Literature review

Good Reader Strategy Use
What sets good readers apart from poor ones are the strategies they adopt before, during and after reading. Studies reveal many differences between good and poor readers. Before reading, good readers use their relevant prior knowledge to get a sense of what they will read (Grabe & Stoller, 2002) whereas poor readers do not consider their background knowledge about the topic and start reading without giving careful thought to the topic (Auerbach & Paxton, 1997), thus, beginning to read without a purpose. Another major difference is that good readers monitor their reading and use fixup strategies (Koda, 2005). They use context clues to deal with the meaning of unknown vocabulary and concepts, identify the main idea and important details, question, review, revise and reread to develop overall understanding (Janzen, 2002; Koda, 2005). In contrast, poor readers do not recognize text structures, and they lack strategies to figure out new words or to repair comprehension problems (Auerbach & Paxton, 1997). Poor readers either do not possess knowledge about strategies or they are not able to apply the strategies which are important for comprehending a text (Abraham & Vann, 1990; Bimmel, 2001). They spend a great deal of time engaged in bottom-up reading rather than being involved with meaning-making activities and they do not look ahead or reread the text to monitor and enhance comprehension (Masuhara, 2003).
A study conducted by Anderson (1991) showed that good readers are not only aware of varying strategies but they also know which strategies to employ in order to comprehend the text. A study carried out by Block (1992) had similar outcomes. It was observed that good readers focus more on top-down reading, where they become active participants in the reading process, whereas poor readers merely engage in bottom-up reading processes.
Sarıçoban (2002) examined the differences between successful and unsuccessful readers’ use of strategies through pre-, while- and post-reading phases in his study with upper-intermediate level EFL students. The study revealed that while there were not considerable differences in the pre-reading phase, the readers’ strategy use differed significantly in the while-reading phase. Sar.coban listed some strategies that successful readers made use of to accomplish various reading tasks: “analyzing arguments, focusing on descriptions and certain kinds of verbs” (p.9). As for the post-reading phase, successful readers differed from unsuccessful readers in making use of two strategies: “evaluating and commenting”.
Since reading is a strategic process, poor readers need to learn how to read strategically and be willing to counter the challenge of reading by finding ways to overcome the problems. Teachers should be prepared to teach such strategies, and learners should take the responsibility for learning and applying the strategies. When they manage to internalize the strategies, they will be able to make use of them in other literacy activities.