Interactive Reading in Primary Education: A Case Study in Iranian EFL Context

Teaching English to young students has become especially important in recent years. The present study attempted to address the question whether Iranian primary school children can learn English with a reading based approach to teaching. To this end, 26 girl primary school students in grade 5 were taught English with an interactive reading model for 12 months. To check overall achievement, three tests were administered at the end of the program. The tests tapped word meaning recognition, sentence meaning comprehension, short text comprehension. Analysis of the data demonstrated that students were at the good level of achievement in word meaning recognition and sentence meaning comprehension tests with reference to the criteria of achievement success applied by the Organization of Education. Finally students’ performance in the short text comprehension test was at the acceptable achievement level. In the quest for finding effective ways to teach English as a foreign language in primary education contexts and to provide a motivating and engaging instructional tool in language learning, interactive reading through Phonics and Look-Say is suggested to be employed in foreign language classes offered to primary school children.