The newly revised College English Curriculum Requirements (2007) requires that college students have a relatively higher level of competence in English reading.However,English reading has been traditionally dominated by a grammar and vocabulary-based method in China.The result is that their reading comprehension is still poor.Scholars have proposed three widely accepted approaches for English reading:bottom-up approach,top-down approach,and interactive approach.But researches indicate that these reading approaches have their own limitations and their application in reading is far from satisfactory.So this article tries to introduce context theory to improve students' reading comprehension.