Effects Of Reading Comprehension

Among the four language skills, reading comprehension has always been the main concern of Iranian ESP instructors (Farhadi, 2005; Sajadi & Oghabi, 2011; Tabatabaei, 2007). In a similar vein, Iranian university students regard reading comprehension as the most important skill (Sajadi & Oghabi, 2011). Williams (1984) classifies reading materials into three categories: (1) getting general information from a text, (2) getting specific information from a text, (3) for pleasure and for interest. Harmer (2009) believes that reading has a positive effect on people’s vocabulary knowledge, on their spelling and also on their writing. Scanning, skimming, reading for general understanding, reading to learn, reading to integrate information, reading to

Hafiz and Tudor (1989) found that a three- month extensive reading program caused significant and major improvement in secondary school ESL students’ reading and also writing, whereas two control groups did not show any significant improvement over that three-month period. Mason and Krashen (1997) concluded that groups of Japanese EFL learners who had extensive reading performed better than similar traditionally instructed control groups. Extensive reading is not the central component of reading instruction in most L2contexts. Renandya & Jacobs (2001) have pointed out why extensive reading is not widely encouraged currently. They define it as a reading activity involving rapid reading of large quantities of material or longer reading for understanding, with the focus generally on the meaning of what is being read than on language. They point out that extensive reading is entirely different from intensive reading in the sense that in intensive reading students normally work with short texts with close guidance from the teacher to help the students obtain detailed meaning from the text and to enhance vocabulary and grammar knowledge. The following characteristics are among the major characteristics of extensive reading: the students read large amount of material, students usually choose what they want to read, reading materials vary in terms of topic and genre, the materials that the students read is within their level of comprehension, students usually take part in post- reading activities, teachers usually read with their students to model enthusiasm for reading and finally teachers and students keep track of student