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16) also argues that “reading is the activation of relevant knowledge and related language skills in order to accomplish an exchange of information from one person to another”.Among the four skills of learning English, reading ability is the most important skill and it hasreceived much more attention than others in EFL environments. This skill is highly valued bystudents and teachers alike (Richards& Renandya, 2002). Reading comprehension, as a skill todeal with our information, is not only important to the comprehensive ability of learninglanguage, but also an effective way to test English learners’ critical thinking ability. So, collegeEnglish reading teaching has attracted the attention of some language teachers and scholars.However, the present situation of our students’ reading ability is not satisfactory in our country.Traditionally, many language teachers still pay much attention to training students’ languageskills, grammars and vocabulary etc.. In the English class, which is “teacher-centered” not“student-centered”, teachers dominate the class, analyze the text structure, explain the new wordsand translate the text into Chinese, while students are just as the passive recipients and lack ofthe high motivation to study. In College English Curriculum Requirements (released by theHigher Education Ministry, 2007), students should employ effective reading strategies, whichmeans students should know how to use a proper strategy to cope with the reading materialseffectively, which is also required by critical thinking. Therefore, it is urgently needed to changethis teaching method and situation in China. In order to fulfill the requirements, college Englishteachers should apply critical thinking to college English reading and teach the students to attendand read actively rather than passively accept.

Chapter Two Literature Review

In this study, many reviewed citations and research reports place the research into anintegrated perspective; and also this study embraced several important areas of educationalinquiry. This chapter is divided into the following parts: (1) definitions of critical thinking and itsskills; (2) nature of reading and different models in reading comprehension; (3) the previousresearch on critical thinking and reading comprehension.

2.1 Critical Thinking

2.1.1 Definitions of Critical Thinking
From the perspective of history, the basic definition of critical thinking can be traced back2000 years ago to the time of Socrates (Paul, 1995). The literature on critical thinking has rootsin two primary academic disciplines: Philosophy and psychology (Lewis & Smith, 1993). Somephilosophers have tended to concentrate on the nature and quality of critical thinking. Whilepsychologists, on the other hand, have concentrated on the process of cognition, the componentsand operations used to address academic and practical issues (ibid). Furthermore, the cognitiveand developmental psychology have based on the empirical research, while philosophy hasdepended on logical reasoning to reach the conclusions. While most theorists have continued tobase their theories and definitions of critical thinking in one discipline or the other, someeducators have noted the importance of drawing on both philosophy and psychology to develop arigorous and encompassing theory of critical thinking and how to teach for it (Kuhn, 1992;Kurfiss, 1988).

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