Article of Reading Speed and Comprehension

Abstract

This study is an attempt to investigate reading speed and comprehension of the first semester English Department students at the University of Benghazi. To accomplish this aim, AceReader, which is an online reading speed software, has been used to elicit students’ reading speed (in words per minute) as well as their reading comprehension level. The methodology, which has been used, is the mixed-method approach. The results revealed that students of the control group who received the Reading Comprehension I developed their reading speed and comprehension while no significant improvement has been recorded in the experimental group with extensive reading material. The main contribution of this study is that English graded readers do not increase students’ reading speed and comprehension which contradicts the literature of the previous studies related to this topic. The researchers anticipate that this study will pave the way to more studies on reading speed using online tools.