VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
-------------------

TRẦN THỊ THANH LOAN

A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ USE OF READING COMPREHENSION
STRATEGIES: A CASE OF 10TH FORM STUDENTS
(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁCH HỌC SINH SỬ DỤNG CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC
ĐỌC HIỂU: TRƯỜNG HỢP CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRUNG HỌC
PHỔ THÔNG)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
-------------------

TRẦN THỊ THANH LOAN

A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ USE OF READING COMPREHENSION
STRATEGIES: A CASE OF 10TH FORM STUDENTS
(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁCH HỌC SINH SỬ DỤNG CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC

Phuong Nga, Associate Professor, Doctor of Philosophy for her enlightening guidance,
invaluable advice and inspiration. Without her careful instructions and critical feedbacks,
my study would not have been fulfilled.
My sincere thanks also go to all the staff of the Department of Post-Graduate
Studies for giving me assistance and the lecturers who conducted the Master course for
me with valuable knowledge and experience so that I was able to conduct this study.
I would like to extend my deep appreciation to my colleagues and students at
Pham Hong Thai high school for their cooperation and support so that I could complete
my necessary data collection for the study.
Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my family and friends,
who have always been by my side to encourage and support me during the process of this
research. Without their help and encouragement, I could not have completed this study.

ii


ABSTRACT
This is the study on students’ use of reading comprehension strategies. The target
population is the 10th form students at Pham Hong Thai high school. The main aims of
this study are to discover the current situation of applying reading strategies of the 10th
form students, and to figure out how to enhance their reading comprehension. To achieve
these objectives, the researcher uses (1) survey questionnaire for the students, and (2)
unstructured interview for English teachers. The results of the questionnaires show that
the students are aware of the importance of reading comprehension in general and
reading strategies in particular. Additionally, the reading strategies applied by the
students are restricted and not frequently. Besides, the interview’s result indicates that
teachers also apply only some of the reading strategies in their reading lessons including
scanning, skimming and guessing new words in context. The researcher also finds it
possible to enhance student’s reading comprehension with the use of reading strategies
according to the teaching methods of teachers in the interview. Acknowledging the


Number

%

Percentage

FIGURES AND TABLES:
Figure 1: The importance of reading comprehension
Figure 2: Students’ purposes of learning reading in English
Figure 3: The difficulties in reading a text
Figure 4: The importance of having good reading strategies
Table 1: Background Information of the Subjects
Table 2: Results of predicting strategy
Table 3: Results of skimming strategy
Table 4: Results of scanning strategy
Table 5: Results of inferring strategy
Table 6: Results of guessing meaning strategy
Table 7: Results of self – monitoring strategy

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION .................................................................................................................. i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................ii
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, FIGURES AND TABLES ................................................ iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS..................................................................................................... v
PART 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1


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PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study
Teaching a foreign language in general and English in particular requires great
knowledge, experiences and efforts.
According to Carrell (1984:1), “for many students, reading is by far the most
important of the four macro skills, particularly in English as a second or a foreign
language”. Reading is an essential part of language instruction at every level because it
supports learning in many ways. Firstly, reading material is a language input. Students
given a variety of materials to read have many opportunities to absorb vocabulary,
grammar, sentence structure and discourse structure. Secondly, reading for content
information in the language classroom provides students with both authentic reading
material and an authentic purpose for reading. Thirdly, reading helps students broaden
their knowledge of the lifestyles and worldviews of the people whose language they are
studying.
Researchers believe that teaching productive reading strategies motivate students
to read and facilitate reading comprehension (Anderson, 2003; Eskey, 2002; Grabe,
2004). It also appears that good students apply a variety of reading strategies to their
learning. Therefore, the importance of teaching reading strategies is to not also facilitate
students’ reading process but help student enrich their vocabulary and grammar as well.
What is more, in the context of the upper secondary school, reading is even more
important than other three skills of speaking, listening, and writing. The reason is that
students have to take the examinations, which are grammar- and reading- based.
However, the students’ reading proficiency is not satisfactory.
Thus, this study is conducted to investigate the use of reading strategies of the 10th
grade students at Pham Hong Thai high school. Although almost all 10th form students
have learnt English since grade 6, many of them do not know or use appropriate reading

comprehension difficulties. Additionally, this study is expected to bring the researcher an
invaluable experience as it provides her with knowledge and techniques to teach reading
comprehension strategies. Finally, the findings of this study are hoped to offer reliable
and updated information for interested and further studies.

4. Research methodology of the study
This study is conducted as a descriptive study that applied qualitative approach.
The qualitative analysis is employed mainly through the process of data collected from a
2


written survey questionnaire delivered to 10th form students to examine the use of reading
strategies, and through an unstructured group interview which is carried out to teachers to
find out how to improve 10th form students’ reading comprehension.

5. Scope of the study
According to the Ministry of Education and Training’s requirements, high school
students have to be taught all four skills including reading, speaking, listening, and
writing. However, it is because of the large size of the class and test – oriented that
English lesson focuses more on reading. Thus, this research only put the emphasis on the
use of reading strategies of the 10th form students, who are at the beginning of high
school but have just learnt English for more than 5 years.

6. Design of the Study
The thesis consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion.
The Introduction aims at the rationale, the aims, the scope, and also the design of
the study.
The Development consists of three chapters. Chapter 1is Literature Review. This
chapter reviews some theories of basic concept based on the publications in the field. The
results from the recent studies for the issues related to the aspects of the subject in the

When it comes to reading in second language, Williams (1984:2) stated that
reading is “a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written… The
reader does not necessarily need to look at everything in a given piece of writing. The
reader is not simply a passive object, fed with letters, words and sentences, but is actively
working on the text and is able to arrive at understanding without looking at every letter
and word.”
Anderson (2003:68) offered another definition of reading, which is “a fluent
process of readers combining information from a text and their own background
knowledge to build meaning. The goal of reading is comprehension.”
Although these definitions are expressed differently, they convey the same idea
that reading is a selective process and characterized as an active process of
comprehending. Thus, the reader’s knowledge of the language and knowledge of the
world is of great importance to their reading success.
1.1.2. Reading comprehension
In teaching reading, it is necessary for both teachers and students to have a deep
understanding about the definition of reading comprehension.
4


Reading comprehension can be understood as the ability to obtain the information
as required in the reading text as efficiently as possible. Different scholars offered various
points of view on the definition of reading comprehension.
According to Richard, Thomas and Jere (1987: 143), reading comprehension is
a mental process that in the final analysis, only the readers fully understand.
Comprehension is what stimulates readers to remember the past experience. That
knowledge is, then, used in trying to get meaning out of print. Meaning does not
reside on the printed page but rather in the meaning of the reader.
Roe, Stoodt and Burns (1987:2) proposed that “reading comprehension is
reconstruction, interpretation and evaluation of what author of written content means by
using knowledge gained from life experience”.

learners), as they read, can recognize the graphic forms of the reading text and understand
what is implied behind these forms.

1.2.

Reading strategies

1.2.1. Definitions
Much attention has been paid to the study of reading strategies and there are a
number of definitions of reading strategies.
According to Cohen (1986), reading strategies refer to those mental processes that
readers consciously choose to use in accomplishing reading tasks. Supporting this idea,
Brantmeier (2002) defined reading strategies as the comprehension processes that readers
use in order to make sense of what they read.
Oxford, Levine & Crookall, (1989) indicated that reading strategy is reading
technique and study skill which makes reading more effective and facilitate learning.
They also elaborated that reading strategies is a process used by the learners to improve
reading comprehension and overcome comprehension failures.
Brown (1990) considered reading strategies as the ways that help learners read
more quickly and effectively.
Another definition of reading strategies was given by O’ Malley & Chamot (1990)
is that the term reading strategies refers to those conscious and unconscious procedures,
actions, techniques or behavior that learners employ so as to enhance their
comprehension and make up for interpretation problems.
In short, although many different definitions were given, what can be come up
with is that all the above mentioned definition supported each other. What is more,
reading strategies can be defined as the ways show readers how to manage their
interaction with the written text to comprehend and learn new information from the
reading texts effectively.
1.2.2. Classifications


-

Guessing the meaning of new words

-

Self – monitoring

There are other scholars who support Oxford’s classification of reading strategies
such as Grellet (1986), Kristin, Leah, & Soro (2009) and Smith (1994). Each of the
strategies is as below:
 Prediction
Prediction refers to the technique of using the readers’ prior knowledge to guess
the meaning or the message of the text from the topics, pictures, key words, or
constructions. It is one of the most effective factors that motivate students to read and
understand the meaning of the context (Oxford, 1990).
 Skimming
Skimming refers to the technique of reading passages quickly in order to get its
gist. In skimming, readers do not look for specific information but only for general
information (Grellet, 1986).
 Scanning
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Scanning is quite similar to skimming in that both of them require a quick glance
of a text. The difference is that in skimming, readers try to get the general or main
information of the text but in scanning, the readers would like to obtain specific
information. In scanning technique, readers are looking to find particular information –
the answer to his/her questions.

in context areas which is an essential part of reading comprehension skill.
According to Dehnad (2005), reading strategy provides learning opportunities,
facilitates learning and recalling of information as well as strengthening the reading
comprehension ability of language learners. Learners need to be explicitly taught how to
properly use reading strategies to monitor their reading comprehension. Through the
employment of reading strategy such as meta-cognitive instruction in English class, EFL
learners will be able to improve their reading comprehension and experience a higher
level of competency which will further motivate them to read on a regular basis (Block,
1992).
Chamot (2005) stated that students have their own preference of strategy, but in
order to become motivated and selective strategy users, EFL learners should self monitor
their reading strategy. In other words, EFL learners need to consciously know what and
when to apply appropriate reading strategy when comprehension fails.
All in all, it can be denied that reading strategies are of great importance towards
second language learners. Hence, students should be exposed to multiple reading
strategies as well as the appropriate use of those strategies for better results. In addition,
students should be taught to become more aware of their own reading behavior and the
processes involved in reading to employ the reading strategies effectively.
This study adopted Oxford’s classification of reading strategies.

1.3.

Teaching and learning reading strategies
As acknowledged by many researchers, teaching second or foreign language

readers how to use strategies should be part of every reading lesson.
Learning reading strategies refers to any sets of activities, stages, programs, or
techniques that help students to keep, achieve, or evaluate information (Wenden &
Rubin, 1987). Teachers can help students learn when and how to use reading strategies in
several ways.

anticipate content and identify appropriate reading strategies. Next, they should select
strategies that are appropriate to the reading tasks and use them flexibly and interactively.
Finally, students have to check comprehension while reading and when the reading task
10


is completed. Monitoring comprehension helps students detect inconsistencies and
comprehension failures, helping them learn to use alternate strategies.
It can be concluded that when students use reading strategies, they find that they
can control the reading experience, and they gain confidence in their ability to read the
language.

1.4.

Research on reading strategies
A considerable number of studies examined the comprehension strategies that

second language readers apply to process a text. Obviously, the participants were of
many different ages, levels and backgrounds. Furthermore, the investigators used a
variety of research method and tasks to examine strategy type and frequency of strategy
use including think-aloud reports, interviews, questionnaires, observations and written
recalls.
1.4.1. Foreign research on reading strategies
In a second-language study, Hosenfeld (1977) used a think-aloud procedure to
identify relations between certain types of reading strategies and successful or
unsuccessful second language reading. The successful reader, for example, kept the
meaning of the passage in mind while reading read in broad phrases, skipped
inconsequential or less important words, and had a positive self-concept as a reader. The
unsuccessful reader on the other hand, lost the meaning of the sentences when decoded,
read in short phrases, pondered over inconsequential words, seldom skipped words as

characteristics of both poor and good readers. In the think-aloud activity, they skimmed
the whole text at the beginning although they were instructed to read it sentence by
sentence, which indicates that their strategies follow top-down processing, considered a
characteristic of good readers’ strategies.
Hung (2001) investigated the frequency and types of reading strategies used by
third-year male and female students in senior high school. The findings showed that there
was a significant difference by gender in the reading comprehension ability, in which
female students were better than male students. However, there was no significant
difference between male and female students in terms of overall strategy use. Besides, no
12


significant difference is found between male and female students when they read
narrative and expository materials separately.
Ahmad and Asraf (2004) did a research study on the underlying strategies used by
second language learners in responding to English texts. This case study investigated how
the learners made an effort to comprehend the texts by selecting, understanding and
integrating information in the context of eight reading comprehension sub-skills in the
form of comprehension questions, such as word meaning, words in context, literal
comprehension, drawing inferences from single strings, etc. The results suggested that the
same comprehension answering strategies were used by the good and average readers.
However, the good readers were more consistently focused on each question type than
the average ones; they articulated their comprehension answering strategies more often
on each question type than the average readers.
In conclusion, the findings of all the above – mentioned researches in reading
strategies revealed that reading strategies facilitated their comprehension proficiency.
Additionally, there are indeed differences between successful or good readers, and less
successful or poor readers in terms of strategy use. The results showed that successful
readers know how to use reading strategies efficiently.There is also a strong relationship
between reading strategies and proficiency level. Poor readers failed to ask questions,

main factors that should be taken into consideration for the 10th-form students, namely
students’ lack of background knowledge and world knowledge, students’ low motivation,
students’ limited vocabulary and grammatical structures and their lack of appropriate
reading strategies. Additionally, the findings of the study also indicated that there was a
big gap between what the teachers have done to motivate the students and what the
students prefer. The majority of students prefer having supplementary reading texts for
extensive reading. They want their teachers to provide them with reading strategies, how
to read efficiently. Besides, it reveals that the teachers do not make full use of games and
visual aids of which catch the interest of most the students.
Sao (2008) conducted a study to investigate students’ difficulties in reading texts
in the new textbook for grade 10 at Nghi Loc IV high school according to their
perceptions. The study employed semi-structured interviews will be conducted on a
group of 20 tenth form students to collect the data. The findings of the study showed that
when learning reading skills the students encounter difficulties in vocabulary, grammar,
14


background knowledge and reading tasks. The findings also showed that despite the
awareness of the importance of reading, some students had negative attitude toward
learning English which made their reading more difficult. Moreover, students were not
equipped with necessary skills to become successful readers and some units, reading
tasks were not appropriate for the students’ levels. Finally, inefficient teaching methods
and classroom techniques might be other causes of the students’ difficulties.
Linh (2009) implemented a study among 100 eleventh form students and ten
teachers at Phan Dang Luu high school to investigate the current situation of teaching and
learning reading comprehension of the 11th form students to find out advantages as well
as problems facing both teachers and students in reading lessons, and to suggest useful
techniques to develop the reading comprehension skills in the while- reading stage for the
11th form in Phan Dang Luu high school. The research method included consulting
related materials, survey questionnaires and reading lessons observations. The thesis

In this chapter, the researcher has elaborately discussed the theoretical basis of the
study by defining and clarifying the various aspects in the hope of providing an important
background for the discussion of the collected data later.

The following chapter will

display the methodology and findings of the research under the light of the abovementioned theories.

16


CHAPTER 2: THE METHODOLOGY
The previous chapter has provided a necessary theoretical background for the
present study. This chapter presents the methodology used for the data collection and
analysis in the study. It starts with setting of the study and the description of the
participants. It then describes data collection instruments and analysis procedures of the
study.

2.1. An overview of the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” (the set of standard
textbooks)
2.1.1. Objectives
The English textbook “Tieng Anh 10” (the set of standard textbooks) was written
by a group of lecturers of ULIS (VNU, Hanoi) and published in 2006. The syllabus of the
textbook “Tieng Anh 10” is the continuation of that of the textbooks at secondary
schools.
According to the Ministry of Education and Training, by the end of the 10th form
students are expected to achieve the following:
- Listen for the main ideas or for specific information of a monologue or a dialogue with
the length of 120 - 150 words of the topics they have learnt.
- Exchange information in English at a simple level about the situations relating to the