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Using literature circles to teach graded readers in English: an investigation into reading performance and strategy use

ABSTRACT Purpose: Graded readers can help English language learners to improve their reading ability. Literary texts with simplified language often differ from expository texts for teaching EFL learners. Although reading strategies have been used to facilitate comprehension, how students use strategies to process literary texts is underexplored. The present study investigates the effect of graded readers, literature circles (LCs) and reading strategies on university students in Taiwan. Design/Methodology: This study adopted a quasi-experimental design with 60 first-year students reading two graded readers from the Oxford Bookworms collections. Of the 60 participants, 30 were in the control group and the other 30 who received the LC intervention were in the experimental group. Reading comprehension tests and a questionnaire for reading strategies were adopted. Findings: The findings revealed that the students with the LC intervention outperformed the control group. The tasks in the LC were found to promote reading comprehension and strategy practice. In general, though reading strategies were similarly adopted, monitoring strategies were more frequently used by the experimental group. Originality/Value: LCs offered EFL learners a way to build linguistic and cultural schemata, to develop and practice metacognitive reading strategies, to enhance main-idea comprehension, and to form long-term memories for retention.