THE READING STRATEGIES OF SELECTED JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE CONTENT AREAS

Abstract

This study investigates the reading strategies selected junior high school students employ when reading social studies, science, and literature materials in school and a self-selected passage in a non-school setting. In addition interrelationships among their reading strategies and the subjects' purposes for reading, the students' personal models of the reading process, and the readers' attitudes toward reading, as well as the subject areas of social studies, science, and English are also examined. Six subjects from a seventh grade class are administered the Estes Attitude Scales, the Burke Reading Interview, and are questioned concerning their purposes for reading the selected passages. Miscue analysis identifies the reading strategies these subjects employ in their natural environments. Retrospective responses are examined to investigate the subjects' awareness of their reading strategies. The major findings indicate that each of these subjects sample syntactic, semantic, and graphophonic cues when reading. The more efficient readers produce more sentences which are syntactically and semantically acceptable, and result in no change to the intended meaning. The subjects' patterns of self-correction vary depending on the different materials. The students' sampling of graphophonic cues appears not to reflect reader proficiency but varies with different curricular materials. The retelling scores are not always predictable based on the readability formula ratings for the same passage. Other measures do not relate simply to proficiency of reading. These findings indicate a complex interaction between the subjects' reading strategies and their attitudes toward reading or a specific discipline, reading in different settings, the selection of reading materials, and reading for different purposes. The findings support a conclusion that these junior high school students employ recognition, prediction, confirmation, correction, and termination reading strategies when reading for diverse purposes teacher assigned, and self-selected materials in different settings. The subjects vary in their ability to adjust their reading strategies to meet the specific demands of different curricular materials. The subjects have differing perceptions of reading in different settings and among various materials. Students and teachers have different purposes for reading the same passages. The students do not seem to be having as much difficulty reading in terms of using the process as much as they have with flexible use of the process in relation to different materials and settings.