The Relationship among Elementary English as a Foreign Language Learners’ Hemispheric Dominance, Metacognitive Reading Strategies Preferences, and Reading Comprehension

Abstract

The past decade has witnessed a plethora of research to study the relationship between reading strategies and reading comprehension, but few studies have examined the brain functionality; more specifically the relationship between hemispheric dominance and reading strategies. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether there would be any relationship among elementary English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ hemispheric dominance (Left, Right and Whole-brained dominance), their reading strategies, and reading comprehension. To this end, 67 elementary EFL students were selected based on convenience sampling. After determining the participants’ brain dominance, they completed a survey of reading strategies (RS) in order to identify their general preferences of reading strategies. Then a Reading Comprehension Test (RC) was administered to examine the students’ reading comprehension proficiency. The results demonstrated that most of the students were left-brain who generally preferred to employ problem-solving strategies (PROB). Furthermore, no significant relationship was found between hemispheric dominance, reading strategies, and reading comprehension of Iranian elementary EFL students. The results had also some implications for teachers stating that they should consider their students’ individual differences in terms of hemisphericity and adopt or balance their teaching techniques based on the students’ brain dominance types (learning styles and strategies) or at least to be sensitive to that.