The Effect of Explicit Sight Word Instruction on Reading Speed of Iranian Elementary EFL Students

Sight words are common words that are often not spelled phonetically, but must be read fluently and automatically at first sight. According to the literature very few studies have examined the effect of sight words on improving reading speed of the students in EFL contexts. This study, therefore, aimed to investigate the effect of explicit sight word instruction on reading speed of the Iranian elementary EFL students. To this aim, 32 female elementary EFL students in Gorgan, Golestan Province, Iran, aged from 13 to 14 years old in the second grade of guidance school participated in this study. A reading pretest was administered to experimental and control groups to measure their reading speed level. The students were given a limited time of one minute to read the passage. Students reading was recorded using a stopwatch and voice recorder; the reading speed of each student was calculated based on words per minute and errors per minute. Students in the experimental group received sight words treatment for seven sessions. Each session lasted 20 to 30 minutes and 15 to 20 sight words were instructed according to Fry s 300 sight Words. Finally, each student was asked to read the same reading passage in one minute. The collected data were analyzed using paired and independent samples t-tests; the results indicated that explicit sight word instruction was effective in improving reading speed of the Iranian elementary EFL students. The findings may give some ideas to materials developers to include sight words activities in the textbooks.

Keywords:

Explicit Sight Word Instruction , Reading Speed , EFL