Abstract

In this study I provide a historical-analytic review of seminal United States reading research from the mid-20th century to the present, exploring its implications for EFL reading instruction in Taiwan. Using a thematic approach, I examine the First-Grade Studies and landmark reports presented by well-known research teams, including the Commission on Reading (COR), the National Reading Panel (NRP), the National Literacy Panel (NLP) and the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP). The analysis reveals that while U.S. research has evolved through behaviourist, cognitive and sociocultural paradigms, it consistently identifies five core instructional components: phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary knowledge and comprehension strategies. However, these reports have faced significant critiques regarding methodological selectivity, the narrowing of instructional possibilities and the tendency to treat reading as decontextualised cognitive skills rather than socially situated practices. For the Taiwanese EFL context, the study highlights that second-language (L2) reading involves unique linguistic demands – such as cross-linguistic transfer – that L1-based models do not fully address. I conclude that U.S. research should be viewed as a conceptual resource rather than a prescriptive template. I advocate for instructional eclecticism and urge educators to adapt L1 research findings to the EFL classroom’s sociocultural realities for designing a context-responsive reading pedagogy.

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