As English Language is increasingly being used in tertiary education, there is growing concern that students graduating from Form Six classes in Iraqi Kurdistan have poor reading skills in particular higher order thinking skills. Therefore, the students entering university are ill prepared to follow courses where the subject matter is taught primarily in English. Little is really known on the reading skills and strategies used in Form 6 and the factors that contribute to poor reading skills. Against this concern, this study was undertaken with the aim to unfold and understand the need for developing critical reading comprehension skills. This study is a content analysis research and qualitative methods were used to collect data. The data used in this research study was obtained through four sources. First, the reading curriculum and the Form Six textbooks were scrutinized in detail and the ensuing comments were documented. Second, two teachers teaching the Form Six classes were observed and this was followed by teacher interviews. Fourth, the first year undergraduate students in universities in Iraqi Kurdistan were interviewed and their feedback were transcribed and carefully coded to find out the difficulties they faced at their respective universities. The findings from this study have shown that most of the reading passages and reading tasks found in the student’s textbook are influenced by bottom-up strategy. There has been a lack of reading passages and reading tasks related to top-down processing and meta-cognitive processing respectively. On the contrary, the findings reflect that most of the passages in the student’s textbook are narrative in nature while at tertiary level more expository type of passages are used. Discussion based on findings, reveal that only a small number of reading comprehension questions refer to reorganization and inferential reading skills. This means that the majority of the reading comprehension questions in the textbook are literal comprehension questions where no critical thinking is involved. The study findings have further shown that most of the reading passages and reading tasks found in Sunrise Student’s Book 12 are influenced by bottom-up strategy. In addition to these, most of the passages in the student’s Book 12 are narrative in nature while at tertiary level more expository type of passages is used. This means that the majority of the reading comprehension questions in the textbook are literal comprehension questions where no critical thinking is involved. Thus, there is a necessity to bring out radical changes to the existing EFL secondary reading curriculum so that new tasks and activities can aid in developing higher order thinking skills. The present study is significant as it can be applicable to other Middle-East countries.

At the university level in Arab world in general and in Iraq in particular, many students faced a lot of problems with their studying because of their low English proficiency, students face problems while trying to understand texts written in English. Form six is last form before university and in spite of that the students doing incessant efforts to master the English language through studying the curriculum at the sixth year in Iraq, some students still complain that they have a lot of difficulties in achieving this goal. An analysis of the EFL secondary reading curriculum in Iraqi Kurdistan (Form Six): Approaches to reading are considered as a challenge area of study. Thus, the aim of this study provides a comprehensive field survey on the various stages of the various reading approaches in EFL secondary reading curriculum. Next, the reading theories and reading strategies are given focus followed by some significant pointers to achieve effective reading. A critical review on EFL secondary reading curriculum is done at the end of the study.