The relationship between word recognition skills and reading comprehension in english of EFL Thai students

Abstract

The relationship between word recognition and reading comprehension processing skills in English of Thai students learning English as a foreign language was investigated. The subjects were 60 high school students of a public school. The instruments used to collect data were word recognition (three word-type-paper-based test : realword, nonwrod, and pseudoword) and reading comprehension tests. The statistical methods employed for analyzing the data were Descriptive (for calculating mean and standard deviation) , Pearson Product Moment (for analyzing the correlation), and Multiple Regression (for analyzing the predictive values of the predictors). The descriptive statistics reveal the highest mea of realword (44.15) and the lowest mean of pseudword (24.73). These means reflect the word recongnition capability of students in recognizing 95.99 percent of the realword and 68.69 percent of word sounding like real English word. The analysis of Pearson Product Moment displays two correlations between realword and reading comprehension, and between pseudword and reading comprehension. This result addresses the objective of this study. Finally, the results of Multiple regression analysis indicate 1) that the three predictors account for about 25% of the variance in the comprehension scores and 2) that realword and pseudword scores make a contribution to comprehension score.