Regardless of reading proficiency, most of the participants in this context tend to use cognitive strategies in their reading. As the number of the participants who mentioned meta cognitive reading strategies was quite small, it is possible that many students still do realize that there are many other reading strategies available especially metacognitive reading strategies which they can use to help them be more successful in reading. A lot interviewees still focused on looking for definitions of unknown words which is one of cognitive reading strategies. Although a few of them mentioned metacognitive reading strategies, it was only small group of strategies: not as varied as it should be. This result demonstrated a current reading situation of university students in the south that it needs urgent attention from teachers and people related to this field. Therefore, it is important that learning how to apply reading strategies is integrated in reading classes to help students have a better reading comprehension (Talebi, 2012) The reason is successful readers should be able to think critically when they read: they should be able to plan, monitor, and evaluate their reading process. As research proves that good learners monitor their progress, make changes and modify their learning strategies if they feel that they are not on the right track while poor learners do not have this characteristic (Zhang, 2012). If the students were not aware of other existed reading strategies, this could lead them to get stuck repeatedly with the same type of reading problems without realizing that there are other possible strategies like those in metacognitive category: thinking beyond thinking, that could assist them with reading comprehension. This is in line with Grabe (2009) who supported the notion that those readers with metalinguistic awareness: who being aware of language knowledge: word definitions, morphology, syntax, and also aware of the way that texts are organized will be more successful in reading comprehension with their strategic awareness. Discussion From the overall data, it is succinctly presented that although high percentages of using both cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies based on the survey, the result from the interview yielded a different picture. This could happen because their beliefs and their practices do not match. They might believe that they made a plan before reading but when they actually read, they immediately started reading and then trapped in problems. Another possible reason is they could not recall all strategies they used in reading during theinterview. However, the reading strategies that they could remember and share with the researcher should be the strategies among their most often used ones When the English reading passage was introduced to them, the students were trapped there with language problems. With this limitation, they usually turned to cognitive reading strategies: the strategies that work directly with the task for example, they looked up unknown words in the dictionary. In addition, as proved in the current study, many students o not use variety of strategies particularly those in the metacognitive reading strategies, thus it is likely that the students get into trouble easily in reading and finally do not want to continue reading. This information: therefore, craves attention from teachers of reading before planning the next reading class as this attempts to reflect the current situation of reading in English among EFL earners in this context. The information from the two universities in this study is yielding a current reading The situation of the students from the two government universities in southern Thailand findings clearly revealed that in general, the students employed cognitive reading strategies and without recognizing that there is another group of reading strategies available, they could be trapped with more problems as illustrated in figure 2. Practically speaking, it would be more effective if the students are equipped and trained with proper reading strategies particularly metacognitive reading strategies to deal with the reading. As Ahmadi et al (2013) supported that metacognitive reading strategies should be instructed in classes as tools to enhance reading comprehension of students. With this remedy, our learners will be much more prepared before reading, able to choose the right strategy during reading, and ultimately able to achieve reading comprehension. This study, in conclusion, suggests that reading strategies be instructed as part of reading lessons so that students are not just readers but strategic readers.