The global need for communication and rapid advances in all branches of science and technology have made man realize that having a good command of other languages is a must. This requirement has created an impetus for further investigations into the study of language and thus great attempts have been made to find the most efficient and effective ways of learning and teaching such languages as English. For many leaners, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language. Certainly, if one considers the study of English as a foreign language around the world, reading is the main reason why students learn the language. In addition, at advanced proficiency …show more content…
Goodman (1969, 1973) and Smith (1971, 1982) have proposed a "psycholinguistic model of reading". Goodman argued that reading is not primarily a process of picking up information from the page, but it is a selective process. He further argued that the reader needs information more than visual symbols on the page and needs the abilities to make the necessary inferences from his background knowledge. Coady (1979) reinterpreted Goodman 's psycholinguistic model into a model suited to second language …show more content…
Despite the existence of numerous studies on L1 reading comprehension and L2 reading comprehension, (e.g., Bernhardt &Kamil, 1995; Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983; Jiang, 2011; Koda, 2007, Nassaji, 2003) the precise factors involved in L1 and L2 reading comprehension have not been researched to the extent one would expect. The present study, thus, attempts to reveal the extent to which second language learning would be affected by first language reading and L2 proficiency. If, for example, it becomes evident that L1 reading comprehension has more to do with L2 reading than L2 proficiency, then recommendation would be made to promote reader 's L1 reading skill as well as teaching them to transfer those skills to their