the impact of explicit instruction of top-down reading strategies on reading comprehension of intermediate efl learners

this study investigated (a) the learners’ existing reading strategy repertoire, (b) the effect of instruction in reading strategies on learners’ strategic performance, and (c) the effect of explicit instruction in top-down reading strategies on reading comprehension ability of intermediate learners. the study was conducted with 40 intermediate efl learners in two groups of experimental and control in negar languages school in qazvin in the spring of 2014. after the first administration of the reading strategy questionnaire and reading comprehension test (pet), a four-week explicit strategy instruction in top-down reading strategies was provided. following the treatment, the same questionnaire and a different version of pet were administered a second time in order to determine the effects of the explicit instruction of the strategies. the statistical analysis of the pre- and post-questionnaires showed that there were significant increases in the means of top-down strategies after the treatment while a slight decrease occurred in students’ bottom-up strategy use. a significant difference was found between the performance of the students of the experimental group on the pre-and post- reading tests suggesting that reading comprehension strategy instruction could create a significant change on the behavior of the aforementioned group within the instruction period.