Reading Speed: A Major Factor in Skilled Reading and a Source of Comprehension Impediment

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating the effects of paced reading on improving Algerian students‘ reading speed without reducing their reading comprehension. It is hopefully intended to help teachers identify the most effective ways of enhancing reading efficiency for the Algerian students. The current study is stimulated by the fact that reading is by far the most eminent skill that plays a significant role in improving readers‘ language proficiency, especially in EFL settings. Actually, EFL learners basically rely on this skill to acquire knowledge as the FL is seldom spoken outside the classroom. Nevertheless, students, in general, endure serious reading difficulties which are mainly caused by the lack of reading fluency. They tend to plough through a reading print struggling in a word-by-word reading stumbling at every unknown word, which makes it more difficult to grasp the meaning of what they read. This is explained by the fact that spending more time and energy (not being automatic) at recognizing individual words overloads their short-term memory so that what is stored there is not meaningful to them. This, in fact, hampers their reading comprehension because the mental energy used by a person to process incoming information is a limited cognitive capacity.To achieve the aforementioned aim, an empirical study is carried out. The study sample is divided into two groups: an experimental group is submitted to paced reading training, and the control group is not trained at all. The results obtained in the pretest and post-test are analysed via the statistical student T-test. The latter showed an improvement in reading speed in favour of the experimental group participants without a concurrent decrease in their level of understanding.