Metacognitive awareness of reading and reading strategy use by nonproficient college readers

Abstract

This research investigated what reading strategies Thai college EFL students who were identified as nonproficient readers are aware of and what reading strategies they use. Data were gathered from a questionnaire, think-aloud and interviews. The analysis identified 3 broad categories of 16 reading strategies employed by the nonproficient readers: Text-based strategies, knowledge-based strategies and interactive strategies. Results also showed that the nonproficient readers viewed reading as a decoding process and that they were aware of different reading strategies. However, they could not regulate the strategies to construct meanings from texts effectively and solve reading problems. Their unsuccessful reading was due to the interplay of factors such as a lack of word recognition skills and necessary syntactic knowledge, and ineffective regulation of reading strategies.