The Effects of an Extensive Reading Program on Reading and Listening Comprehension Among Senior High School Students

Abstract

The present study aims to examine the effects of a ten-month extensive reading program on reading and listening comprehension. We also discuss whether there exists a relationship between reading and listening comprehension skills. The extensive reading program was implemented for all the first-year students of a senior high school in Tokyo. The data obtained from 114 students who attended the program were statistically analyzed and compared with the data obtained from 102 students who did not attend the program. It was observed that the group of the extensive reading program made gains in reading and listening comprehension on the posttest and outperformed the comparative group, second-year students, who had studied English for an additional year. A close examination of the reading scores revealed that the extensive readers made gains only on the easier texts (junior high school level) and not on the more difficult ones (intermediate senior high school level). In addition, with regard to the easier texts, correlations ranging from weak to moderate were observed between the listening and reading comprehension scores. However, with regard to the more difficult texts, no correlations were observed between the two scores. The improvement in reading and listening skills through the extensive reading program will be discussed in terms of cognitive language processing.