Teaching Reading Strategies

General Introduction: The teaching of reading at secondary schools seems to be inadequate and not satisfying (Duffy and Rohehler 1981-82 Durkin 1978-1979). Many students have low motivation in learning English especially in the reading class. Many students say that English is not an interesting subject. For that reason, they take the English class because it is a compulsory subject for them to pass the three semesters. As a result the students turn to be less active readers and at the end they might remain less competent in the reading skill. Additionally, the students also consider that reading is very difficult to learn. In this

case, it is often difficult to prove, for the students that texts in English can be

understood even though there are structures that the students have never seen before.

Hedge (2000:192) explains that in processing texts, the second language readers will

find difficulties when they find unfamiliar aspects of English language. .In

this case, it is often difficult to prove, for the students of English as a foreign language,

that texts in English can be understood even though there are structures that the

students have never seen before.

Another major difficulty that may be experienced by students in mastering the reading skill is the mastery of vocabulary items. Grabe (2009:333) explains that if students are to become good readers with a wide range of texts, they need to understand a great number of vocabulary items. Furthermore, secondary school students do not feel the necessity to master English for their own field of study. As a result, they may become demotivated in learning English. In addition, classrooms are overcrowded, usually; each class consists of more than 25 students. This condition is not effective for the teaching and learning process, especially for the English subject. The teacher may find it difficult to control the class .As a result, the teaching and