with the good , medium and weak readers right after the questionnaire had finished There were only four questions in these interviews which focused on the subjects' reading habits and general problems in reading The information drawn from these interview was available It helped clarify the differences among the good, medium and the weak ones in terms of strategies and motivation
The first question was "Do you like reading English? Why or why not? " The responses given by them were very different from each other
Table 3.6 below summarized their answers Table 3.6 Analysis of interviews : Question 1 Question Good readers (8)
Do you like English texts?
Why or why not? - Yes: gained interesting and useful information, learned more
- No: very boring, took a lot of time, did not understand as they were difficult, were not equipped reading strategies…
Obviously, there were some differences in the responses provided by three groups of readers as indicated in the table Almost all the good readers (7/8) said they like reading English texts whereas only 3 out of 7 weak readers highly appreciated the reading
The students who enjoyed reading said that they gained interest as reading provided them interesting and helpful knowledge Reading helped them enrich their vocabulary The bad readers, however, explained that they found reading very boring as it took them a lot of time and they did not understand the text The percentage of students who liked or disliked the reading texts was illustrated more clearly in the following three charts below
Question 2 of the interview was “How do you ever care for reading strategies?”
And four options were given as much, not very much, hardly ever, never
Table 3.7 Analysis of interviews : Question 2 Readers How do you care for reading strategies?
As shown in table 3.7, and clearly illustrated in the chart, 62.% of the good readers, 33.3% of medium readers cared much for reading strategies when reading English texts whereas 0% of the ineffective readers read had the same attitude The same number of good readers and weak readers did not
Much Not very much Hardly never Never so hs
Number of students care much for reading strategies but that of medium readers totaled to 33.3% 60.00% of weak readers hardly or never cared for reading strategies
The third question was "What is the biggest problem for you in comprehending English tests?”
Table 3.8: Analysis of interviews: Question 3
“What is the biggest problem for you in comprehending English tests?
Good readers 7/8 1/8 - A lot of new words
Weak readers 5/5 3/5 - So many new words
- Different word meanings in different contexts
The answers given also showed a difference among the good, medium and bad readers
As shown in table 4.8, the answers given by the good, medium and weak readers to questions 3 were quite the same Almost all the readers from these three groups claimed that vocabulary was the biggest problem for them in comprehending an English text
They explained that there were many new words in reading texts that they did not know and this greatly affected their reading comprehension Also, the polysemy of English words caused a lot of difficulties for them to understand the texts
For the bad readers, apart from the problem of limited vocabulary, they found grammar structures in English texts very complicated They said that sometimes they did not understand some English sentences as the grammar structures were new to them
Even when they knew the meanings of all the words in those sentences, they still couldn’t comprehend their implications
The charts beside clearly indicated that most of students in these three groups have problems with vocabulary Some possible explanation considered by the researcher is that they had limited vocabulary and, are too independent on teachers, peers or dictionaries New words affected the students’ process of reading
Grammar was found to be a less challenge than vocabulary but it did not mean that grammar is easy
Teachers should motivate students to enrich their vocabulary by any means for instance, familiarizing the students with extensive reading is a way to fuel their enthusiasm for learning English
It can enrich their vocabulary, strengthen their understanding and consolidate their grammar as well
Besides, teachers’ using word games or word list can enrich students’ vocabulary
Summaries of main findings
In this part, the summary of the main findings gained from the data collection instruments was presented
Overall, questionnaire data show that students may not be aware of theoretical
“names” of effective reading strategies They, however, did use many strategies when reading in English
Generally, based on the analysis of the questionnaire, there were several significant differences found in the reading strategies employed by good and bad readers
Overall, the good readers used the metacognitive and cognitive strategies more frequently than the bad readers However, the frequency of social strategy used by the there groups was quite the same
Regarding the metacognitive strategies including advance organizers, directed attention, selective attention and self-evaluation in the results proved that good readers, medium readers significantly differed from the bad ones in the frequency of strategy use
They often previewed the headings and illustrations to guess the main ideas of the text before reading; read the questions to decide important information that should be noted; chose reading strategies according to their reading purposes; and skipped inessential words and checked their answers In contrast, the bad only sometimes or rarely employed those strategies However, they did not significantly differed in terms of the sub-type of advance organizers More specifically, they skim through the text to understand main ideas with the same frequency
Concerning the cognitive strategies, some significant differences between the two groups of readers were also determined in the data analysis of questionnaires The good readers significantly differed from the bad ones in the frequency grouping, inferencing, notetaking, summarizing elaboration and rereading strategy use While the good readers often determined the word functions in a sentence while reading, guessed meanings of new words in contexts, noted down key words, mentally summarized in ideas of the texts after reading, related their knowledge to the new information and reread the difficult parts, the bad ones sometimes or rarely did so Nevertheless, the good and the bad readers did not differ in some other cognitive strategies According to the questionnaire analysis, they employed resourcing transfer, elaboration and translation strategies with the same frequency
In contrast to the above mentioned metacognitive and cognitive strategies, the social/ affective strategy data were reported with no significant difference in the strategy frequency use by the two groups of readers Both groups sometimes asked the teacher or friends to explain difficult parts in the reading text and rarely worked together with their classmates or friends to solve a problem in the reading text
3.3.2 Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension
Two data collection instruments including questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data on the students’ attitudes to reading comprehension The findings of data analysis from these two instruments can be summarized as follows
Concerning the role of reading comprehension, both good and bad readers thought that reading comprehension was important to their purpose for English learning They claimed that a large English vocabulary was a very important factor to comprehension and English grammar and knowledge of the reading topic were only a little of important
All these three groups of readers thought that vocabulary was the major obstacle for them in comprehending an English text Their limited vocabulary as well as the polysemy of English words caused a lot of difficulties during their reading process For the bad readers apart from the vocabulary problem, they found English grammar structures in reading texts very complicated Therefore, they could not fully understand some
English texts though they knew the meaning of all the words This is also a big challenge for them reading comprehension
Besides, the good readers and medium ones had better motivations for English reading as most of them liked reading English texts They explained that they could gain useful and interesting information about the world and improve their vocabulary through reading In contrast, weak readers were unmotivated for reading as they found it boring It was because could not comprehend the reading text due to their limited English vocabulary.
Discussion of main findings
The findings of the present study suggested that the two groups of readers significantly differed in the frequency of metacognitive and cognitive strategy use
Specifically, the good readers employed these strategies more often than the bad ones
Basically, the outcome of the present study partly confirmed the findings of the previous studies (see chapter 2) The good readers tended to combine both top-down and bottom- up strategies while the bad readers mostly based on the bottom-up ones The good readers often:
previewed the headings, illustrations and the text to guess the main idea of the text before reading;
read questions to know what to focus while reading;
determined suitable strategies according to their reading purposes;
determined the functions of words;
guessed meanings of new words in content
related their prior knowledge to the new information;
wrote down key words while reading;
reread difficult parts for better comprehension;
mentally summarized main ideas and checked their answers after reading
In contrast, the weak and medium readers sometimes or rarely employed these strategies and mainly focused on the bottom-up strategies During the reading process, the ineffective readers tried to translate the text into Vietnamese but lost the general meaning of the text This abuse of the translation strategy by the weak readers might slow down their reading speed and badly affect their reading comprehension
Another interesting point in the present study is that there were more significant differences found in the readers' use of metacognitive strategies than that of cognitive ones The effective readers used most of metacognitive strategies with a significantly higher frequency than the ineffective ones This finding indicated that these strategies considerably influenced the readers' reading comprehension In addition, results of questionnaires showed some kind of dissimilarity in the subtypes of metacognitive and cognitive strategies The questionnaire result analysis showed that the good and bad readers employed the metacognitive strategies namely advance organizers and selective attention with the same frequency
Concerning the cognitive strategies, the questionnaire analysis proved that used the elaboration strategy with the same frequency (scaled as sometimes) The analysis of another cognitive strategy (translation) also came up rather contrasting outcomes While the questionnaire analysis confirmed that the medium and bad readers translated the text while reading with the same frequency
The findings of readers' attitudes to reading comprehension also showed some interesting points Both medium and weak readers were not aware of the importance of reading comprehension Another noticeable difference was the way these groups of readers considered reading strategies very important to reading comprehension, the bad ones regarded them as only a little important was the way the two groups of readers evaluated the importance of effective reading strategies While the good readers considered reading strategies very important to reading comprehension, the bad ones regarded them as only a little important This revealed that the good readers understood the role of reading strategies and it could be a reason why they used these strategies more frequently than the bad ones All the above factors might considerably affect the readers' reading comprehension in particular and their reading proficiency in general.
CONCLUSION
Summary of main findings
Two research questions, as stated in the Introduction chapter, were addressed in the study:
1) What are the levels of awareness and use of English reading comprehension strategies of Vietnamese 11 th grade students?
2) Do the good readers (11 th grade students) have different awareness and use of reading strategies from the medium and weak ones?
3) What can be done to help Vietnamese grade 11 th poor readers to improve their reading comprehension level?
The main findings can be summarized as followed
Based on the analysis of data from questionnaires and interview, it is conducted that good and medium readers used the same range of reading including metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies
Concerning the metacognitive strategies, the readers used three namely advance organizers, directed attention, selective attention strategies The self-evaluation was not an on-line strategy was not concerned This could be due to the fact that the readers had to do the reading tasks quickly and had no time for evaluating the task they had done
Regarding the cognitive strategies, the readers employed five strategies including resourcing, elaboration, inferencing, translation and summarizing in questionnaires Some other strategies that were found in questionnaire but not available in interview
In summary, the strategies used by the readers in the questionnaires and interview categorized into metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective which consisted of many different subtypes However, the frequencies of use by the two groups were different, which might considerably affect their reading proficiency
Based on the analysis of data elicited from the questionnaires in the previous chapter, the study has come to a conclusion that there are some significant differences in the strategies use among the good, medium and poor readers These differences were shown in the frequency of metacognitive and cognitive strategies used by the three groups of readers
In terms of metacogritive strategies, significant differences in the frequency of strategy use by the readers were found in questionnaires Specifically, the good and medium readers employed the metacognitive strategies of advance organizers, directed attention and selective attention with different frequencies While the good readers often previewed the headings and illustrations to get the main idea of the text before reading; read the questions to decide important information that should be noted; chose reading strategies according to their reading purposes; skipped inessential words; scanned for key words that were closely related to the questions in order to answer them, the bad readers only sometimes or rarely used those strategies
Some significant differences in the frequency of cognitive strategy use between the groups were also reported The good readers significantly differed from the weaker ones in the frequency of grouping, inferencing, notetaking, summarizing, elaboration and rereading strategies use While the good readers often determined the word functions in a sentence while reading, guessed meanings of new words in contexts, noted down key words, mentally summarized main ideas of the texts after reading, related their knowledge to the new information and reread the difficult parts, the bad ones sometimes or rarely did so In contrast, the bad readers often employed the translation strategy during the reading process They tried to translate every word they read but still failed to have a full comprehension of the text
Regarding research question 3, the subjects' judgments of the important reading comprehension, the factors affecting reading comprehension, their motivation, habits and problems were examined in the study In general, the students' opinions were quite similar except for their reading motivation, reading habits and their views on reading strategies
The good readers had better motivation for reading, read English texts more frequently than the bad ones and particularly, they highly evaluated the role of reading strategies in reading comprehension These factors are important ones that might help improve the students’ reading proficiency and their use of reading strategies
In conclusion, the study has shown that the good or effective, medium and bad or ineffective readers significantly differed from each other in the frequency of strategy use The effective readers tended to use the metacognitive and cognitive strategies much more frequently than the ineffective ones This finding has confirmed and supplemented outcomes of other studies on reading strategies It also implies that the use of metacognitive and cognitive strategies might serve for a better reading comprehension and lead to a higher reading proficiency Such other factors as motivation, reading habits and views on reading strategies are also important ones that might affect the students' proficiency.
Implications of the study
The study has made some contributions to the learning and teaching of reading English at Yen Vien high school It has attempted to categorize the learners' reading strategies based on O'Malley and Chamot's framework (1990) that been adapted to fit the specific data of the study This categorization scheme can be applied to other studies on reading strategies In addition, the study has found out the differences in strategies used by the good and bad readers Based on the findings, some recommendations can be made to the teachers as follows:
As shown in the study, the significant difference between the three groups of readers is that the effective readers used metacognitive and cognitive strategies much more frequently than the ineffective ones This indicated that these reading strategies can be considered one of the most important factors that affect the students' reading proficiency Therefore, it is necessary for a teacher to be aware of this difference and think of ways to improve his/ her students’ reading proficiency by providing them instruction on reading strategies Before conducting such a strategy-based instruction, the teacher should examine the students' strategies to identify what gaps they have in their strategies
Then, a number of metacognitive and cognitive strategies can be taught to students to develop their reading comprehension These strategies may include advance organizers (i.e previewing the title, text and illustrations), selective attention (i.e scanning for specific information), evaluation of one's own comprehension, elaboration of prior knowledge, making inferences about meanings of new words, taking notes, producing oral or written summary and so on
In addition, the teacher can also consult other studies on the training of reading strategies Perhaps, one of the most effective strategy-based instruction models to date that the teacher can refer to is the CALLA (Learning strategies Taught in The cognitive Language Learning Approach) Model developed by O'Malley and Chamot (1990) This model is applicable to developing four macro language skills for limited English efficient students In their book, Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition, O’Malley and Chamot (1990) described different steps and procedures of strategy-based instructions on in their own studies (the GALLA Model) as well as in other researchers' such as Rubin and Thompson (1982), Ellis and Sinclair (1989), Hosenfeld et al (1981)
These are useful and valuable reference materials that the teacher can make use of in order to enhance his students' reading proficiency
While the study provides some implications for teachers and researchers in general, it is not free from limitations These limitations are found in the number of participants and the data collection instruments Due to limited time, only two data collection instruments including questionnaires, and interviews were used The data from interview may be insufficient to ensure the reliability of the study findings as the number of participants was small
Finally, this study was carried out within the area of Yen Vien High School so the mentioned teaching methods may not be suitable to apply to other high schools because of learners' differences in language proficiency and other social constraints
As the present study only investigated the awareness and use of 11 th form students’ reading strategies, it would be useful if further research considers examining the awareness and use of reading strategies of 10 th form and 12 th form students to see whether there is any dissimilarity among those students’ reading strategies
Besides, it would be of greater value if further studies investigate the impacts of reading strategies – based instruction on English learners’ reading proficiency Based on the findings of this study, researcher may conduct instruction on metacognitive and cognitive reading strategies and determine whether such explicit instruction would improve students’ reading comprehension
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PHIẾU ĐIỀU TRA NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHẬN THỨC CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 11
Tôi tên là: HOÀNG THỊ OANH – giáo viên trường THPT Yên Viên, đang tiến hành nghiên cứu về nhận thức của học sinh lớp 11 về chiến lược học đọc hiểu môn Anh văn
Bảng câu hỏi dưới đây nhằm phục vụ đề tài nghiên cứu của tôi nói trên Đây không phải là một bài kiểm tra nên không có ý kiến nào là đúng hoặc sai Các ý kiến mà các em cung cấp rất quan trọng đối với công trình nghiên cứu này và sẽ được tuyệt đối giữ kín Các dữ liệu điều tra sẽ chỉ được sử dụng cho việc nghiên cứu, không vì mục đích nào khác
Em hãy lựa chọn câu trả lời phù hợp cách học của mình
Xin chân thành cảm ơn sự hợp tác của các em!
1 Theo em đọc hiểu quan trọng như thế nào đối với mục đích học tiếng Anh của mình
A hoàn toàn không quan trọng D quan trọng
B không quan trọng E rất quan trọng
C hơi quan trọng 2.a Em có biết những cách để đọc hiểu tiếng Anh hiệu quả không? A Có B Không Nếu có, em hãy nêu cụ thể những cách đó bằng cách viết vào khoảng trống dưới đây:
2.b Theo em, để đọc hiếu tốt, điều nào sau đây là quan trọng đối với em (em hãy đánh dấu tích vào phương án em cho là đúng với bản thân mình) rất quan trọng quan trọng hơi quan trọng không quan trọng hoàn toàn không quan trọng
A Có vốn từ tiếng Anh rộng
B Nắm vững ngữ phápTiếng Anh
C Có kiến thức tốt về nội dung bài đọc
D Có phương pháp đọc hiệu quả
Phần II: Em hãy đánh dấu vào phương án nào mà em cho là đúng với cách em sử dụng khi đọc
3 Khi bắt đầu đọc một bài đọc Tiếng Anh, em nhìn vào tiêu đề của bài và xem tranh ảnh minh hoạ kèm theo bài đọc dể đoán trước nội dung bài đọc
4 Khi làm một bài đọc hiểu Tiếng Anh, để tiết kiệm thời gian, em đọc nội dung bài đọc một đến hai lần Em vừa đọc câu hỏi vừa quét mắt tìm đáp án trả lời câu hỏi trong bài
5 Trước khi đọc em đọc câu hỏi kèm theo bài đọc để xác định những thông tin quan trọng
6 Em chọn cách đọc tuỳ ý tuỳ theo mục đích đọc
7 Trong khi đọc, em liên hệ kiến thức đã có của mình với chủ đề mà em đang đọc
8 Khi bắt đầu đọc em đọc toàn bài để hiểu những thông tin khái quát của bài trước khi tập trung vào thông tin chi tiết
9 Khi đọc em có chú ý tìm câu chủ đề của đoạn mà mình đang đọc hay không
10 Khi bắt đầu đọc, em tập trung vừa đọc vừa cố tìm ra đáp án mình phải trả lời
11 Trong khi đọc, em dịch câu đọc ra tiếng Việt trước khi trả lời câu hỏi
12 Khi trả lời câu hỏi kèm trong bài đọc, em xem lướt bài đọc và chú ý tìm các thông tin liên quan đến câu hỏi để trả lời
13 Khi gặp từ em không biết nghĩa trong bài em dừng lại để tra từ hoặc hỏi bạn bè, thầy cô của mình
14 Khi gặp từ em không biết nghĩa trong bài em cố đoán nghĩa của từ dựa vào thông tin trong bài
15 Khi gặp từ em không biết nghĩa trong bài em cố đoán nghĩa của từ dựa vào hiếu biết của mình về ngữ pháp, từ vựng để hiểu nội dung khó