CRITICAL READING STRATEGIES, READING COMPREHENSION AND WRITING PERFORMANCE OF ESL COLLEGE STUDENTS: A CORRELATIONAL STUDY.

A genuine and substantial acquisition of knowledge requires more than the regular reading ability but rather that of critical reading which translates to increased critical thinking, deeper reader comprehension, and more effective analytical writing (Kurland, 1998). Improving critical reading skills requires the application of critical reading strategies (Critical Reading Strategies, 2009). This study was conducted in response to a serious dilemma that exists in the Philippine educational setting wherein a significant number of students fail to exercise critical reading; as such, they merely gather details or ideas, and often accept the information in the text at face value without applying critical thinking (Imam, 2013). The paper aims to establish the correlation among critical reading strategies, reading comprehension, and writing performance. This quantitative research study was conducted among the third-year college students from a reputable university in the country. The students were given a standardized reading comprehension test, an analytical writing task, and a researcher-made survey questionnaire. The results were analyzed and interpreted using mean and Pearson r in determining the specific critical reading strategies that these students utilized and in establishing the relationship between and among the variables under study. Results show that most respondents utilized two critical reading strategies such as reflecting on the challenges to beliefs and values and contextualizing. There is a moderate positive correlation between critical reading strategies and reading comprehension, between critical reading strategies and analytical writing performance, and between reading comprehension and writing performance. Henceforth, findings of the study will help struggling Filipino readers, particularly those ESL college students become better readers, writers, and