Teaching literary texts to foreign language learners is a long-lasting tradition. Among literary genres, the short story, a very popular form of literature, is very close to the real-life language and plays a significant role in language learning in EFL contexts where students need rich input. Reading short stories improves not only linguistic knowledge, but also cultural knowledge. In addition, reading short stories facilitates the affective aspects of language learning, such as one’s attitude toward learning and reading in a foreign language and one’s motivation to learn and read in a foreign language. Last but not least, short stories broaden the worldview of the readers and make them more effective citizens of their societies. The current book, Comprehension in Reading Short Stories: A Strategy-Based Approach, is intended to make EFL learners experience reading comprehension in the genre of short story. Although linguistic decoding is very necessary in efficient reading, it is not sufficient for a successful reading. As reading comprehension requires complex processes, this book aims to boost reading comprehension through the instruction of reading strategies. Thus, by adopting a strategy-based approach to teaching how to read short stories, this book attempts to make EFL learners more efficient readers on their way to become autonomous in their language learning endeavor. Short story reading demands both a cognitive and an affective engagement. The instruction of reading strategies not only improves reading comprehension ability in the cognitive domain, it also has significant effects on fostering motivation to read and attitude toward reading in the affective domain. This book has been designed for EFL students at the university level and provides them with a variety of strategies to make reading comprehension of short stories an enjoyable and at the same time, an enriching experience. There are also tasks that demand the readers to apply the strategies while
