Reading is an important and complex skill in language learning in a foreign language context. To read effectively, foreign language learners need to know about the process or the how of reading. However, many L2 or L3 readers have no strategic competence when they experience reading in L2 or L3. This is because their strategic competence was not built in L2 reading. Taking a multicompetence perspective, this paper gave an overview of issues in language transfer and strategic reading research in a multicompetent and multilingual mind. It summarized three separate studies conducted by the authors on the cross-linguistic transfer of reading strategies among L1, L2, and L3. According to cross-linguistic transfer studies, languages affect each other; the intriguing question is from where it is logical to teach reading strategies first: L1, L2, or L3. As reading strategies transfer cross-linguistically, and languages are linked together in this regard, it seemed cost-effective and logical to start teaching for strategic reading in L1 as a result of which strategic reading competence began to form in L2, L3, etc. This will help L2 and L3 teachers to focus more on the teaching of the related languages and have no concerns about the existence of strategic competence in their readers' minds.
