This paper reports the results of an empirical study of Saudi Students' reading comprehension strategies revealed through the use of the 'think-aloud' technique. The findings indicate that the subjects of this study tend to employ low-level, bottom-up, language-based strategies. This overwhelming entanglement with text processing at the micro-level such as handling isolated unfamiliar words and phrases gets in the way of utilizing the cognitive higher-level top-down, knowledge-based strategies. The paper calls for well-prepared strategy training programs in the skill of automaticity of local low-level strategies which should be supplemented by extensive reading in the target language.
Omar Atari