【正文】 of the present research, subjects, and instruments testing procedures, material, results and discussion. HypothesisMuch has been talked about on the rationale of the schema theory and the implication and application in ESL reading classroom within the framework of schema theory. This study aims at exploring the relation between schema theory and reading prehension in the ESL reading instructions and proving the positive effect of schema theory upon the ESL readers. Thus, an experimental study is designed to answer such research questions as “Can reading prehension is improved through the instructions of schema theory?”, “What’s the relationship between reading prehension and schema theory?” SubjectsThe subjects consisted of 60 students (36 girls and 24 boys) which were in Grade Two. The experiment was carried out in Middle School in XingNing, Guangdong Province, which is a key school with a total of over 3500 students. These subjects were selected eventually because they were thought to have the same learning background. Before they entered the high school, they all had taken the same entrance exams and their scores must above the enrolment cutoff point that the school set. In this study, a reading pretest and a posttest were given to the subjects. Scores on the reading proficiency test were indicators of subjects’ proficiency level. According to their pretest, they were divided into three groups. InstrumentsA reading proficiency pretest was constructed to divide the students into three different reading levels. The pretest included 20 multiplechoice items and consisted of 5 passages, ranging from 350400 words in length. Bereither and Bird (1985) suggest that troublefree reading does not require readers to call upon their strategic resources. Therefore, passages which were a little beyond their current reading levels were selected. Following each passage, there were 35 multiplechoice questions: (i) 12 main idea questions, (ii) 12 factual information or detail questions and (iii) 12 inference questions. Among the 20 items, 5 items were main idea questions, 5 inference questions and 10 detail questions. Based on the results of the pretest, subjects were classified into three groups: low, intermediate and high. 13 students who received below 20 points were divided into the low level group。 38 students with between 20 and 30 points into the intermediate level group。 and 9 students who obtained above 30 points into the high level group. Testing proceduresBefore the onset of the reading training, the students were given a reading prehension pretest. Six weeks later, when the subjects finished the reading training under the guide of schema theory, all were given a posttest. Test materials were designed for pretest and post test. Ten passages were selected from the testing passages used in NMET papers of 2006 and 2007 (see Appendix Ⅰand Appendix Ⅱ). These materials were quite reliable as they have been designed by professional test designers in China. Five passages were used in pretest while the rest were used in posttest to keep the level of tests consistent. Materials and training proceduresThe reading training was carried out under the guidance of schema theory, which is based on the reader’s knowledge to form a schema in mind in order to help understand reading materials. The reading training procedures are as follows: first, we explained the procedure of the reading training. Next, we enriched the students’ schemata in their minds by introducing world knowledge of the text. Third, we conducted prereading activities, whilereading activities and postreading activities, in order to help the students build up the schemata in their minds.Example1 In NSEC Student’s Book7, Unit4 is about volunteer work. Before the students read the text, the teacher asked the students to read the title and then guess: What does the title “A Letter Home” tell you? Then he showed the sign of united nation volunteer in China, asked the students to predict what might happen in the text? Late the teacher guided the students to discuss some questions as follows: 1. what do you think of volunteer work? 2. Would you be a volunteer in the future? 3. Do you know any other volunteer?(1) Prereading activities Prereading activities are activities that students do before they read the text in detail (Dan Wenxia, 2005). Prereading tasks have tended to focus on preparing the reader for likely linguistic difficulties in a text. Prereading activities can create expectations and arouse the students’ interest in the topic. The main purpose of these activities is to get students prepared for the whilereading. Prereading activities include predicting, creating the scene and preteaching the difficult words and phrases.Prereading activities start from predicting. Predicting can help learners activate their schemata related to the subject of a text. Teachers may organize prediction based on the title of the article, pictures, questions, key words and sentences, the first and the last paragraph. To begin with, we try to use the illustration, in NSEC Student’s Book, almost every unit has illustration. Before presenting the text, we ask the students to discuss the pictures and use their image to predict things that may happen. Then, we use the title of the text. The title will represent the main idea or the style of the article. Last, we guide the students to analyze the title and make some judgment.Cultural background knowledge can help students read more smoothly. Before starting to read, we introduce cultures of English speaking countries into our classes in order to enrich students’ cultural background knowledge. So creating the scene is necessary, and then students can get familiar with the cultural background knowledge relevant to the reading materials. Last, teaching difficult words and phrases is necessary. Some difficult key words and phrases may make reading prehens