At the same time, reading comprehension is one of the necessary parts of examinations. Improving the reading ability is one of the top primary tasks. While many researchers had found that students lost many grades in reading comprehension. The reason that students lost so many grades in reading comprehension was not the small vocabulary and limited grammar knowledge, but not knowing how to use reading strategies to finish reading more quickly and accurately. So there must be some problems in teaching reading strategies. And cultivating students’ reading strategies is of great importance and also a rally big challenge for English teaching.
Having been an internship in Hangzhou No.15 Junior High School for three months, I observed grade nine students’ English learning and their text papers. And I found that the grades lost in reading comprehension occupied most. After talking with some students, I realized the reason students lost so many grades in reading comprehension was not the small vocabulary and limited grammar knowledge, but not knowing how to use reading strategies to finish reading more quickly and accurately. So there must be some problems in teaching reading strategies. And cultivating students’ reading strategies is of great importance and also a rally big challenge for English teaching.
As there are some problems and difficulties existing in English classroom teaching, some measures must be taken and some suggestions must be given to improve students’ reading comprehension ability. And some suggestions and strategies are give to teachers, through questionnaire research, so that they can cultivate students’ reading comprehension ability based on reading strategies in classroom English teaching. An example from the text will be presented to show how to teach reading strategies to cultivate students’ reading strategies in reading .
Thus, this research attempts to answer the following three questions:
Question One: What is the situation of reading strategies’ application by junior high school students in Hangzhou No.15 Middle School?
Question Two: What kinds of reading strategies are taught by teachers in English classroom teaching?
Question Three: How to cultivate students’ reading strategies ability in English classroom teaching?
And the thesis consists of five parts.
The first part is a general introduction to the study. It presents the background in reading strategies, the research questions, the purpose and the significance of this research, as well as the outline of the whole thesis.
The second part gives a literature review of some definitions of reading strategies and classification of reading strategies.
The third part shows the research design and methodology in reading classes in Hangzhou No.15 Middle School.
The fourth part shows the data analysis, the results of the research and a case study to give an example to show how to teach reading strategies in reading.
The last part gets to the conclusion and gives some suggestions and advice to the students and teachers for better understanding and using the reading strategies.
This research and the thesis will be the guidance and the reference for front-line English teachers. It would help teachers to cultivate students’ reading strategies in classroom teaching and foster students to use proper reading strategies in order to make them form the ability of applying the reading strategies into real practice. From this perspective, the research will play an important role on paving stones of the reading teaching in the middle school classroom. And also, I hope this thesis will arouse English teachers’ and learners’ care and attention towards reading strategies.
2. Literature Review
2.1The definition of reading strategies