Improving Reading Comprehension in a Foreign Language: Strategic Reader

Second language reading comprehension is the most important skill required by students, especially in a foreign language context. One way to help these students improve their reading comprehension is strategy instruction. In the present study, the effect of two strategies, namely, summarizing and students-generated questions have been investigated. The participants in the study were all female intermediate EFL students, between 14 and 39 years old. A quasiexperimental research design was employed with a treatment lasting 5 weeks on three intact groups—two experimental groups and one control group. The results of a one-way ANOVA indicated that there was significant difference between the summary group and the control group, whereas no significant difference was observed between the summary group and the student-generated question group, and also between student-generated question group and the control group. Therefore, it is recommended that EFL teachers ask their students to prepare a reading passage summary to help them improve their reading comprehension.