Factors Affecting Thai Primary Students' Extensive Reading

Abstract

Extensive reading (ER) is an effective teaching approach recently implemented to enhance the English language. With the right reading materials, ER might bring advantages to students. In contrast, students tend to be bored through reading materials that do not match their interests and language levels. This study aimed to investigate what text features attract Thai students to read and what factors hinder their reading comprehension when they read ER materials. Ten third-grade Thai students who had the same English proficiency voluntarily participated in the study. The data was obtained from a semi-structured interview, a stimulated recall interview, and a reading log. Each participant was required to read five books over five hours of the program. Before reading, they were asked what text features attracted them to read ER books with a semi-structured interview. After reading, the participants did the reading log and were asked what factors hindered their reading comprehension through a stimulated recall interview. The results revealed that easy vocabulary and front covers attracted students to read ER books the most, followed by illustrations, titles, book levels, and interesting plots. Rather than vocabulary and structure, students’ reading comprehension was hindered by many factors. Pronouns and their referents were the most frequently faced while reading, followed by onomatopoeias, names, phrases, punctuation marks, illustrations, and finally, unexpected plots. These findings offered several significant implications. Selecting reading materials and ER implementation were discussed.

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