THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN READING STRATEGIES, ENGLISH PROFICIENCY, AND READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AMONG SAUDI HIGH SCHOOL EFL LEARNERS

Readers tend to use several reading strategies to process and understand reading texts. However, English as a foreign language (EFL) students that lack knowledge of effective reading strategies tend to experience difficulties in reading comprehension in English as their target language. This paper investigates Saudi high-school EFL learners’ reading comprehension strategies by sampling Saudi high-school students (n=100) from AlBaha, Saudi Arabia, using quantitative surveys on their use of reading strategies. Data analysis was performed using the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) (version 23) and partial least squares (PLS) was used to achieve structural equation modelling (SEM). The results show that the commonly used reading strategies by Saudi EFL learners (in order of incidence of use) are problem-solving strategies, global reading strategies, and lastly support reading strategies. In conclusion, to differing extents, the above-mentioned reading strategies assist high-school EFL learners to process and comprehend ESL reading texts. Overall, the main implication of this study’s findings is that improving EFL learners’ use of reading strategies requires unified collaboration by education policymakers, ESL educationists, ESL teachers, curriculum designers, to train EFL learners to use these strategies effectively and ultimately improve their reading comprehension level.