Cognitive Strategies and Reading Skills

Abstract

The present study aimed to determine students' perspectives on the influence of cognitive strategies and reading skills. This descriptive study was applied to a population of 61 students in the first, second, and third years of high school at the Glenn Doman School (22 males and 39 females, who ranged in age from 14 to 18 years) with an A2-B1 level according to the Common European Framework of References (CEFR). The data were collected using a survey with 20 items, each item with 5 options on a Likert scale. This survey was validated by Cronbach's Alpha coefficient (0.939) and was validated by 5 experts in the field, who validated it using Aiken's validation, and it was found that each question of the survey was accepted with a perfect score of 1 in Aiken's V coefficient. On the other hand, three research questions were formulated in relation to the specific objectives, these questions were divided into the following categories: types of cognitive strategies, reading subskills, and reading strategies. First, the results showed that the type of cognitive strategy most developed by the students was the basic cognitive strategy of repetition or rehearsal (the students repeat the information in order to memorize it), as well as the complex cognitive strategy of metacognition (learn autonomously and selfregulate the learning) this result may be because of the facility and familiarity that the students have with these strategies. In addition, it was found that students have developed two primary subskills reading for detail and reading for gist. Finally, several strategies were found to improve students' reading skills, such as monitoring and tapping prior knowledge, which means that students usually monitor their comprehension when reading a text and in case they do not understand an idea, they read the text again to get a better interpretation of it.