THE EFFECT OF EXTENSIVE READING, TIMED READING, AND WORD RECOGNITION TRAINING ON READING

Abstract

Word recognition skill is fundamental for readers to successfully process any given text. Proficiency in the component skills of word recognition, orthographic, phonological, and semantic knowledge, is what readers need to accurately and automatically decode words to apply meaning to what they have read. For second language readers, the challenge of reading is often hindered by a lack of word recognition skills and therefore, they often suffer from low reading rates and consequently poor reading comprehension. This study was a quasi-experimental longitudinal inquiry into the effects of extensive reading, word recognition training, and timed reading on second language reading comprehension. Through word recognition tasks focused on orthographic, phonological, and semantic knowledge development, the aim of this study was to (a) better understand the effects of orthographic, phonological, and semantic skill training on word recognition skills, (b) better understand the effects of word recognition training on reading rate and reading comprehension, (c) understand the effects of long-term word recognition training on reading comprehension, (d) investigate if changes in word recognition components correlate with changes in reading comprehension, and (e) better understand reasons for expected and unexpected outcomes of participants in the study. A total of 248 participants took part in the study. The participants were a combination of first- and second-year economics majors from a private university in western Japan. They were from ten intact classes that were randomly assigned to one of four groups. The first group acted as a comparison group and focused on intensive reading training. The second group did extensive reading and included sustained silent reading. The third group did extensive reading and received word recognition training. The fourth group did extensive reading, word recognition training and timed reading training. All participants took a reading course as part of the required English program that lasted for two 15-week academic terms. The first 30 minutes of each class were used for each group’s respective training, and the remaining 60 minutes were used to teach general reading strategies. Quantitative data were gathered using a variety of instruments that included a lexical decision test, an antonym pairs test, a pronunciation test, a reading comprehension test, and a reading rate test. Additional qualitative data were gathered via selected participant interviews and a post-study survey. The results showed that the participants who received word recognition training in conjunction with extensive reading, produced positive changes in reading comprehension. However, only two of the components of word recognition ability improved with training, semantic knowledge and phonological knowledge. This indicated that more focus on specific components of word recognition might provide better scaffolding to foster reading development. The results also indicated that the three treatment groups all performed significantly better than the comparison group in reading rate gain and those improvements were reflected in reading comprehension gains. With respect to word recognition and its impact on reading comprehension, there was evidence showing that word recognition training did positively impact reading comprehension, but that more time might be required than used in this study to see its full impact. Finally, there were data to indicate that there was a correlation between semantic knowledge and reading comprehension. This study shows that although extensive reading is an effective approach to teaching L2 English reading, the addition of word recognition training and timed reading can benefit readers by improving reading comprehension. The addition of word recognition training can assist lower-proficiency readers to automatize low-level cognitive processes such as orthographic, semantic, and phonological processes, and by doing so, reallocate cognitive resources to higher-level cognitive processes such as inferencing and schemata activation required for reading comprehension. Finally, the addition of timed reading seems to have contributed to overall reading rate and reading fluency development.