Relationships among comprehension strategies reported by proficient and nonproficient ESL students

Abstract

<p>Readers seem to employ a number of different strategies in comprehending a text. What strategies do successful readers use? Are the strategies related in any way? Grant Cioffi (1986), who attempted to answer these questions for native English speaker readers, found that proficient readers seem to use clusters of comprehension strategies when reading unfamiliar texts. The use of one strategy seems to be complementary with the use or less frequent use of one or more strategies. However, he did not compare these strategies with those of the nonproficient reader.</p> <p>This study is modeled after Cioffi's study. The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) to determine which strategies proficient and nonproficient nonnative readers use most often; (2) to investigate the relationships among those strategies; and (3) to examine the similarities between native and nonnative readers' strategy use. It is the author's hypothesis that successful comprehension strategies are universal: successful nonnative reader strategies are similar to native reader strategies. In identifying successful reader strategies in comprehension, the teacher may be better able to teach the nonproficient reader how to improve.</p>