Introduction
In
the present study, we investigated the reading strategies which ELT students generally
used while they read a text, and which strategies they needed to develop to understand
a text better and to continue their academic studies successfully.The
study aimed to find the answers to the following questions:
1.
Which cognitive reading strategies are used by the university students in their
academic studies?
2. What sort of cognitive reading strategies should be developed
by these students in order to continue their academic studies successfully and
to get the most out of a text they read?
Since the English-medium universities benefit from academic materials written
in English, English proficiency becomes an extremely important requirement for
the students. The students are expected to understand what they read regardless
of the subject matter they study. Therefore, reading skills are of significant
importance in such environments. However, according to Brumfit (1980, p. 3) reading
is seen as an extremely complex activity involving a combination of perceptual,
linguistic and cognitive abilities. As Carrell (1998, p.1) claims "second
language learners cannot perform at proficiency levels they must so as to succeed
without solid proficiency." Goodman (1998, p.2), on the other hand, defines
proficient readers as "efficient and effective" because he believes
that they can construct a meaning by means of assimilation, accommodation, and
they do not make much effort to achieve effectiveness. He further describes reading
as a psycholinguistic guessing game in which the reader reconstructs a message
that has been coded by a writer as a graphic display.
Metacognitive
Strategies in Reading
Reading strategies are divided into two major categories:
metacognitive and cognitive reading strategies. The strategies that function to
monitor or regulate cognitive strategies are called metacognitive strategies.
It involves thinking about the learning process, planning for learning, monitoring
of comprehension or production while it is taking place, and self-evaluation of
learning after the language activity is completed (Skehan, 1993, p.87). According
to Brown (1994, p.115), metacognitive strategies include "checking the outcome
of any attempt to solve a problem, planning one's text move, monitoring the effectiveness
of any attempted action, testing, revising, and evaluating one's strategies for
learning." In other words, metacognitive strategies are used to plan, monitor
and regulate the reading as it occurs.
Cognitive
Strategies in Reading
Williams and Burden state that cognitive strategies
are seen as mental processes directly concerned with the processing of information
in order to learn, that is for obtaining, storage, retrieval or use of information
(1997, p.148). They are more limited to specific learning tasks and involve more
direct manipulation of the learning material itself (Brown, 1994, p.115). In general,
studies in both L1 and L2 reading research provide a binary division of cognitive
strategies as bottom-up and top-down. Goodman refers to the bottom up model as
the "common sense notion" (1986, p.11). In this approach, reading is
meant to be a process of decoding; identifying letter, words, phrases, and then
sentences in order to get the meaning. On the other hand, top-down model advocates
"the selection of the fewest and most productive elements from a text so
as to make sense of it" (Lynch & Hudson,1991, p. 218) and views the reading
process as an active "psychological guessing game" (Carrell, 1998, p.2).
Top-down rejects the notion that identification of letters to form words, and
the derivation of meaning from these words is efficient reading. On the contrary,
it assumes that efficient reading requires the readers to make predictions and
hypothesis about the text content by relating the new information to their prior
knowledge and by using as few language clues as possible. It is further assumed
that the readers can check whether the hypothesis are correct or not by sampling
the text.
The top-down model is influenced by schema theory, which emphasizes the importance
of the reader's background knowledge in the reading process (Carrell, 1998, p.
4). According to this theory, so as to comprehend a text, readers make use of
both the text and their background knowledge. Therefore, interaction of the background
knowledge and the text is essential for efficient reading. Aebersold and Field
(Salataci, 1998, p.62), also state that while reading, a variety of processes
repeatedly occurs in readers' minds. Readers, with the help of top-down and bottom-up
strategies, use pre-reading information to make some predictions about the text.
Processing information is started at the sentence level. That is to say, they
focus on identification of the meaning and grammatical category of a word, sentence
syntax, and text details, etc. While processing information provided them by each
sentence, readers check to see how this information fits, again employing bottom-up
and top-down strategies such as background knowledge, prediction, getting the
gist of a text, skimming, scanning, etc.
METHOD
Participants
In
total 185 students, including 88 first- and 97 fourth-year students, comprised
the participants in the ELT Department in Ziya Gokalp Education Faculty at Dicle
University. However, only 23 of the students volunteered to join the think-aloud
component of the research.
Main
Study
Data collection procedures used in this study were:
I. The Questionnaire:
It consisted of two parts. The first part aimed to gather
background information,
whereas the second part was designed to investigate the participants' cognitive
reading strategy use while reading a text. In the second part, 25 Likert-type
items (Bezci, 1998) were used under the headings
of pre-reading, while-reading
and post-reading phase.
II. Think-aloud protocols (TAPs): In the think-aloud
sessions, participants were asked to think-aloud in front of a tape recorder as
they read an authentic text. The text was chosen after deliberately and carefully
considering the participants' curiosity and language competence. The text with
a few difficult grammatical and vocabulary items was thought to be appropriate
for this test. As Someren (1994, p. 36) notes, think-aloud works better when a
task is difficult so that students cannot solve all of it in an automated manner.
SPSS for Windows was used to analyze data. The questionnaire results were
analyzed quantitatively. Frequencies and percentages were calculated for the questionnaire
items. On the other hand, TAPs were analyzed qualitatively. First of all, the
cognitive reading strategies used by the participants were identified. Then, the
protocols were coded according to the strategy classification coding scheme. Frequency
and percentage calculations for both the questionnaires and the TAPs helped the
researcher to compare the self-reported data (questionnaires) with the actual
reading process (TAPs) in terms of cognitive reading strategy use.
RESULTS
Pre-
reading strategies
The questionnaire items in this part were related to
activating background knowledge and understanding what the text is mainly about.
The results of the pre-reading strategies sections are displayed in Table 1. As
shown in the table, both relating the title and illustration/pictures to the text
content are the strategies employed by more than half of the participants "always"
and "usually", for the 1st year subjects 69% and 69% and for the 4th
year ones 79.4% and 71.1%.As for skimming the text, "always" and "usually"
responses taken together make 47.1% for the 1st year and 48.5% for the 4th year
participants. In terms of reading the first line of each paragraph, the percentage
for "always" and "usually" responses is 31 for the 1st year
and 38.1 for the 4th year subjects. As indicated in the table, 58.6% of the 1st
year and 67% of the 4th year participants think about their own knowledge on topic
at always and usually level.
While-reading
strategies
Table 2 shows the data on the use of cognitive reading strategies
during the while-reading phase. The responses given to Question 6 and 7, which
are both related to the dictionary use, indicate that 54.6% of the 1st year subjects
chose "always" and "usually" and 60.8% of the 4th year subjects
"usually" and "sometimes" read without looking up every unknown
word in the dictionary (Que.6), and if the word seems important, then, 65.5 of
the 1st year and 71% of the 4th year participants "always" and "usually"
use a dictionary. As for contextual guessing, 73.5% of the 1st year and 64.9%
of the 4th year students "always" and "usually" use the context
to guess the meaning of a word. On the other hand, responses given to guessing
the meaning of a word from a grammatical category show that 43.6% of the 1st year
and 52.6% of the 4th year participants use this strategy at "always"
and "usually" level. For the tenth question, the responses of the 1st
year subjects are 48.9% and the 4th year ones are 62.8% at the "always"
and "usually" level.
As for Question 11, the 1st year subjects state that they "always" (26.7%)
and "usually" (36.0) skip some unknown words whereas the 4th year ones
say that they "usually" (43.2%) and "sometimes" (40.0%) use
this strategy. In responses given to rereading a sentence 87.5% of the 1st year
and 87.6% of the 4th year participants "always" and "usually"
use it. For the thirteenth question, the 1st year participants (83.9%) and the
4th year ones (74.2) "always" and "usually" consider other
sentences in the paragraph to figure out the meaning of a sentence. 70.5 of the
1st year students and 78.4 of the 4th year ones "always" and "usually"
read the sentences without translating word-for-word.
IV. Table 2
Cognitive Strategy Use of the Students for the While-reading Phase N (=185)
Que
1-12 (see PDF file)
Que
13-20 (see PDF file)
Besides,
76.1% of the 1st year and 74.2% of the 4th year participants "always"
and "usually" have a picture of the events in the text in mind. On the
other hand, 46.5% of the 1st year and 56.3% of the 4th year ones "rarely"
and "never" think aloud during reading. 51 (58.6%) of the 1st year subjects
and 70(72.2%) of the 4th year ones state that they "usually" and "sometimes"
pay attention to the words or phrases that show how the text is organized. 56.8%
of the 1st year and 58.7% of the 4th year participants take notes on the important
points of the text at "always" and "usually" level. 62of the
1st year participants (71.2%) and 67 of the 4th year ones (69.1%) "usually"
and "sometimes" make guesses about what will come next based on the
information already given in the text. For relating the text to background knowledge
about the topic to remember important information 66.4% of the 1st year and 68%
of the 4th year subjects state that they "usually" and "sometimes"
use this strategy.
Post-reading
strategies
This part of the questionnaire was designed to understand what
cognitive reading strategies the students were using during the post-reading phase,
and the results of this part are shown in Table 3. 59.8% of the 1st year and 58.7%
of the 4th year subjects "usually" and "sometimes" classify
the words according to their meaning whereas 59.3% of the 1st year and 68% of
the 4th year subjects "sometimes" and "rarely" classify the
words according to their grammatical categories. 58 (66.7%) of the 1st year and
68 (70.1%) of the 4th year participants "always" and "usually"
summarize the main ideas. 76.8% of the 1st year and 71.1% of the 4th year subjects
"always" and "usually" re-read the text to remedy comprehension
failures. As for the final strategy, 65.5% of the 1st year and 67% of the 4th
year participants "always" and "usually" reread the text to
remember important points.
Table
3 (see PDF file)
The
results of the Think-Aloud Protocols (TAPs)
Analysis of the TAPs provides
insights on the cognitive strategy use of the participants during the actual reading
process. Because of the fact that frequency of the strategy changes for different
strategies, frequencies and percentages are determined for each strategy type
used by the participants during the actual reading process. The frequencies and
percentages for each strategy are presented in the following table.
As seen in Table 4, the 1st year participants are observed to employ only three
strategies identified in this category. Reading an interesting text, paying attention
to the difficulty level of the text, reading the first line of each paragraph,
and considering the background knowledge are not used by any of the 1st year participants.
As for the 4th year students, they also do not use the same strategies except
for considering the background knowledge. The 1st year students are observed to
employ a little more strategic approach before starting to read the text than
the 4th year students (19% > 18%).
As for the while-reading strategies, the most preferred are not using a
dictionary, guessing the meaning of a word from the context, skipping words, translating,
and thinking-aloud by both class students. The second most commonly used strategy
for the 4th year students is rereading a sentence and, for the 1st year students
assimilating the text with background knowledge. None of the 1st year students
has been observed to employ the post-reading strategies, i.e. classifying
words according to their meanings, classifying the words according to their grammatical
category, summarizing the main ideas, re-reading a text to remedy comprehension
failures, and rereading the text to remember important information. As for the
4th year students, in parallel with the 1st year ones, none of the post-reading
strategies, except for classifying words according to their meanings, are
used.
Table
4 (see PDF file)
Analysis
and Discussion
When the results of the questionnaires and the Think-Aloud
Protocols (TAPs) were compared according to the 1st and the 4th year students,
the results indicated that there were both similarities and differences among
the students about the cognitive strategy use.
Pre-reading
strategies
One strategy of this type is using the title to anticipate the
text content. Similarly, relating the pictures/illustrations to the text content
allows the readers to have an idea about what the text is about (Bezci, 1998,
p.19). Despite the fact that both years students stated that they have perceived
the importance of these strategies on the questionnaires, it was only realized
for using the title, not for using the pictures/illustrations during the TAPs.
Another strategy which helps the readers to understand what the text is about
and to activate their schemata is skimming the text to get the gist (Anderson,
1991, p.462; Barnett, 1988, p.153). It was seen that, on the questionnaire, participants
from both years stated that they used it, whereas the 4th year ones inefficiently
employed it during the TAPs. As for reading the first line of each paragraph,
an alternative way of skimming, it was not used by any subjects in both classes
during the TAPs, which showed consistency with the questionnaire results. Besides,
thinking about the previous knowledge on the topic of the text was claimed to
be used by the participants but, in practice, it was not used by any of the 1st
year and only one of the 4th year subjects. It might be said that while they stated
that they always or usually used these pre- reading strategies, the realization
percentage of these strategies were either too low or zero for the inefficiently
used ones. The reason for the participants' using some of these strategies ineffectively
might be that they do not want to spend their time on them but they directly start
to read the text instead. However, the cognitive strategies which enable readers
to activate their schemata before reading a text are considered to be critical.
Therefore, it is essential that the readers relate their background knowledge
to the text and form some expectations about the topic in order for full comprehension
to take place (Anderson, 1991, p.462).
On the other hand, when the independent variables were examined, according to
the questionnaire results, it was seen that there were some significant differences
among them. In the pre-reading phase, as for gender, it was observed that female
students were better than the male ones in terms of using the strategies of skimming
(4.2>3.9), reading the 1st line of each paragraph (4.2>3.7), and using the
title (3.5>3.1). It was also seen that there were significant differences between
the 16-19 year old participants and 24+ year old ones on using the title (3.6>2.9)
and reading the first line of each paragraph (4.2>3.6). For the latter, the
same difference was also determined between the 20-23 year old subjects and 24+
ones (4.1>3.6). As regards to school source - according to the number of the
students - in reading the first line of each paragraph the 1st school graduates
were better than the 3rd school ones (4.3>3.7). As to proficiency in reading,
another significant difference was seen between the ones who claimed their proficiency
as excellent and the ones who evaluated themselves as good or poor (4.8> 4.4&
4.2). The same superiority was also found in using pictures/illustrations (4.1>3.3)
and in skimming (4.4>3.8) in favor of excellent subjects against the poor ones.
The pre-reading readings which should be developed are the ones that used inefficiently
during the TAPs, that is to say, using the illustration/pictures, reading over
the text, reading the first line of each paragraph and considering background
knowledge.
While-reading
strategies
As for while-reading phase, in addition to the strategies of
reading without looking up every unknown word in the dictionary, consulting the
dictionary for important words, guessing the meaning of a word from the context,
skipping some unknown words, reading without translating word-for-word, thinking-aloud
during reading, which were both seen in the questionnaire results and used efficiently
during the TAPs by both year subjects, the 1st year ones also employed the strategy
of assimilating the text with the background knowledge and the 4th year ones employed
the strategies of rereading a sentence efficiently. Actually, a balanced use of
dictionary is recommended because important words should be looked up and the
rest that does not seem to hinder comprehension should be skipped (Anderson, 1991,
p. 463). However, none of the subjects used dictionary during the TAPs, which
is very interesting.
The reason might be that they tried to employ another
cognitive strategy that was to guess the meaning of a word from the context since
good language learners always look for the other possible strategies which lead
them to solve the problem. Despite the fact that both years subjects claimed that
they used the other strategies such as guessing the meaning of a word from the
grammatical category, thinking of a situation to remember a word, considering
other sentences to understand the meaning of a sentence, visualizing events, recognizing
organization, taking notes and assimilating the text with the passage events,
those strategies were not effectively used during the TAPs. The reason might be
that the subjects either do n not know how to employ them or they are unwilling
to use them since the strategy use requires closer attention and much time. On
the contrary, both classes' participants stated that they did not think aloud
during reading in the questionnaire but during TAPs all of them had to employ
this strategy since their thinking-aloud was the only way to allow the researcher
to find out the strategies used by the participants.
As for the gender in this phase, the female subjects had superiority against the
male ones in terms of rereading a sentence (4.5>4.2), visualizing events (4.1>3.9),
and taking notes (3.8>3.3). However, the male participants preferred to read
sentences without translating word-for-word less than the female ones (4.2>3.9).
For the age variable, a significant difference existed in between the youngest
subjects and the other two groups in not using dictionary for every unknown word
(3.7>3.3&2.9). They also guessed more successfully about assimilating the
text with the passage events than the 24+ ones (3.9>3.4). According to duration
in learning English, the subjects who have studied English for 8+ years were found
to be more successful than the other two age groups in using dictionaries less
(3.1< 3.6&3.5) and remembering a new word by thinking of a situation in
which the word might be used (3.8>3.1&3.5). As regarding the school source,
the 1st school graduates were better than the 3rd school graduates in rereading
a sentence (4.7>4.2).
In terms of proficiency in reading English, the
excellent subjects were more successful than the other two groups in guessing
the meaning of a word from the grammatical category (4.2>3.4),thinking of a
situation to remember a word in which it might be used (4.2>3.7&3.1), skipping
words (4.2>3.7&3.7), not translating word-for-word (4.7>4.0&3.8),
visualizing events (4.6>4.0&3.8), guessing assimilating the text with the
passage events (4.4>3.8&3.6). There was a significant difference in between
the good and the poor subjects in guessing the meaning of a word from the context
(4.0>3.6). As for taking courses in reading, the differences were seen in consulting
a dictionary for important words (4.6>4.3), thinking of a situation to remember
a word in which it might be used (4.1>3.8) and assimilating the with the background
information (4.3>3.8) in favor of the course takers. However, they were less
efficient in thinking aloud (2.1<2.6).
The subjects are in need of developing some of the while-reading strategies which
are guessing the meaning of a word from the grammatical category, thinking of
a situation to remember a word, re-reading a sentence, considering other sentences
to understand the meaning of a sentence, visualizing events, recognizing organization,
taking notes, assimilating the text with the passage events and assimilating the
text with the background information.
Post-Reading
Strategies
Despite the fact that both years subjects stated on the questionnaire
that they employed the strategies of classifying words according to their meanings,
summarizing the main ideas, re-reading the text to remedy comprehension failures
and to remember important information at always and usually level, during the
TAPs none of them was used by the participants. For classifying the words according
to their grammatical category, both years' students claimed that they used it
at sometimes and rarely level, which showed a positive consistency during TAPs,
and none of the subjects employed it. In fact, using the post-reading strategies
is considered to be essential. Particularly, classifying words according to their
meanings or grammatical categories after reading a text are considered to be important
strategies especially for delayed retention (Carrell, 1998, p.3).
As for
the independent variables in the post-reading phase, the female subjects were
seen better than the male ones in terms of classifying words according to their
meanings (3.5>3.2), classifying words according to their grammatical category
(2.9>2.6), and re-reading the text to remedy comprehension failures (4.2>3.7).
As for age, the youngest group (16-19) stated that they re-read the text to remedy
comprehension failures (4.2>3.7) and re-read the text to remember important
information (3.8>3.3) more than 24+ year old ones. Another difference was between
20-23 year old and 24+ year old ones in the use of the latter strategy (4.0>3.3).
According to the school source, a difference existed between the first three schools'
graduates and the other schools' graduates in re-reading the text to remember
important information (3.9,4.0,3.8>2.6). Another difference was between the
fourth school and the first school's graduates in classifying the words according
to their grammatical category (3.2>2.4). As regards reading proficiency, the
excellent subjects were better than the poor ones in summarizing the main ideas
(4.2>3.6).
All of the strategies included in the post-reading phase should be developed,
which are classifying words according to their meanings, classifying words according
to their grammatical categories, summarizing the main ideas, re-reading the text
to remedy comprehension failures and re-reading the text to remember important
information.
The list of the employed strategies and the percentages given below throws some
light on the first research question which is "What are the cognitive reading
strategies that the students in the ELT Department at Dicle University use in
their academic studies?"
As
for the 4th year participants, the strategy of re-reading a sentence was used
by 77% of the participants.
Cognitive
strategies that the students need to develop
The findings gathered from
the questionnaires and TAPs revealed that both the 1st and the 4th year subjects
did not employ certain strategies effectively which would help them cope with
the demands of their academic studies and which also give the answer to the second
research question which is "What sort of cognitive reading strategies should
be developed by the students in order to continue their academic studies successfully
and to get out of a text they read?"
Table
6 Strategies that are not used effectively (see PDF file)
Conclusion
and Implications
This study aimed to determine the cognitive reading strategies
that the 1st and the 4th year students in the ELT Department at Dicle University
use and need to develop so as to continue their academic studies successfully.
In identifying the cognitive strategy needs, current strategy use of both classes'
students were questioned. Through the questionnaires and TAPs the data were collected.
Two
sample groups participated in the study: in total 185 first and fourth year students.
As for the first step the participants were given the questionnaires which included
25 Likert-type items. The purpose was to obtain self-reported data on the cognitive
use in reading. The next step was to carry out the TAPs. Ten first- and l3 fourth-year
subjects took part in this session. The aim of using TAPs was to determine the
cognitive strategies employed during the actual reading process and to compare
the data collected through the questionnaires.
Comparing the results
of the questionnaires and the TAPs both similar and contradictory results were
seen about the cognitive strategy use of the students. The parallel results showed
that the 1st and the 4th year subjects employed the strategies of relating the
title to the text content, reading without translating verbatim and they did not
classify the words according to their meanings.
On the other hand, the results of the 1st year subjects revealed that there was
a consistency between the opinions and the behavior on some strategies such as
guessing the meaning of a word from the context, assimilating the text with background
information, and reading the first line of each paragraph. As for the 4th year
participants, this consistency was only seen on the strategy of re-reading a sentence.
It was also observed that TAP results which were parallel with the self- reported
data were more consistent for the 1st year students than the 4th year ones.
However, there was a positive contradiction on the use of some strategies of both
year students such as using the dictionary parsimoniously, skipping some unknown
words and thinking aloud during reading. For the last one the reason could be
that the subjects were asked to verbalize their thoughts. In addition, the 1st
year students employed the strategy of reading over the text while the 4th year
subjects guess the meaning of a word from the context. It can be said that since
the 1st year subjects were in their junior year in the department, they might
be in need of getting more information on the topic whereas the 4th year students
were more experienced and they could predict the meaning of a word from the context
since they did too much reading up to that time. As for the negative contradictions,
both sets of students had some in common with each other.
Despite the fact that the majority of the students (almost 70 %) stated that they
related the illustrations/pictures to the text content, during the TAPs the percentage
was very low. The reason might be that since both year students employed the strategy
of relating the title to the text content, they might find it enough or they might
hesitate to tell their predictions about the pictures/illustrations because they
did not understand what was in them. The majority of the students also stated
that they guessed the meaning of a word from the grammatical context, considered
other sentences to understand the meaning of a sentence, visualized events, summarized
the main ideas, re-read the text to remedy comprehension failures, and re-read
the text to remember important information but the realization percentage of these
strategies was either too low or zero. The reason could be that since just one
text was used for this study, it was possible for the students not to be in need
of using these strategies because they knew the words and they understand the
text completely.
Approximately half of both groups also claimed that they employed the strategies
of recognizing organization and taking notes but they were not used efficiently.
It was also seen that the students did not use the strategies of classifying words
according to their meanings or grammatical categories after reading the text which
are considered to be important strategies especially for delayed retention (Carrell
et al., l998, p.3) Another interesting finding was that half of the students stated
that they always consulted a dictionary for the important words, but during the
TAPs none of the subjects used the dictionary. The reason might be that they tried
to employ another cognitive strategy which was to guess the meaning of a word
from the context. In spite of the fact that nearly half of the 1st year students
and more than half of the 4th year subjects claimed that they thought of a situation
to remember a word on the self- reported data, during the TAPs nothing was observed
related to this strategy. Although the majority of the 1st year students reported
that they reread a sentence, there was a contradiction between the data and the
realization. In addition, none of the 4th year students employed the strategy
of reading the first line of each paragraph which showed consistency with the
strategy of reading over the text.
According to the results of the self reported data and the TAPs, effectively used
strategies by both classes' students were relating the title to the text content,
using the dictionary parsimoniously, guessing the meaning of a word from the context,
skipping some unknown words, reading without translating word-for-word, thinking-aloud
during reading. Besides these strategies, the 1st year subjects also employed
the strategies of reading over the text and assimilating the text with the background
knowledge. As for the 4th year ones, they reread a sentence. These strategies
also comprised the answer to the first research question which was "What
are the cognitive reading strategies that the students in the ELT Department at
Dicle University use in their academic studies?"
The findings gathered from the questionnaires and the TAPs revealed that both
the 1st and the 4th year subjects did not employ certain strategies effectively.
Carrell and Carson (1997, p.54) suggest that "EAP readers must develop the
strategies and tactics necessary for coping with the demands of academic reading".
Therefore, the students have to use some certain cognitive reading strategies
which will help them to solve the problems when they read a text. Research on
the effects of cognitive strategies on reading performance suggests that relating
the title, illustrations/pictures and background knowledge to the text, skimming,
using dictionary parsimoniously, guessing, remembering a word through situations,
rereading, using the first language as a base, visualizing events, being careful
about how the text is organized, making notes and summaries of the important information,
and classifying words are the strategies help readers to improve their reading
ability significantly and therefore, these strategies should be neglected in the
foreign or second language reading curriculum.
As Carrell (Carrell et
al., 1989, p.648) puts forward, "strategy research suggests that less competent
learners are able to improve their reading skills through training in strategies".
Besides, effective reading strategies may help learners a great deal in improving
their reading proficiency so that, as Grabe (1991, p.27) says, they can read more
effectively for their academic studies regardless of the type of text they encounter.
Therefore, in order to find out the answer to the second research question which
was "What sort of cognitive reading strategies should be developed by the
students in order to continue their academic studies successfully and to get the
most out of a text they read?", both classes' subjects should develop the
strategies of relating the pictures /illustrations to the text content, reading
the first line of each paragraph, considering background knowledge, consulting
the dictionary for the important words, guessing the meaning of a word from the
grammatical category, thinking of a situation to remember a word, considering
other sentences to understand the meaning of a sentence, visualizing events, recognizing
organization, taking notes, assimilating the text with the passage events, classifying
words according to their meanings and to their grammatical category, summarizing
the main ideas, rereading the text to remedy comprehension failures and rereading
the text to remember important information. Besides, the 1st year students should
also develop the strategy of rereading a sentence and the 4th year students ought
to develop the strategies of reading over the text and assimilating the text with
the background information.
In helping readers develop effective reading strategies, the first step should
be identifying what strategies the students are already using. The think-aloud
method can be used as a diagnostic tool to analyze students' strengths and weaknesses
in reading since it reveals rich information about how readers carry out mental
activity, which is unobservable (Block, 1986). TAPs provide rich information about
how learners solve problems, what difficulties they encounter and to what extent
and in what contexts they use certain strategies in a learning task (Someren et
al., 1994, p.8).
In future research, it is recommended that the number of the participants and
the texts which will be used during the TAP session be increased. Since this study
reveals some inconsistent results about the relationship between the self-reported
data and the strategy use, the reasons of these differences can be investigated.
The relation between the learner styles and the strategy use can be another investigating
area since it is believed that differences in the learning styles of the students
may affect their strategy use.
This study also provides the instructors with an opinion about the learners' reading
strategies and gives them a chance to understand and to evaluate better their
own knowledge of what and how to teach reading. Consequently, for further research,
think-aloud protocols are suggested as a good methodology in spite of being time-consuming
and difficult to analyze since they allow the objective observation of both ongoing
behavior and the mental pictures of the participants.
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