台灣的學生在國高中階段不間斷地接受英文的閱讀學習，亦透過策略的運用處理文章，以提高閱讀效率及解決閱讀上遇到的問題。然而，依現行課程綱要所設計的教學內容及由此應運而生的考試制度，深深影響著各程度學生在閱讀上的表現。本文回顧相關研究後，採用「放聲思考」模式，以閱讀測驗題型為例，檢視國高中學生英文的閱讀歷程。參與對象為台灣南部地區20位國中學生與20位高中學生。兩組群體的學生再依前測成績，細分為高程度與低程度加以比較。結束放聲思考的實驗後，研究者進行和學生的面談，用以釐清學生在閱讀過程中所使用的策略。本研究包含二個主要的問題：(1)國高中學生處理英文閱讀測驗時，在閱讀策略與作答策略的運用上有何差異？(2)國高中不同程度的學生在處理英文閱讀測驗時，閱讀策略與作答策略的使用有何差異？
研究結果顯示：當處理英文閱讀測驗的文章時，國中學生使用的閱讀策略多半歸屬由下而上或由上而下，但高中學生不僅於此兩層級延伸出更多種類以了解文章內容，甚至還應用了後設認知策略審視自己閱讀的狀況。整體而言，國高中學生具備使用由上而下閱讀策略的能力，但使用由下而上的策略頻率仍大幅偏高。過度依賴由下而上閱讀策略的情形，透露學生於英文能力的不足，亦突顯出第一與第二語言的隔閡。至於英文閱讀測驗的答題部分，因國高中學生歷經大大小小考試，對題目的作答技巧十分熟悉，故能運用各種策略選出理想答案。
就不同程度學生的表現而言，當國中低程度學生努力解讀英文單字時，高程度學生已將重心自由下而上轉移至由上而下的策略，因此，國中低程度的學生若試著接受如高程度學生所用的由上而下的閱讀策略的訓練，預期將改善理解能力。相對之下，高中學生不論高低程度皆傾向運用由下而上的閱讀策略，其原因極可能導源於現行課綱規定裡國高中必備字彙及語法知識的差異過大，致使高中學生侷限於解讀文字的過程，無法做更有效的閱讀，有鑑於此，除繼續提升高中學生使用由下而上策略的品質外，如何銜接國高中階段英語課程愈顯重要。此外，在不同程度學生的答題部分上，高程度的國高中生較能有效運用作答技巧幫助得分，而低程度的學生則傾向嘗試多種不同的作答技巧，以彌補自己在理解文章能力的缺陷。根據以上發現，本研究提出教學上的建議，期盼改善現今台灣英語教育實施的疏漏及問題。

Students in Taiwan contact with English reading all the way through junior high and senior high school years. They practice a variety of strategies to deal with texts in hand for the purpose of enhancing reading efficiency or solving problems they encounter. However, teaching content and the testing system derived from guidelines for English courses have a great influence on performances among students of different levels. This paper reviewed relevant reading researches and adopted the method of the think-aloud protocol to examine English reading processes of 20 JHS and 20 SHS students in southern Taiwan with a focus on reading comprehension questions. Each group was further divided into two subgroups: low-level as well as high-level readers (decided through reading comprehension pre-test), allowing comparisons within groups. Followed-up interviews gave students opportunities to clarify their strategy uses during the think-aloud experiment. Two research questions were addressed: (1) How do JHS and SHS students differ in their reading strategies and question-answering strategies when doing reading comprehension questions? (2) How do students of different levels in JHS and SHS differ in their reading strategies and question-answering strategies when doing reading comprehension questions?
The results showed that when it came to the reading passages in the reading comprehension question sets, JHS students employed reading strategies that mainly belonged to bottom-up and top-down levels while SHS students elaborated more bottom-up and top-down strategies to understand the content of their passage even metacognitive ones to evaluate their reading processes. Though JHS and SHS students both proved their competence in using top-down strategies, they were common in practicing bottom-up strategies with high frequencies. The students’ over-reliance on bottom-up reading strategies indicated the existence of a language barrier between their L1 and L2 and mostly resulted from their deficiency in English ability. As for the reading comprehension questions, JHS and SHS students who had been practicing question-answering strategies in exams all the time were capable of using various strategies to find their ideal answers.
On the other hand, low-level group of JHS tried hard to decode English units while high-level group switched much of the focus from bottom-up to top-down, which suggested that low-level group might improve their reading ability through learning and practicing more about top-down reading strategies that high-level group had already carried out to enhance their comprehension. Meanwhile, SHS students had a great tendency to employ bottom-up strategies in English reading no matter which subgroup was concerned, which might be due to the enormously different requirements for vocabulary as well as linguistic knowledge in guidelines for JHS and SHS English courses. Thus, SHS students of different levels could not read much more efficiently but were restricted to word decoding, which not only suggested the quality of SHS students’ bottom-up strategy uses needs to be promoted but the crucial gap between JHS and SHS phases should be bridged. As for the reading comprehension questions, high-level JHS and SHS students practiced effective question-answering strategies to get scores whereas low-level JHS and SHS students were apt to try many different kinds of question-answering strategies to make up for their weakness in reading ability. Based upon the above findings, pedagogical suggestions were offered for improvement of present English education in Taiwan.

References
Bailey, K. M. (1996). Working for washback: A review of the washback concept in language testing. Language Testing, 13/3, 257-279.
Barnett, M. A. (1988). Reading through context: How real and perceived strategy use affects L2 comprehension. Modern Language Journal, 72, 150-160.
Bernhardt, E. B. (1991). Reading development in a second language: Theoretical, empirical, and classroom perspectives. NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.
Brantmeier, C. (2002). Second language reading strategy research at the secondary and university levels: variations, disparities, and generalizability. The Reading Matrix, 2/3, 1-14.
Camps, J. (2003). Concurrent and retrospective verbal reports as tools to better understand the role of attention in second language tasks. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 13/2, 201-221.
Carrell, P. L. (1989). Metacognitive awareness and second language reading. Modern Language Journal, 73, 121-133.
Chang, B. J. (張碧珠) (2006, Feb. 28). 95課綱與國高中課程的銜接. 高中英文學科電子報, 8. http://english.tyhs.edu.tw/epaper/epaper8/epaper8_left_01.htm (2 March 2009).
Chao, S. Y. (趙士瑩) (2008). Reading difficulty and strategy use: A focus on language proficiency and gender. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan.
Chen, J. C. (陳如娟) (2005). Explicit instruction of reading strategies at senior high school in Taiwan. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung.
Chen, L. M. (2002). Taiwanese junior high school English teachers’ perceptions of the washback effect of the Basic Competence Test in English. Doctoral Dissertation, The Ohio State University, U.S.
Chen, S. T. (陳淑婷) (2007). A comparative study of the bottom-up and top-down reading strategy training for students in a junior high school. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung.
Clarke, M. A. (1980). The ‘short-circuit’ hypothesis of ESL reading—Or when language competence interferes with reading performance. The Modern Language Journal, 64, 203-209.
Cohen, A. D. (1998). Strategies in learning and using a second language. London: Longman.
Cohen, A. D. & Upton, T. A. (2006). Strategies in responding to the new TOEFL reading tasks. Monograph Series, 33. NJ: ETS.
College Entrance Examination Center. (2008). 學科能力測驗暨指定科目考試各考科考試說明公告. http://www.ceec.edu.tw/95課綱考試說明/95課綱(98年施測)考試說明.htm (14 Feb. 2009).
Corder, S. P. (1983). The significance of learners’ errors. In Robinett, B. W. & Schachter, J. (Eds.), Second language learning: Contrastive analysis, error analysis, and related aspects (pp. 163-172). US: The University of Michigan Press.
Crain-Thoreson, C., Lippman, M. Z., & McClendon-Magnuson, D. (1997). Windows on comprehension: Reading comprehension processes as revealed by two think-aloud procedures. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89/4, 579-591.
Davis, J. N. & Bistodeau, L. (1993). How do L1 and L2 reading differ? Evidence from think aloud protocols. The Modern Language Journal, 77/4, 459-472.
Duškov, L. (1983). On sources of errors in foreign language learning. In Robinett, B. W. & Schachter, J. (Eds.), Second language learning: Contrastive analysis, error analysis, and related aspects (pp. 215-239). US: The University of Michigan Press.
Ellis, R. (1997). Second language acquisition. London: Oxford University Press.
Ericsson, K. A. & Simon, H. A. (1993). Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data. MA: The MIT Press.
Feng, X. & Mokhtari, K. (1998). Reading easy and difficult texts in English and Chinese: Strategy use by native speakers of Chinese. Asian Journal of English Language Teaching, 8, 19-40.
Ferr, P., Snchez -Casas, R., & Guasch, M. (2006). Can a horse be a donkey? Semantic and form interference effects in translation recognition in early and late proficient and nonproficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals. Language Learning, 56/4, 571-608.
Goodman, K. S. (1976). Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game. In Singer, H. & Ruddell, R. B. (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (pp. 497-508). DE: The International Reading Association.
Goodman, K. S. (1982). Miscues: Windows on the reading process. In Gollasch, F. V. (Ed.), Language and literacy: The selected writing of Kenneth S. Goodman (pp. 93-101). Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Gough, P. B. (1972). One second of reading. In Kavanagh, J. F. & Mattingly, I. G. (Eds.), Language by ear and by eye: The relationships between speech and reading (pp. 331-358). MA: The MIT Press.
Ho, P. Y. (何佩螢) (2007). A study of EFL reading strategies used by vocational high school students in Taiwan. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan.
Hsu, S. C. (許素卿) (2004). Reading comprehension difficulties and reading strategies of junior high school EFL students in Taiwan. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung.
Hu, C. C. (胡瓊君) (2007). A study on the differences between Chinese and English reading strategies, and their relation to the reading comprehension abilities for senior high school students. Unpublished Master Thesis, Tamkang University, Taiwan.
Huang, S. C. (黃詩琦) (2003). Washback effects of the Basic Competence English Test on EFL teaching in junior high school in Taiwan. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan.
Hung, S. P. (洪萱珮) (2005). An investigation of factors that influence EFL college students’ reading strategy use. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan.
Hung, S. (洪瑄), Tsou, W. L. (鄒文莉), & Wu, G. Y. (吳貴雲) (2005). The effect of reading strategy training on freshman English reading in Taiwan. NUTN Journal, 39/1, 55-78.
Jiang, P. S. (蔣佩珊) (2004). The relationship between EFL learners’ vocabulary size and reading comprehension. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung.
Janssen, T., Braaksma, M., & Rijlaarsdam, G. (2006). Literary reading activities of good and weak readers: A think aloud study. European Journal of Psychology of Education, XXI/1, 35-52.
Kletzien, S. B. (1991). Strategy use by good and poor comprehenders reading expository text of differing levels. Reading Research Quarterly, 26/1, 67-86.
Koda, K. (2007). Reading and language learning: Crosslinguistic constraints on second language reading development. Language Learning, 57/Suppl.1, 1-44.
Kuo, L. H. (郭麗華) (2004). The correlation between Chinese and English reading of senior high EFL students in Hsinchu and Miaoli areas. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung.
LaBerge, D. & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293-323.
Lau, K. L. (2006). Reading strategy use between Chinese good and poor readers: A think-aloud study. Journal of Research in Reading, 29/4, 383-399.
Lee, J. F. (1991). On the dual nature of the second-language reading proficiency of beginning language learners. In Teschner, R. V. (Ed.), Assessing Foreign Language Proficiency of Undergraduates (pp. 198-215). Boston: Heinle.
Li, T. L. (李澤玲) & Jan, L. S. (詹麗馨) (2004). 英文學前教材. Taiwan: Lungteng Cultural Corporation.
Lin, S. H. (林秀慧) (2005). The relationship between language proficiency and reading comprehension strategy use: A case study of university freshmen. Unpublished Master Thesis, Tamkang University, Taiwan.
Lin, S. Y. (林淑媛) (2007). (2007, July 23). 挑戰2880－提升國中英語字彙量的秘訣. 敦煌英語教學電子雜誌. http://www.cavesbooks.com.tw/e_magazine/ e_magazine_ article. aspx?sn=237&language1=0 (1 March 2009).
Messick, S. (1996). Validity and washback in language testing. Language Testing, 13/3, 241-256.
Ministry of Education, Republic of China (Taiwan). (2006). Grade 1-9 Curriculum Guidelines. http://teach.eje.edu.tw/9CC/context/03-1-5.html (9 Feb. 2009).
Ministry of Education, Republic of China (Taiwan). (2008). Guidelines for Senior High School English Curriculum. http://lkc.ed.ncku.edu.tw/98course/ 07/03-english.pdf (9 Feb. 2009).
Mitchell, D. C. (1982). The process of reading: A cognitive analysis of fluent reading and learning to read. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Nicholson, T. (1993). Reading without context. In Thompson, G. B., Tunmer, W. E. & Nicholson, T. (Eds.), Reading acquisition processes (pp. 105-122). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Nikolov, M. (2006). Test-taking strategies of 12- and 13-year-old Hungarian learners of EFL: Why whales have migraines. Language Learning, 56/1, 1-51.
Odlin, T. (1989). Language transfer: Cross-linguistic influence in language learning. NY: Cambridge University Press.
Odlin, T. (2003). Cross-linguistic influence. In Doughty, C. J. & Long, M. H. (Eds.), The handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 436-486). UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Olshavsky, J. E. (1977). Reading as problem solving: An investigation of strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 12, 654-674.
Pressley, M. & Afflerbach, P. (1995). Verbal protocols of reading: The nature of constructively responsive reading. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Prichard, R. (1990). The effects of cultural schemata on reading processing strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 25, 273-295.
Richards, J. C. et al. (1997). From reader to reading teacher: Issues and strategies for second language classrooms. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Roth, J. L., Paris, S. G. & Turner, J. C. (2000). Students’ perceived utility and reported use of test-taking strategies. Issues in Education, V.6, 67-82.
Sainsbury, M. (2003). Thinking aloud: Children’s interaction with text. Reading, 37/3 , 131-135.
Smith, M. S. (1999). Second language learning: Theoretical foundations. NY: Pearson Education.
Smith, M. W. (1991). Constructing meaning from text: An analysis of ninth-grade reader responses. Journal of Educational Research, 84/5, 263-271.
Spratt, M. (2005). Washback and the classroom: The implications for teaching and learning of studies of washback from exams. Language Teaching Research, 9/1, 5-29.
Stanovich, K. E. (1980). Toward an interactive-compensatory model of individual differences in the development of reading fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 16/1, 32-71.
Stern, H. H. (1983). Fundamental concepts of language teaching. London: Oxford University Press.
Ting, A. (丁鴻儒) (2005). The study of senior high school first graders’ vocabulary competence, textbooks vocabulary distribution and teachers’ viewpoints. Unpublished Master Thesis, Southern Taiwan University, Tainan.
Tsou, W. L. (鄒文莉) & Tsou, M. Y. (鄒美雲) (2006). Miscue analysis: The comparisons between Chinese and English. English Teaching and Learning, Special Issue 1, 81-101.
The Committee of the Basic Competence Test for Junior High School Students. (2006). 民國96~100年基測英語科命題依據一覽表. http://www.bctest.ntnu.edu.tw/ (14 Feb. 2009).
Tung, H. C. (董幸正) (2008). Historical developments of the English tests used in Joint College Entrance Examination in the past fifty years. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung.
Vacca, J. L. et al. (2006). Reading and learning to read. MA: Pearson Education.
Villanueva de Debat, E. (2006). Applying current approaches to the teaching of reading. English Teaching Forum, 1, 8-15.
Ummelen, N. & Neutelings, R. (2000). Measuring reading behavior in policy documents: A comparison of two instruments. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 43/3, 292-301.
Upton, T. A. & Lee-Thompson, L. (2001). The role of the first language in second language reading. SSLA, 23, 469-495.
Urquhart, S. & Weir, C. (1998). Reading in a second language: Process, product, and practice. London: Longman.
Wang, K. C. (王國成) (2004). Vocabulary learning difficulties for senior I students in Taiwan. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Chengchi University, Taiwan.
Walter, C. (2007). First- to second-language reading comprehension: Not transfer, but access. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 17/1, 14-37.
Weng, Y. H. (翁聿煌) (2007). (2007, Aug. 22). 銜接學力斷層高一新生先上輔導課. 自由時報電子報. http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2007/new/aug/22/ today-north9.htm (2 March 2009).
Wu, Y. J. (吳誼真) (1997). A comparison of English reading miscues between junior and senior high school students. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung.
Wu, W. W. (吳雯雯) (2002). Taiwanese junior high school students’ metacognitive awareness in reading Chinese and English. Unpublished Master Thesis, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei.
Yang, L. L. (2007). The relationship between Chinese reading ability and English reading comprehension. English Teaching & Learning, 31/2, 127-158.