It is observed that when a monolayer of CO and acetylene is chemisorbed on the Cu(100) surface, the reflectivity of the metal surface at the He-Ne laser wavelength of 632 nm is reduced on the order of 1%, while the physisorption of water, methanol, and acetone induces a reflectivity change on the order of 0.01%. The small reflectivity change induced by physisorption can be described by a three-layer model taking into account the molecular layer refractive index. The much bigger reflectivity change induced by the chemisorbed adsorbates, on the other hand, is a result of bonding perturbations to the electronic structure of the metal surface layer. The latter is supported by an electron scattering model description of the reflectivity change up to 1.96 eV on Cu. For both CO and acetylene, the optical reflectivity change is found to be linearly proportional to the submonolayer coverage. The phenomenon thus offers an excellent method to measure surface kinetics. It is found from the reflectivity change measurements that the initial sticking coefficient for both adsorbates is nearly unity at 110 K; 0.85 for CO and 1.0 for acetylene. The temperature and coverage dependence of the sticking coefficient shows that the adsorption behavior of both molecules is well described as direct adsorption mediated with an extrinsic precursor. For acetylene adsorption, the sticking coefficient shows little dependence on the substrate temperature suggesting that the "extrinsic precursor" is not a thermally equilibrated species. For CO, the transition into a compression phase beyond 0.5 ML results in a corresponding change in the sticking coefficient deduced from the reflectivity data.