The Impacts of Extensive Reading on EFL Primary School Students’ Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension

Abstract

This study explores how participating in an eight week extensive reading (ER) programme helps young EFL learners incidentally acquire vocabulary and develop general reading comprehension ability. Twenty-nine primary school participants were tested with 150 vocabulary items selected from 16 low level graded readers that they read during winter vacation. They started with a lower average vocabulary score compared to their control group counterparts on the pre-test, but after participating in the reading programme, they significantly exceeded them on the immediate post-test, and retained more vocabulary on the delayed post-test. To measure reading comprehension, a selection of passages from an Australian test for young learners was used. The ER group showed slightly improved results on the post-test while the control group’s score decreased. However, the difference was not significant. These results indicate that ER considerably contributed to the EFL learners’ vocabulary learning while it had little effect on their reading comprehension.