The Cognitive Reading Strategies of ESL Students

Abstract

0 In recent years, researchers have investigated the importance of the cognitive strategies students use while reading (Weaver 1979, Hansen 1980, Wilkinson 1980, Linden and Wittrock, 1981, Cohen 1983). The use of these strategies has been found to be effective in improving students'reading comprehension (Brown 1981, Baker and Brown 1984, Palinscar and Brown 1984, 1985). However, as Padron (1985a) has noted, most of these studies have been conducted with English monolinguals, and few have examined the reading strategies of ESL students (Padron 1984, 1985b). Since reading and language are closely linked (Carroll 1977), the difficulties bilinguals encounter in reading texts in their second language may differ from those experienced by monolinguals. Connor (1984), for example, found that there were differences in the way students process material written in the second language. The study reported here was conducted to determine whether there are differences in either the type or frequency of cognitive reading strategies reported by ESL and monolingual students. Individual interviews, which were audiotaped for analysis, were conducted with 23 Spanish-speaking ESL students and 15 English monolingual students from the third and fifth grade classes of an inner-city public school in a major Southwestern metropolis. Subjects were first administered the San Diego Quick Assessment (see Ekwall 1979), a graded word list to determine their independent reading levels. Students then read an appropriately matched passage from the Ekwall Reading Inventory Manual (Ekwall 1979), stopping at pre-marked intervals to explain the reading comprehension strategies they were using. Spanishspeaking students were allowed to respond in their native language so that