Turning knowledge into wisdom: Improving the reading comprehension ability of EFL students through thinking analytically and reading critically

Abstract. This study explores the ways in which Critical Reading (CR) practices can improve reading comprehension ability of Iranian EFL students. In the present study, the following null hypothesis was proposed: The application of critical reading has no significant effect on improving the reading comprehension ability of Iranian EFL students. The proposed design was a pretest-posttest groups design. Hence, a group of seventy homogeneous students were selected. They were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. Then both groups enjoyed a series of similar instructions except that the students in experimental group were required to express their own opinions about and react critically to the reading passage they had just read. The students in order to express their own ideas about and react critically to the passage had to activate and use their background knowledge. Finally, in order to capture the probable significant relationship between critical reading and reading comprehension a t-test was used. The results rejected the null hypothesis, and indicated that critical reading practices positively affected students' reading comprehension