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Despite the fact that a considerable body of empirical research has been done to examine the role of metacognitive strategic awareness both in L1 and L2 reading, controversial findings have been reported. In addition, although a substantial number of studies have been conducted to investigate reading strategy use by English learners of various first languages, there is a lack of research involving Vietnamese ESL learners. The present study was designed in order to add to the existing literature new evidence about the second language reading strategies used by Vietnamese ESL learners. Particularly, three main aspects of reading strategy use were investigated: 1) the reading strategies that are most frequently used by Vietnamese ESL learners; 2) the reading strategies that distinguish high achieving readers and low achieving readers; and 3) the reading strategies that are significantly associated with performance on lower order and higher order reading questions. The participants of the study were 32 Vietnamese ESL college students in Vietnam. The research instrument employed two tasks: a fourteen-item reading comprehension test and a five-point Likert scale survey of reading strategies (SORS). The reading test was used to divide the sample into a higher performing group and a lower performing group. The SORS was taken from Mokhtari and Sheorey (2002) and consists of 30 items which measure learners' frequency of use of global, problem solving and support strategies when reading academic materials in English. The data was analyzed through descriptive statistics, multiple independent samples t-tests, and multiple regressions. The frequency analysis revealed a fairly regular use of reading strategies by Vietnamese ESL learners. Of the three types of strategies, support strategies were the most frequently employed, followed by global and problem solving strategies. Regarding strategies used by the higher and lower performing readers, the results revealed significant differences in the use of 5 global and 1 problem solving strategies. In addition, the study found that participants' performance on higher order and lower order reading questions was significantly associated with a set of reading strategies. Specifically, 14 reading strategies were significantly correlated with performance on lower order reading questions and 22 reading strategies with performance on higher order reading questions. These findings have provided new evidence and insight about the use of reading strategies in second language reading, particularly focusing on the relationships between strategy use and reading performance and strategy use and type of reading questions. Especially, the findings about the relationship between reading strategies and performance on lower order and higher order reading questions are novel, which fact, undeniably, requires further research in order for these findings to be validated and expanded. Finally, the present study's findings carry valuable pedagogical implications concerning the design of ESL reading curricula and the practice of teaching ESL reading strategies. Namely, curriculum designers and teachers should take into account the following issues: 1) the universality and uniqueness of ESL learners' preferences for reading strategies; 2) the connection between strategy use and reading performance, and 3) the fact that effective performance on higher and lower order questions is correlated with the use of specific reading strategies.

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Pan-Canadian Assessment Program (PCAP) 2007 reading ability item data and contextual data on reading strategies were analyzed to investigate the relationship between self-reported reading strategies and item difficulty. Students who reported using higher- or lower-order strategies were identified through a factor analysis. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether students with the same underlying reading ability but who reported using different reading strategies found the items differentially difficult. Differential item functioning (DIF) analyses identified the items on which students who tended to use higher-order reading strategies excelled, which were selected response items, but students who preferred using lower-order strategies found these items more difficult. The opposite pattern was found for constructed response items. The results of the study suggest that DIF analyses can be used to investigate which reading strategies are related to item difficulty when controlling for students’ level of ability.

Pan-Canadian Assessment Program (PCAP) 2007 reading ability item data and contextual data on reading strategies were analyzed to investigate the relationship between self-reported reading strategies and item difficulty. Students who reported using higher- or lower-order strategies were identified through a factor analysis. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether students with the same underlying reading ability but who reported using different reading strategies found the items differentially difficult. Differential item functioning (DIF) analyses identified the items on which students who tended to use higher-order reading strategies excelled, which were selected response items, but students who preferred using lower-order strategies found these items more difficult. The opposite pattern was found for constructed response items. The results of the study suggest that DIF analyses can be used to investigate which reading strategies are related to item difficulty when controlling for students’ level of ability.

MA (English) / Department of English / The purpose of this study was to investigate the English reading strategies utilised by level-one students at the University of Venda. The respondents in this study were three hundred and nine level-one students from various Schools in the University of Venda who were doing English Communication Skills (ECS) course in the 2016 academic year. The study adopted a mixed methods research design (quantitative and qualitative research approaches). Data were collected by means of a self-completion questionnaire of the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) developed by Mokhtari and Sheorey. The researcher employed descriptive statistics to analyse frequency use of each reading strategy using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and usage level. Open-ended data were summarised by using grouping technique. The results of the study revealed that the participants in this study were, to a large extent, aware of what they were doing when reading as they reported utilising English reading strategies with different frequencies and with the high and moderate levels of reading strategy usage. The highest mean frequency with which the respondents used a given category of strategies when reading English academic materials was 3.98 (high) which was derived from the category of problem-solving strategies, while the category of support reading strategies and global reading strategies were reported being used with the relative mean of 3.79 (high) and 3.57 (high) respectively. The findings can be helpful to students in increasing their awareness of reading strategies while reading, improving their understanding of the reading process, and enhancing confidence in their own reading ability and to teachers and lecturers in helping their students learn to become constructively responsive and thoughtful readers, which will promote academic reading skills and ultimately enhance academic achievement.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandated that school districts and schools ensure that English Language Learners (ELLs) are provided with equitable opportunities and experiences that support student success academically. However, many ELL students have faced challenges at school, have not been academically successful, and struggle to read on grade level. NCLB has also mandated that elementary schools give parents the tools needed to support their children's learning in the home. Researchers have supported the importance of parental involvement in the academic success of children. The purpose of this study was to determine whether parents' knowledge of reading strategies and interventions increase after participating in a series of workshops specifically designed for the parents of English Language Learners. The professional development activities were delivered in a series of three workshops from March 26 to April 16 of 2011 for three hours each Saturday. Results indicated that pare

For several decades, reading strategies have aroused many researchers’ interest.Readingis a very important language skill for English learners; however, many English majors feel that their reading proficiency is far from satisfying though they have studied English for more than ten years. Therefore, the current situation of using reading strategies among Chinese sophomore English majors is studied in this paper. The research aims to study the relationship between the use of reading strategies and the students’ reading achievements. The reading comprehension part of TEM 4 (2006) and two questionnaires are adopted in this study to collect data from the investigated students. The participants are 54 English major sophomores from a university in China. The major findings of this study are: English majors use reading strategies in medium level when doing reading comprehension tests. Both metacognitive and cognitive reading strategies significantly correlate with reading achievements and both of them play important roles in reading comprehension. There are differences in the application of reading strategies between high-proficiency readers and low-proficiency readers. Teachers do not pay high attention to instructing reading strategies in the classroom, so some pedagogical implications on the teaching of reading strategies are suggested.

For several decades, reading strategies have aroused many researchers’ interest.Readingis a very important language skill for English learners; however, many English majors feel that their reading proficiency is far from satisfying though they have studied English for more than ten years. Therefore, the current situation of using reading strategies among Chinese sophomore English majors is studied in this paper. The research aims to study the relationship between the use of reading strategies and the students’ reading achievements. The reading comprehension part of TEM 4 (2006) and two questionnaires are adopted in this study to collect data from the investigated students. The participants are 54 English major sophomores from a university in China. The major findings of this study are: English majors use reading strategies in medium level when doing reading comprehension tests. Both metacognitive and cognitive reading strategies significantly correlate with reading achievements and both of them play important roles in reading comprehension. There are differences in the application of reading strategies between high-proficiency readers and low-proficiency readers. Teachers do not pay high attention to instructing reading strategies in the classroom, so some pedagogical implications on the teaching of reading strategies are suggested.