2. Literature review 3

2.1 Research on metacognitive reading strategies 3

2.1.1 Definition of Metacognition 3

2.1.2 Definition of Metacognitive strategy 3

2.1.3 Classification of Metacognitive strategies 4

2.2 Research on reading competence 4

2.3 Previous studies on metacognitive strategy and reading competence both at home and abroad 5

2.3.1 Related researches at home 5

2.3.2 Related researches abroad 5

3. Methodology 7

3.1 Participants 7

3.2 Study methods 7

3.3 Data collection 8

3.4 Data analysis 8

4. Results and discussions 9

4.1 Frequency and types of metacognitive reading strategy use 9

4.2 Differences in students' metacognitive strategy use at different levels of reading abilities 10

4.3 Relations between metacognitive strategy use and students’ English reading competence 11

5. Pedagogical Implications 12

5.1 Raising students' metacognitive awareness in learning 12

5.2 Fostering students’ extensive reading habits 12

5.3 Cultivating students’ ability of choosing proper strategy 12

6. Conclusion 13

6.1 Major findings 13

6.2 Limitations 13

References 14

Appendix 15

1. Introduction

1.1 Research background

Reading is the most fundamental way to acquire information in English learning, about 95 percent of new information is gained through reading. English learners in China have little chance to communicate with native speakers to improve their English competence, but they can find a large amount of English reading materials easily. Therefore, in such condition, reading is a significant way to learn English. However, for a long time, many people are of the opinion that it is teachers’ duty to make students to become excellent readers. But, as education lays more stress on cultivating learners' abilities to learn by themselves nowadays, learners must learn to use reading strategies effectively to improve their reading competence.

Many researchers have conducted many researches on the strategy use in English reading. But, many of the traditional researches tended to focus on the reading results rather than the process. In fact, reading is a process of extracting meaning from a written or printed text, which requires readers to get the existing and potential information effectively in the reading course. So, “cognition about cognition” is a key point in the reading activity. The psychologist defined metacognition as “cognition about cognition”. The term “metacognition” was first put forwarded by J.H. Flavell (1976), the famous American psychologist, in the late 1970s. A more specific definition of metacognition was also given by Flavell, that is “Metacognition refers to learners’ knowledge about their own cognitive process and product and other things related to them”. Metacognition enables learners make full use of their cognitive skills to find out their shortcomings. Then, they can correct their shortcomings by building new cognitive skills. As for reading, metacognition can help readers realize their existing knowledge, then, they can find connections between these knowledge and use different skills to interact with the text (Sanacore, 1984). Phakiti (2003) regarded reading comprehension ability as a kind of communicative ability, and regarded metacognitive strategies as a part of inpidual characteristics of the subjects.