閱讀是一種互動的過程，包含了「由上而下」與「由下而上」的模式。主張「由上而下」論的學者強調背景知識及與閱讀內容相關的「基模」的重要，而「由下而上」的主張者則強調字彙認知與字義解讀技巧。在黃(1997, 2000 & 2001)研究指出背景知識與字彙教學對於閱讀理解的重要。本研究以高中生(竹北高中學生)為受測對象，探討背景知識、上下文、與就讀年級等因素，對於閱讀理解與猜測字義的影響。本研究把受測者，依他們的年級與主修(即社會組與自然組)分組。受試者所受背景知識的影響，看不同主修的學生在三篇需要不同領域知識的文章的表現。而上下文的影響，本研究主要研究受試者在普通上下文(general context)的表現。
本研究的主要發現如下：在語言能力方面，受試者在閱讀測驗的成績與他們在文章中不懂的字數有關，不懂的字越多，成績越低。社會組的學生表現優於自然組學生。在背景知識方面，無論是哪個年級或主修的受試者，都在第一篇文章得分最高，這可能跟第一篇文章對受試者來說所遇到的不懂的字數最少，以及題目的設計簡單有關。至於上下文對猜字的影響，社會組在猜字問題的答對率皆高於自然組，而且也較自然組學生願意猜測字義。此外，學生通常藉由字形來猜測字義。以就讀年級而言，在學校多學一年的英文，並不能保證學生有更多的字彙量、更佳的閱讀能力與猜字能力。與三年級理組班的英文老師訪談發現，學生的學習動機低落，直接反映在本研究的測驗表現上。

Reading is an interactive process involving both top-down and bottom-up models. Proponents of the top-down model stress the importance of background knowledge and the presence of relevant schema, while those for the bottom-up model emphasize the vocabulary knowledge and decoding skills. Huang (1997, 2000 & 2001) has drawn public attention to the importance of background knowledge as well as vocabulary instruction on reading comprehension. In the present study, senior high school high school students (from Chupei senior high school) were chosen to be the subjects to examine the effect of background knowledge and context on the subjects’ performance in reading comprehension and in guessing word meanings. The subjects were classified on the basis of their years of learning in school and major (i.e., the humanities and science major). The effect of background knowledge was examined by looking into the subjects’ performance on articles which required different fields of knowledge. And the effect of the context was examined only by the subjects’ performance on general contexts.
The major findings show that the subjects’ performance on the reading comprehension test correlated positively with their number of unknown words (NUW), and that the humanities majors outperformed the science-major students. Moreover, the subjects tended to score the highest in the first article regardless of their major and the number of years of learning in school. This might have to do with the fact that there were few unknown words for the subjects in the first article and that the given questions were easy to understand. In addition, the humanities majors not only outperformed the science majors in response to the word-meaning guessing questions, but also showed more willingness to guess the word meanings of unknown words. Besides, the subjects tended to guess word meanings by the word forms. In terms of the students’ years of English learning in school, one more year of learning in school did not guarantee a larger vocabulary bank, a higher score in reading comprehension test, and a better ability to guess word meanings. An interview with the English teachers of the third-year science classes showed that students’ low motivation contribute directly to their low performance.

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