Abstract
For the past several decades, reading strategies have aroused many researchers’ interests, but the research has
mainly focused on strategy usewhile ignoring the functionof metacognitive awareness ofreading strategies. This
study, based on a questionnaire, investigated the students’ awareness of reading strategy use at the senior middle
school level. The major findings are, first, that there isa moderate awareness of all the strategies; secondly, the
students hold a preference for Problem Solving Reading Strategies, followed by Global and Support Reading
Strategies; thirdly, females show higher use of reading strategies than males in each individual category, as well as
in the combined sub-categories. Also, the females are more careful and considerate while the males are more
adventurous and bolder. Finally, the readers’ metacognitive awareness of reading strategies is closely linked to
their language proficiency. Based on the findings above, several suggestions can be made to help teachers improve
their teaching and help the students improve their reading efficiency.