The effects of an integrative approach of extensive reading and intensive reading on EFL students' reading comprehension and reading fluency at Taibah University

• Main Author: Ibrahim, Mohammed Hassan Abdel Rahman
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: L Education (General); LB2300 Higher Education
• Online Access: https://etd.uum.edu.my/9531/1/depositpermission_s99127.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/9531/2/s99127_01.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/9531/
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

The poor performance of first-year university students in reading comprehension and reading fluency is due to the lack of students' English literacy because of their prior school background, lack of teaching methodology and the wide gap between students' reading abilities and English syllabuses of the Foundation Program. Although ER and IR Approaches have been sufficiently researched, the integration of ER and IR Approaches in reading classes is still novel. Therefore, the study raises the questions: to what extent do experimental group students perform better in reading comprehension post-test scores than pre-test scores due to the effects of IAER-IR? To what extent do experimental group students perform better in reading fluency post-test scores than pre-test scores due to the effects of IAER-IR? And what are the views of participants towards the effects of IAER-IR on their reading performance?. This study investigated the effects of the Integrative Approach of Extensive Reading and Intensive Reading (IAER-IR) on EFL students' reading comprehension and reading fluency in the Preparatory-Year Program at Taibah University in Saudi Arabia. The study employed a quasi-experimental design and the intervention took 78 learning hours. A total of 60 male students, aged (18 - 20) were selected and assigned into an experimental group which received treatment and a control group without treatment. Two pre-tests and post-tests of reading comprehension and fluency were conducted to collect quantitative data and the indepth interview was used to identify students' views about the effects of IAER-IR. One Way ANOVA, box plot and thematic analysis were used in the data analysis. The findings revealed that there was no significant difference between pre-test scores of the control and experimental groups in terms of students' reading performance before the study. The post-tests indicated that the experimental group participants had made remarkable progress in reading comprehension and reading fluency components, automaticity, accuracy and prosody with an average (0.78) effect size. The quantitative and the qualitative findings indicated that the Integrative Approach of Extensive Reading and Intensive Reading (IAER-IR) had positively affected the respondents' reading comprehension and fluency. The study had evidently revealed that the implementation of ER-IR, as a technique of teaching could be used to increase EFL students' reading comprehension and fluency and to train teachers about which strategies support low achievers' reading skills.