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1.1. Rationale
Internationally, teaching English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) has
changed tremendously over the last few decades. Most significantly, the traditional
teacher-centred approach has been replaced with the learner-centred one, which reflects a
desire to explore ways of making teaching responsive to learner needs and interests and
allowing learners to play a fuller, more active and participatory role in the day-to-day
teaching and learning processes. Inherent in this approach is a shift in the responsibilities
of both teachers and students in the foreign language classroom. No longer does the
teacher act as the centre of all instruction, 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 learning needs. By giving students more
responsibility for their own language development, language programs are inviting learners
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 as much
effort learning the language. Several studies that have been carried out by Oxford (1990),
O’Malley and Chamot (1990) Nunan (1991), Rubin and Thompson (1994) and Cohen
(1998) have shown that one of the most important factors that distinguish successful
learners from unsuccessful ones is their learning strategies. In other words, successful
learners do use some effective learning strategies to deal with problems that emerge during
their learning process while unsuccessful ones employ 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

1.2.2. Aims of the study
The major purposes of this study are:
(1) to identify the range of reading strategies utilized by the good readers and poor
readers among the second-year EBR students at the UTC;

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(2) to examine the differences in reading strategy use between these two groups of
readers;
(3) to inform teachers so that they can find ways to improve their students’ reading
proficiency.
In order to achieve the above aims of the study, the following major research questions
will be addressed:
- What is the range of reading strategies used by the good and poor readers among the
EBR students?
- How do the good readers and poor readers differ in terms of reading strategies
employed?
1.2.3. Significance of the study
The study is the first one to be carried out in the field of reading strategy research at
the UTC. It helps give a detailed description of reading strategies used by the good and
poor readers among second-year EBR students at the university. More importantly, it
works out a classification scheme for these reading strategies. It also provides a thorough
analysis of the differences in the reading strategies employed by these two groups of
readers. The findings of their reading strategies can help teachers to understand more about
their students and they can serve as the foundation for some recommendations on how to
improve the students’ reading proficiency. They are also an important basis for reading
strategy based instruction to be implemented in the future.
1.3. Methods of the study
This study is to be conducted as a descriptive study that utilizes both quantitative
and qualitative approaches. The quantitative analysis is employed through the process of
data collected from a written questionnaire and think-aloud reports to examine the

strategies in particular. It also summarizes some studies on reading strategies that have
been conducted so far. All of these serve as a basis for an investigation into reading
strategies which is carried out and presented in the next chapter.
2.1. Learning strategies
2.1.1. Definition
Over the last two decades, the study of learning strategies has seen an “explosion of
activity” (R. Ellis, 1994) with the contributions of such well-known researchers as Tarone
(1981), Weinstein and Mayer (1986), Rubin (1987), O’Malley and Chamot (1990), Oxford
(1990) and Cohen (1998). These studies have helped figure out a comprehensive overview
of learning strategies.
Concerning the definition of learning strategies, there have been some considerable
differences in the existing literature. Rubin (1987) gave quite a broad definition of learning
strategies: “Learning strategies are strategies which contribute to the development of the
language system which the learner constructs and affect learning directly” (1987: 23).
Tarone (1981) defined learning strategies as attempts to develop linguistic and
sociolinguistic competence in the target language. These definitions are too general in
comparison to the complex nature of learning strategies.
Oxford (1990) claimed that “Learning strategies are specific actions taken by the
learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self directed, more effective
and more transferable to new situations” (1990:5). This definition is judged to be quite
comprehensive as it not only covers the cognitive but also the affective aspects of learning
strategies (i.e. to increase enjoyment in learning). However, Oxford’s definition is not
sufficient in the sense that it regards learning strategies as “specific actions”, i.e. learning
strategies are behavioral, and therefore, they are mostly observable. However, a lot of
studies in this field have shown that learning strategies are difficult to observe as they are
not only behavioral.

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In an attempt to define learning strategies in a more sensible manner, Weinstein and
Mayer (in Ellis, 1994:531) claimed that learning strategies “ are the behaviors and thoughts

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O’Malley and Chamot 1990) have made an important contribution to our knowledge of
learning strategies. Wenden’s (1983) research examined the strategies that adult foreign
language learners use in order to direct their own learning. She identifies three general
categories of self-directing strategies: (1) knowing about language (relating to what
language and language learning involves, (2) planning (relating to the what and how of
language learning) and (3) self-evaluation (relating to progress in learning and the learner’s
response to the learning experience). Wenden’s framework was devised as a basis for
learner training.
R. Oxford (1990) built on the earlier classifications with the aim of subsuming
within her taxonomy virtually every strategy previously mentioned in the literature. Oxford
(1990) draws a general distinction between direct and indirect strategies. The former
consists of memory, cognitive and compensation strategies while the latter includes
metacognitive, affective and social strategies. However, Oxford’s classification of learning
strategies is somewhat complicated and confusing as she treats compensation strategies as
a direct type of learning strategies and memory strategies as separate ones from cognitive
strategies.
Perhaps, the framework that has been most useful and generally accepted is
O’Malley and Chamot (1990)’s. In O’Malley and Chamot's framework, three major types
of strategies are distinguished in accordance with the information processing model, on
which their research is based. Metacognitive strategies are “higher order executive skills
that may entail planning for, monitoring or evaluating the success of a learning activity”
(O’Malley and Chamot: 44). Cognitive strategies “operate directly on incoming
information, manipulating it in ways that enhance learning” (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990:
44). The last type of learning strategies is Social/Affective which “involves either
interaction with another person or ideational control over affect”. (O’Malley and Chamot,
1990: 45). The subtypes of these strategies presented in Table 2.1 were identified by
O’Malley and Chamot on the basis of their several descriptive studies on learning
strategies used by second language learners.


Repetition Imitating a language model, including overt practice and silent
rehearsal.
Grouping Classifying words, terminology or concepts according to their
attributes or meaning.
Deduction Applying rules to understand or produce the second language or
making up rules based on language analysis.
Imagery Using visual images (either mental or actual) to understand or

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remember new information.
Auditory representation Planning back in one’s mind the sound of a word, phrase or
longer language sequence.
Key word method Remembering a new word in the second language by: (1)
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 meanings of new items,
predict outcomes or fill in missing information.
Note taking 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 sequence
by combining known elements in a new way.

meaning” (Anderson,1999: 1). This definition of reading has been generally shared by
other researchers.
According to Rumelhart (1977), reading involves the reader, the text and the
interaction between the reader and text. Aebersold and Field (1997: 15) share the same
view on reading: “Reading is what happens when people look at a text and assign meaning
to the written symbols in that text. The text and the reader are the two physical entities
necessary for the reading process to start. It is, however, the interaction between the text
and the reader that constitutes actual meaning”. These interactions, in their opinion, are the
interactions between purpose and manner of reading and through reading strategies and
schema. Purpose determines how people read a text. People may read the text to
understand it (reading for full comprehension), or simply to get the general idea
(skimming), to find the part that contains the information they need (scanning). Readers
also use some mental activities that are often referred to as reading strategies to construct
meaning from a text. In addition, readers base on their previous knowledge that they bring
to the text to assist their reading comprehension. This prior knowledge is known as the

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schema. Research in reading has shown that schema plays an important role in helping the
reader to comprehend a text.
The above-mentioned views on reading are only general ones. In order to
understand more about the nature of reading, it is necessary to take a closer look at the
actual process that really takes place in the reader’s mind. So far, several models have been
proposed to describe this process. The next section is going to present these models of
reading and discuss their strengths and weaknesses.
2.2.2. Models of reading process
Up to now, attempts to describe the interaction between reader and text have been
numerous and different views of the reading process have been proposed. These views are
often grouped under three different reading models named the bottom-up, the top-down
and the interactive ones.
2.2.2.1. Bottom-up model

of reading, the bottom-up view of reading fell into disfavor.
2.2.2.2. Top-down model
About over three decades ago, the views on reading changed together with the top-
down model of reading. Goodman (1971: 135) described reading as a “psycholinguistic
guessing game”, in which the “reader reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has
been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”. According to this point of view, the reader
reconstructs meaning from written language by using the graphonic, syntactic and semantic
systems of the language, but he/she merely uses cues from the three levels of language to
predict meaning, and most important, confirms those predictions by relating them to
his/her past experiences and knowledge of the language.
Although Goodman did not characterize his theory as a top-down model, several
other reading experts (Anderson 1978; Cziko 1978) have considered it as basically a
concept-driven top-down pattern in which “higher level processes interact with and direct
the flow of information through low level processes” (Stanovich 1980:34). In this top-
down approach, the reader begins with a set of hypotheses or predictions about the
meaning of text he is about to read and then selectively sample the text to determine
whether or not his predictions are correct. Reading is a process of reconstructing meaning
rather than decoding form, and the reader only resorts to decoding if other means fail. This
perspective was shared by many other reading specialists such as Carrel (1988), Clarke and
Siberstern (1977), Mackey and Mountford (1979) and Widdowson (1978, 1983) as they

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viewed reading as “an active process in which the second language reader is an active
information processor who predicts while sampling only parts of the actual text” (in Carrel,
1988:3).
Just like bottom-up models, top-down models do have some limitations. These
models “tend to emphasize such higher-level skills as the prediction of meaning by means
of context clues or certain kinds of background knowledge at the expense of such lower
skills as the rapid and accurate identification of lexical and grammatical form. That is, in
making the perfectly valid point that fluent reading is primarily a cognitive process, they

interaction between these two processes.
The following comment by Stanovich (1980) can summarize all the strengths of the
interactive model over the other two models:
“Interactive models of reading appear to provide a more accurate conceptualization
of reading performance than strictly top-down or bottom-up models. When combined with
an assumption of compensatory processing (that a deficit in any particular process will
result in a greater reliance on their knowledge sources, regardless of their level in the
processing hierarchy), interactive models provide a better account of the existing data on the
use of orthographic structure and sentence context by good and poor readers” (1980: 32)
Therefore, it is generally agreed that the interactive model is the best one that can
truly reflect the reading process that takes place in the reader’s mind. In this process, the
reader constantly shuttles between bottom-up and top-down processes and he can not be
successful in reading comprehension without either of these two processes. As this study
focuses on reading strategies, the next part is going to summarize some outstanding studies
on reading strategies that have been carried out.
2.2.3. Reading strategies
2.2.3.1. Definition
Much attention has been paid to the study of reading in general and reading
strategies in particular. Reading strategies are of interest for what they reveal about the
way the readers manage their interaction with written text and how these strategies are
related to text comprehension.
As mentioned earlier, research in second language learning suggests that learners
use a variety of strategies to assist them with the acquisition, storage and retrieval of
information. C. Brantmeier (2002) defined reading strategies as “the comprehension

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processes that readers use in order to make sense of what they read” (2002:1). This process
may involve skimming, scanning, guessing, recognizing cognates and word families,
reading for meaning, predicting, activating general knowledge, making inferences,
following references and separating main ideas from supporting ones (Barnet, 1988).

they read
Two different codes:
Main - meaning line
and word solving
strategies
(1) Successful readers kept
meaning of passage in mind
while assigning meaning to
sentence etc; whereas poor
readers focused on solving
unknown words or phrases
Block
(1986)
9 university level ESL and
native English students in
a remedial reading course;
think-aloud reports for
each sentence they read
Two different codes:
General strategies and
local strategies

(1) More successful readers:
(a) used their general
knowledge
(b) focused on the overall
meaning of text
(c) integrated new
information with old
(d) differentiated main ideas


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words,
paraphrasing,
syntactic
simplification
(3) coherence
detection such as
identification of
text type and use
of prior content
schemata
(4) monitoring moves
such as mistake
correction,
slowing down and
identification of
misunderstanding
contributed to
unsuccessful reading
comprehension in L1
and L2

Carrell
(1989)
75 native English speakers
learning Spanish in first,
second and third-year
courses; 45 native
speakers of Spanish in

(2) No significant

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Language Skills reading
Comprehension Test) with
multiple choice questions;
TPR (Textbooks Reading
Profile) with think-aloud
reports)
(3) drawing inferences

Coding Scheme for
TRP
(1) supervising
(2) supporting
(3) paraphrasing
(4) establishing
coherence
(5) test taking
relationship between the
amount of unique
strategies and
comprehension

Block
(1992)
16 proficient readers of
English, 9 non-proficient
readers of English; think-
aloud reports at sentence

o refer to the side glossary
o use the glossary as a last resort
o look up words correctly
o continue if unsuccessful at decoding a word or phrase
o recognize cognates
o use their knowledge of the world,
o follow through with a proposed solution to a problem
o evaluate their guesses.
Poor readers, on the other hand, translated sentences and lost the general meaning
of the passage, rarely skipped words or looked up unknown words in a glossary and had a
poor concept as a reader. While these results clearly described the strategies students used
to process the text, they did not link the strategy use to comprehension of specific
paragraphs or to the text as whole. The data only focused on sentence level comprehension
so the results of the study did not reveal overall comprehension of the entire text.
A decade later, Block’s (1986) study compared the reading comprehension
strategies used by native English speakers and ESL students who were enrolled in a
remedial reading course at the university level and she connected these behaviors to
comprehension. The participants were identified as non-proficient readers because they
failed a college reading proficiency test before the study. Subjects read two exploratory
passages selected from an introductory psychology textbook, and were asked to think
aloud while reading (they reported after each sentence). After reading and retelling each
passage, the participants answered twenty multiple choice comprehension questions. Block
developed a scheme to classify strategies that consisted of two types: general strategies and

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local strategies. General strategies included the following behaviors: anticipate content,
recognize text structure, integrate information, question information, distinguish main
ideas, interpret the text, use general knowledge and associations to background, comment
on behavior or process, monitor comprehension, correct behavior, focused on textual
meaning as a whole, and react to the text. Local strategies were: paraphrase, reread,

was native Spanish speakers of intermediate and high-intermediate levels studying English
as a second language at a university level institute. Her second group consisted of native
English speakers learning Spanish as a foreign language in first, second and third-year
courses. Carrel first asked subjects to read two texts, one in L1 and one in L2. She
controlled for content schemata as both texts were on a general topic of language. The
subjects then answered multiple-choice comprehension questions about the text followed
by a strategy use questionnaire. Carrel correlated strategy use with comprehension and
concluded that the ESL readers of more advanced proficiency level perceived “global” or
top-down strategies as more effective. With the Spanish as a L2 group, she found that at
the lower proficiency levels, subjects used more bottom-up or “local” strategies.
Anderson (1991) examined individual differences in strategy use on two types of
reading tasks: standardized reading comprehension tests and academic texts. The subjects
were 28 Spanish-speaking adult students (18 females and 10 males) enrolled in university
level English as a second language courses. On the first day of the study, Anderson
assessed participants’ reading comprehension skills with a typical standardized test. On a
different day, participants read two passages from the Textbook Reading Profile, which
consisted of academic reading passages taken from fresh-men level texts. The subjects
verbalized reading strategies used for both forms of reading comprehension. The results of
Anderson’s qualitative and quantitative inquiries demonstrated that for both the
standardized reading comprehension test and the textbook reading, participants who used
more strategies tended to comprehend better. Of relevance is that results also indicated that
there is not a statistically significant relationship between the number of particular
strategies reported and overall comprehension scores on the reading tasks.
The last study mentioned here was conducted by Block (1992). He investigated the
comprehension monitoring process used by first and second language readers of English.
The subjects were 25 college freshmen and consisted of proficient and non-proficient
readers of English. While reading an expository text, the participants were asked to think
aloud or more specifically, to “say everything they understood and everything they were
thinking as they read each sentence” (Block, 1992: 323). The results indicated that when
facing a vocabulary problem, proficient ESL readers used background knowledge, decided


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• reflect on and process additionally after a part has been read and anticipate
or plan for the use of knowledge gained from the reading
(Hosenfield 1977; Block 1986; Carrel 1986)
While this list is not priotized or complete, it helps provide a description of the
characteristics of successful readers and serves as an important foundation for more
research into reading.
However, a gap that can be found in these studies on reading strategies is that few
researchers who have attempted to classify reading strategies into a more comprehensive
scheme except for top-down and bottom-up strategies (or global or local strategies). This is
the gap that the current thesis study tries to bridge by using O’Malley and Chamot’s
scheme to classify the reading strategies used by the good readers and bad readers among
the EBR students. As mentioned earlier, this scheme was developed by O’Malley and
Chamot (1990) based on their several descriptive studies on learning strategies in four
English skills. It can reflect the actual reading process as it contains both top-down and
bottom-up strategies within its categories. The top-down strategies included in this scheme
are elaboration (relating prior knowledge to new information), transfer (using previous
linguistic knowledge or prior skills to assist comprehension), inferencing (using the
available information to guess meaning of new items and predict outcomes) and
summarizing (making mental or oral summary of new information gained through
reading). The bottom-up strategies are grouping (classifying words, terminology or
concepts according to their attributes or meanings), deduction (applying rules to
understand the second language), recombination (constructing a meaningful sentence or
larger language sequence by combining known elements in a new way), key word methods
(remember a new word in the second language) and translation (using the first language as
a base for understanding the second language). In addition, there are metacognitive
strategies that involve executive processes in planning for reading, monitoring
comprehension and evaluating how well one has achieved a reading activity. Therefore,
this classification framework is quite comprehensive and applicable to examining reading

process. Top-down reading authors insist that readers bring a great deal of knowledge,
expectations, assumptions and questions to the text and, given a basic understanding of the
vocabulary, they continue to read as long as the text confirms their expectations (Goodman
1967). The interactive model, which most researchers currently endorse, argues that both
top-down and bottom-up processes occur in reading, either alternatively or at the same

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time. These theorists describe a process that moves both bottom-up and top-down,
depending on the type of text as well as on the reader’s background knowledge, language
proficiency level, motivation, strategy use and culturally shaped beliefs about reading. In
comparison to the bottom-up and top-down models, interactive models of reading provide
a more accurate conceptualization of reading performance and describe exactly what really
happens during the reader’s reading process. According to this interactive model, good
reading can result only from a constant interaction between the bottom-up and top-down
processes. In other words, good readers are those who can “efficiently integrate” both of
these processes. This view is now shared by a majority of researchers in a numerous
number of studies on reading.
The last part of the chapter discusses reading strategies, the focus of the thesis, in
details. After giving definitions of reading strategies, it reviews some prominent studies on
reading strategies employed by ESL/EFL readers that have been conducted so far. With the
use of a variety of research methods including think-aloud verbal reports, interviews,
questionnaires, observations and written recalls, the investigators tried to examine strategy
type and frequency of strategy use by readers of different proficiency levels. Most of the
researchers have concluded that there are indeed differences between effective and
ineffective readers in terms of strategies used. The more proficient readers often employed
both top-down and bottom-up strategies but appear to use more top-down ones. A detailed
description of reading strategies employed by effective readers is provided so as to serve as
the basis for any research into reading strategies.
The next chapter is the study on reading strategies used by the EBR students, which
has been conducted in the light of the theories discussed above.