Reading Strategy Use and Comprehension Performance of More Successful and Less Successful Readers: A Think-Aloud Study

Within the context of language study and teaching, reading is fundamentally important for language learning. Bright and McGregor (1970, p. 52) stated that "Where there is little reading, there will be little language learning. " To date, there is a growing body of research that has been conducted on using reading to help second/foreign language (L2/FL) learners develop language proficiency and reading skills (e.g., Kr ashen, 2004; Lao & Krashen, 2000; Yamashita, 2008). Researchers, as well as language instructors, have also become increasingly interested in examining the strategies L2/ FL learners use during reading and the possible effects of strategy-based reading instruction or training on reading development (Aghaie & Zhang, 2012; Anderson, 1991; Janzen, 2003; Kern, 1989; Zhang, 2008; Zhang, Gu, & Hu, 2008). To achieve strategic reading, a reader needs to possess both knowledge about strategies and the ability to apply strategies effectively (Anderson, 1991), which is also one of the notable characteristics that distinguish proficient readers from less proficient readers.Reading StrategiesReading strategies are self-directed actions where readers flexibly take control with a certain degree of awareness to retrieve, store, regulate, elaborate, and evaluate textual information to achieve reading goals (Erler & Finkbeiner, 2007; Paris, Lipson, & Wixson, 1994). Readers' strategy use while reading demonstrates their interaction with written texts, and effective use of strategies can improve their reading efficiency and text comprehension (Carrell, 1989). In terms of strategy categories, Williams and Burden (1997, p. 149) stated that "Strategies can be cognitive; that is, they can involve mental processing or they can be more social in nature, and their effective use is enhanced by metacognitive awareness. " Cognitive strategies function for effective and efficient retrieval, storage, and acquisition of information for readers to extract and construct meaning from texts. The literature on both first and second language reading provides a binary division of cognitive strategies as bottom-up and top-down strategies, with the former being related to sound-letter, lexicon, and syntax, and the latter being concerned with text gist, background knowledge, and textual organization (Erler & Finkbeiner, 2007; Paris et al., 1994). Metacognitive strategies that address readers' knowledge of cognitive resources, awareness of cognitive processing, and the ability to adjust utilized strategies (Baker & Brown, 1984; Carrell, Gajdusek, & Wise, 1998) are performed by readers to "check the outcome of any attempt to solve a problem, plan one's next move, monitor the effectiveness of any attempted action, and test, revise, and evaluate one's strategies for learning" (Brown, 1994, p. 115). Social strategies, such as "asking for clarification or verification," "cooperating with peers and proficient users of the new language," "developing cultural understanding," and "becoming aware of others' thoughts and feelings," are categorized as one of the six strategy groups in Oxford's (1990, pp. 323-324) system of language learning strategies useful for L2/FL reading to increase readers' social involvement in the target language.Thinking AloudTo best gain access to a reader's sophisticated process of reading comprehension and strategy use, thinking aloud provides a powerful means to obtain this mental data, and verbal protocol analysis can lead to new insights into reading strategies, reader responses and characteristics, as well as the influence of situational variables (Afflerbach, 2000; Smith, 2006). The technique of thinking aloud while reading requires readers to express their thoughts from their short-term memory at specific intervals; this makes covert mental processing overt and provides direct evidence of the internal reading process performed by readers while engaged in the task of reading (Gillam, Fargo, & Robertson, 2009; Kucan & Beck, 1997). …