Enhancing Elementary Level EFL Students’ Reading Comprehension and Writing Skills through Extensive Reading Enrichment Program

Abstract

This quasi-experimental, longitudinal, quantitative study investigated the impact of Extensive Reading (ER) on developing second language (L2) reading comprehension and writing skills among primary school EFL learners in two Arab countries, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The study is based on an experiment conducted over a nine-month period on a convenience sample of 112 primary school students (n=112) divided into five groups, three experimental groups and two control group, where the students belonged to two different private schools in Egypt and two different international schools in two cities in Saudi Arabia. The experiment, in the form of an enrichment ER program, used graded readers for young learners and was designed to foster ER for pleasure. The study, guided by three hypotheses, incorporated two types of statistical analysis tests, paired samples t-tests and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The statistical analysis tests performed indicated marked improvement in English proficiency in the two experimental groups, with particular reference to reading comprehension and writing. A number of pedagogical implications and recommendations for future research are given. Additionally, the study highlights the issue related to insufficient exposure to English for young Arab EFL learners in their daily lives, which, unfortunately, seems to cause relapses in their L2 intake, despite having an age advantage.