The effects of reading strategies on the improvement of inferential skills

The aim of this study is to reveal whether in reading comprehension, Gazi University Faculty of Education English Language Teaching Department first year students have the necessary knowledge sources and strategies and whether they use them appropriately and strategically in reading comprehension.In in the fall semester of 2006?2007 academic year, the first year students were first administered a 50 item Likert type scale in order to determine the knowledge sources and strategies they utilize. The students scored quite high points on the scale. Thus, although they, as stated in the scale, agreed that they were supposed to have the knowledge sources and strategies and to read the text by using appropriate reading strategies, it was revealed that they are quite poor at basic reading skills and general and inferential reading skills by the results of the pre-test administered soon after the scale.Following the pre-test, each student was applied the Think-alould method to reveal to what extent he uses the knowledge sources and strategies. By the results of the analysis, a parallel result emerged to that in the pre-test; that is, the students cannot benefit from the necessary knowledge sources, and cognitive and metacognitive strategies and they cannot use them appropriately.Thus, based on the results of these three instruments, the students were given strategy instruction in the fall semester of 2007 ? 2008 academic year in order to improve all the aspects of their reading performance. After the strategies instruction, a post-test was administered. Thus, it was revealed how much the students benefited from the reading strategies instruction. As a result, they improved their poor reading performance, and advanced these qualities to a further level. Based on the results, some suggestions were made regarding some aspects of reading comprehension and comprehension instruction.Key Words: Theories of reading comprehension, knowledge sources, stratejic reading, cognitive and metacognitive strategies, inference and theories of inference, reading comprehension instruction, role of L1 and L2 in reading, and good and poor readers.