Twenty adult ESL students at a community college participated in a semester reading intervention. Participants received a modified extensive reading treatment, and some participants received an additional repeated reading direct instruction reading intervention. The author examined the impact of the reading interventions on ESL students' reading…

In response to McLean (2021), Laufer (2021) makes three claims which are either not supported by research or are based on studies with important limitations. First is that a vocabulary size, instead of a level, can be used to match learners with lexically appropriate materials despite test creators and research not supporting this. Second is that…

This quasi-experimental study traces a 12-week reading fluency training program for elementary-level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners at a Japanese university (N = 56). More specifically, this study examined whether a teaching intervention combining (a) extensive reading and practicing, (b) timed reading, and (c) repeated oral reading…

This study, an 18-week comparative experiment, examined the effects of instruction in test-taking strategy in English as a foreign language reading class. It involved an experimental group (68 students) taught test-taking strategies and a control group (66 students) that did not receive the instruction. Various means were used to investigate the…

In this article, a three-phase mixed-methods study was conducted to investigate timed reading effects on Chinese university students' English as a foreign language (EFL) reading rate. First, two equivalent reading rate tests were designed and validated with 30 participants. Second, 81 university students from two intact classes participated in the…

The present study investigated the applicability of word reading, word segmentation, and text reading as diagnostic tools to assess comprehension, detect struggling readers, and inform instruction for low-level Chinese as second language (L2) learners (n = 70). The results showed that the three instruments measured different dimensions of word…

This study explored the role of vocabulary breadth and depth in second language learners' performance in IELTS academic reading tests in China. Sixty-two Chinese learners of English as a foreign language completed a vocabulary size test, a vocabulary depth test, and an IELTS reading test. Results showed that vocabulary breadth and depth both…

The present study investigates the effects of extensive reading on developing the language knowledge and reading abilities of high school learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) over the course of one school year. Participants were divided into control (n = 205) and experimental groups (n = 200), with the former receiving regular grammar…

The "Ten Principles Teaching Extensive Reading" has appeared in a number of forms, initially as "The characteristics of an extensive reading approach" in Day and Bamford (1998) and later in an article in Reading in a Foreign Language (2002) but in a slightly different form and ordering. What was originally intended to be a…

This study aims to investigate the extent to which reading comprehension and learning styles are related to perceived use of reading strategies among students studying French at an Australian university and a Turkish university. Ninety-one participants completed a background questionnaire, the Survey of Reading Strategies, the Kolb Learning Style…

While theories of embodied cognition have been investigated in lab experiments with proficient readers, currently no studies have applied these theories to improving reading comprehension for low-proficiency readers. Using an embodied cognition approach, this study investigated producing comics as an embodied reading activity. To compare effects…

Extensive graded reading (EGR) was carried out with a cohort of 600 engineering students in a university in northern Japan. Pre-and post-surveys were conducted to discover changes in the general reading habits of students, their attitudes toward the assessment method and how goals changed over the course of study. The first survey was carried out…

Extensive reading (ER) is an effective way to provide large amounts of comprehensible input to foreign language learners, but many teachers and administrators remain unconvinced, and it has been argued that there is still insufficient evidence to support the claims that have been made regarding its benefits. Few studies have looked at ER's effect…

This study reports Korean English language learners' perceived needs concerning their learning of reading and writing and how the integrated reading and writing instruction impacts their reading comprehension and summary-writing abilities. The study also delineates teacher's challenges faced during the instruction. A total of 93 students in a…

Examined the effects of readers' gender and passage content on second language (L2) reading comprehension. Participants--who were intermediate Spanish learners--read two different authentic passages. Two measures were used to assess comprehension: A written recall and multiple-choice questions. Findings reveal significant interactions between…