The Effect of Teaching Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies on Reading Comprehension Ability

Abstract

The demands of the changing world impose on learners the need to become autonomous readers. This places a responsibility on the shoulders of the teachers to develop an approach to teaching reading which will help readers become independent strategic ones. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of teaching reading strategies on the development of reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. An experimental design was adopted to accomplish this investigation. To do so, two intact classes of 35 students were selected. Then to find out the homogeneity of the participants, Oxford Placement Test was administrated to both classes' among whom 60 students who scored above 47 were selected as homogeneous and were assigned to two experimental and control groups. The students in the experimental group participated in 10 sessions and were taught two strategies of reading comprehension: activating background knowledge and contextual strategies. At the same time, the materials in the control group were taught through conventional methods of reading and translating the texts into Persian. In the 10th session, the post-test was administrated to both groups. The results of the t-test confirmed the positive effect of reading strategies instruction on the development of reading comprehension ability. These findings may furnish language teachers with the empirical evidence that capitalizing on the students' awareness of the strategies and helping them to use these strategies will significantly develop their reading abilities.