this study explored reading strategy use of tefl ma students when they read academic research articles in english. the purpose of this study was to investigate how this group of readers typically approaches reading academic research articles related to their field of study, and also what they do in reading such research articles. the aim of the present study was bilateral. first, the researcher tries to identify the main types of reading strategies such ma students use, how they use those strategies, and at what stages of reading they use them through interviews and thinking-alouds protocol. the results suggest that the students participated in this study used the three major strategies of cognitive, metacognitive, and compensatory obviously at different stages of reading an academic research article. the stages the readers went through were pre-readings, while-readings, and post- readings. second, twenty tefl ma students participated to fill out a survey of reading strategy (sors), used to measure the usage of the three reading strategies of cognitive, metacognitive, and compensatory. the results indicated that the tefl ma students reported using such reading strategies with high frequency for reading academic research articles.