Students’ motivation is a key factor which impact their success of language learning. Research in classroom motivation has found that certain strategies can help students adopt more positive attitudes and become more motivated in the learning process. Extensive reading (ER) is one of such means that has been continuously studied as a promising instructional method for improving students’ language proficiency. This study investigates the extent to which extensive reading activity is effective in improving students’ reading motivation and whether there is any interrelationship between extensive reading, students’ reading motivation, learning styles and gender. This study employs a mixed method design. To this end, 60 students of English language and literature and TEFL students from university of Mazandaran who were taking Reading 2 and Reading 3 courses were selected. The students were engaged in a weekly task to do extensive reading. A motivational questionnaire and an interview were used for data collection. The questionnaire was a 48-item classified questionnaire which was administered online to the participants. The data of the questionnaire were analyzed by using a SPSS software . A Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was computed to determine whether there was a relationship between extensive reading, motivation, gender and learning styles. In order to find out whether ER improved students’ reading motivation and to obtain additional data about their attitudes toward extensive reading program, a semi-structured interview was conducted among several participants who were selected based on convenience sampling. Results revealed that integrative motivation has a positive correlation with reading motivation; by increasing integrative motivation, reading motivation increases increased among people and also by changing learning style, reading motivation will be was increased. On the other hand, the study revealed that there is no significant correlation between the other variables and reading motivation. Results of the follow -up interview revealed that most of the students have intrinsic motivation and a few of them have extrinsic motivation towards extensive reading ??. Besides, students affirmed that ER helped them to enhance their concentration, improve their vocabulary knowledge, their critical thinking, and their motivation to read more. In the light of these findings, it is suggested that teachers teach may need to instruct students how to grow enhance their motivation and engage them in activities that make learners independent. Moreover, teachers should be aware of their students’ learning styles in order to create effective teaching strategies.
