An Inquiry into Reading Comprehension Strategies through Think-aloud Protocols

Asking comprehension questions might reveal how much readers have understood of a given text, but such a measure is hardly sufficient to determine how the readers have actually processed the text in their minds. For the purpose of obtaining direct insight into how EFL .readers search for meaning and what kinds of reading comprehension strategies they possess and utilize during the act of reading, the author collected think-aloud protocols of 43 Japanese university students recorded on cassette tapes and examined the data, using the broad categories of top-down processing and bottom-up processing with accompanying sub-categories. This article reports the method of classifying the data, analyzes the characteristics of strategies used by the subjects, and investigates the relationship between strategy use and reading comprehension ability shown in the results of semester examinations. Finally, it considers the implications of this data for teaching reading to Japanese university students.

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