Several in-depth and experimental research have been carried out on the positive results of extensive reading (ER) over the past several years in the areas of ESL/EFL. However, several of the studies include limitations that raise doubts about the claimed positive outcomes. The current study adds to the small amount of well-regulated research by…

One of the challenges for the successful implementation of extensive reading (ER) programmes, especially in Asian contexts, stems from curricular factors where class time is often prioritised for tasks requiring the presence of a teacher. This paper investigates the role of extensive reading online (ERO), an alternative approach to traditional ER,…

The present study aimed to determine the effect of teaching prosody through visual feedback activities on oral reading skills of Turkish language learners. The quantitative dimension of the study utilized a single group pre-test post-test experimental design, whereas, the qualitative dimension consisted of the data obtained from the interviews.…

Many universities in the Middle East, for instance, Shiraz University in Iran and Sultan Qaboos University in Oman have been running M-reader, a free Internet site which helps educational institutions to manage extensive reading (ER), as a way of including Extensive Reading in ELT classes for years. In spite of few attempts to evaluate this online…

This article reports on the extensive reading (ER) component of a reading intervention programme to improve first-year students' reading proficiency. To make the intervention more practical and to accelerate improvement, an ER component was included in the programme. Two groups of first-year students (high-risk and low-risk) were required to read…

This paper investigates using data-driven learning (DDL) as a means of stimulating greater lexicogrammatical knowledge and reading speed among lower proficiency learners in an extensive reading program. For 16 weekly 90-minute sessions, an experimental group (12 students) used DDL materials created from a corpus developed from the Oxford Bookworms…

Thirteen English as a foreign language students read 26 passages during a 13-week period. Each passage was read five times, and students answered comprehension questions after the first and the fifth reading. Another 13 students read the same number of passages but without repetition and only answered the comprehension questions once. All students…

Many students struggle to maintain the attention needed to comprehend while reading. One 4th-grade student and 5th-grade student, both with poor comprehension and attention-related disabilities, were taught to use a proven systematic reading comprehension strategy, TWA (Think Before Reading, Think While Reading, Think After Reading), when reading…

Reading plays a dominant role among the four skills in foreign language acquisition for college students. Unfortunately, over the past few decades, English teaching practice shows that Chinese students are vulnerable in it. Both their reading speed and their reading skills are far from being satisfactory. Schema theory presents a very efficient…

Three second-grade students at-risk for reading failure participated in an adult-directed repeated reading program that integrated isolated word reading practice, unison reading, error correction, and performance cueing and feedback procedures. During each intervention session, the participants practiced five difficult words key to a first-grade…

Fluent reading hinges on automatic word recognition, yet little research has investigated the acquisition process with repeated exposure to novel words. In this study, elementary students in grades three to six were asked to read two-syllable pseudowords five times each (in varied sequences) during two sessions (n = 49). The goal was to study…

Presents three studies where children in mainstream schools compared text on white paper with identical text covered in turn by each of 10 differently-colored plastic overlays. Shows consistency with regard to the proportion of children in mainstream education who report beneficial perceptual effects with colored overlays and who demonstrate…

Using time-compressed speech methodology, a program was developed which attempted to improve the reading rate and comprehension of U.S. Navy personnel with low reading ability. Four groups of trainees were tested. One group read training text while simultaneously listening to a speeded auditory version of the same text. A second group listened to…

The major purpose of this study was to investigate the potential usefulness of compressed speech as a reading improvement technique. It was hypothesized that reading comprehension, reading rate, and listening ability would show improvement when highly speeded auditory presentations of connected meaningful material were employed systematically over…