The effects of extensive reading plus activities on the development of reading and writing skills and perceptions of undergraduate students

Abstract

The study investigated the effects of ER Plus activities on (1) three sub-skills of reading ability, i.e. reading comprehension, reading speed, and reading comprehension of narratives; (2) writing ability and the relationships and developmental patterns of reading amounts and writing scores; and (3) students’ perceptions on the development of their reading strategies and motivation over time. The subjects of the study were 34 second-year EFL students majoring in Finance and Banking who were enrolled in the Fundamental Reading Course in the first semester of the academic year 2007 at Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat University. All were randomly selected to participate in the 15-week study that was made up of three consecutive periods (150 minutes in total) per week of traditional reading instruction plus motivating activities and silent reading. The subjects were also required to read simplified readers of their choice outside class, record the amounts of reading, answer a perception survey, be interviewed by the teacher after they finished each book, and take a writing test at three time points, each five weeks apart. After the treatment period, all of the subjects’ reading amounts were totaled, and, based on the total, the subjects were divided into two groups: high and low with an average reading amounts of 364 and 147 pages, respectively. The findings revealed that: (1) the high group significantly improved their reading comprehension ability and reading speed at .05 level, while the low group did not, and both the high and the low groups were not different in reading comprehension of narratives; (2) the low group had significant differences in their writing scores between the first and second and the first and third, whereas the high group had no significant improvement, and there was neither correlation nor systematic developmental patterns between reading amounts and writing scores; and (3) the subjects in both groups had a tendency to utilize more efficient reading strategies and had increased motivation to read that corresponded with their increased reading amounts.