Reading strategies: Four lower secondary teachers’ perspectives on their practices and reasons behind their strategy choices

Abstract

This master thesis study English teachers use, or no use, of reading strategies and their reasons for choosing to employ certain reading strategies rather than others. Reading as one of the five basic skills is essential to being able to take part in adult life and society, and reading strategies is a useful tool to develop reading comprehension. This thesis employed a qualitative approach. The data were obtained from one pilot interview, four semi-structured stimulated recall interviews using a questionnaire as a prompt and four member check interviews, during which four EFL lower secondary teachers reflected on their use of reading strategies and discussed possible explanations for choosing these practices. All teachers work at the same middle school and have been teaching for at least five years. Answers were analyzed by using thematic analysis and were related to relevant theory (reading strategies, teacher beliefs, ecological learning). Member check interviews were carried out to give an even deeper insight and understanding to the informants’ previous answers. Findings suggest that teachers use reading strategies generating comprehension, motivation, and student participation, and avoid reading strategies focusing on memorizing, having little payoff, and with a narrow approach to texts. Their reasons for using reading strategies are both personal and contextual. The findings provide a possible picture of teachers’ current use of reading strategies and reasons for using them. However, it is important to remember that the findings can not be generalized to the diversity of teachers. The findings also aligns with theory on teacher beliefs, reading strategies, reading comprehension and ecological learning. For further research it would be interesting to look into if students self-report of their own use of reading strategies and their own beliefs on what an effective reading strategy is, matches teacher beliefs about reading strategies.