The Effect of Reading Strategies and Improvement of Lexical Knowledge of Dezful EFL Students

Reading is known as one of the most important skills for success, both in first language and second language learning environments. Lexical knowledge plays a key role in reading skill, it is necessary to ensure that learners have sufficient vocabulary to read well. This study aims to investigate the effect of different reading strategies on developing reading skills in students and how it improves their lexical knowledge. Vocabulary knowledge and reading performance are strongly in a relationship but when EFL students are pressed to read, they often select ineffective strategies with little strategic intent. Participants included a total of 60 high school students in public high schools of Dezful, Iran. Convenience sampling method was used. Pretests and posttests were designed. They were divided in two groups randomly. The experimental group was thought reading strategies for eight sessions (two months) and the others passed the course without any strategy instruction. At the end of the semester students took a reading test. Results indicated that reading strategy instruction can help students to extend their vocabulary knowledge to read a text better.

Keywords:

lexical knowledge , reading skill , reading strategies , vocabulary size test