An Introduction to Extensive Reading

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An Introduction toExtensive Reading

• Richard R. Day, Ph.D.
• Professor, Department of Second Language Studies
• University of Hawaii

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Purpose

• To explain in depth the ten principles that serve
  as the foundation for an extensive reading
  approach

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Extensive Reading

• Extensive reading involves students in reading
  large quantities of material in the new language.
  The goal often goes beyond learning to read ER
  can improve students' overall language
  proficiency and their attitudes toward English
  and motivation for learning. It can be used with
  any language course and program, regardless of
  the focus or methodology.

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Extensive Reading

• Extensive reading involves students reading a lot
  of easy, interesting books that they select
  themselves.
• There are no comprehension questions.
• Students often do activities based on the books
  they have read.

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The Goals of ER

• To improve students' overall language
  proficiency,
• their attitudes toward English, and
• motivation for learning.

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Ten Principles of ER

• The reading material is easy.

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Books must be well within the learners' reading
ability in English. They must be easy. For
beginners, more than two or three unknown words
per page might make the text too difficult for
overall understanding. Intermediate learners
might use the rule of handno more than five
difficult words per page.
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EFL teachers are lucky because a great variety of
high-quality language learner literature (graded
readers) is published for learners of all ability
levels.
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2. There must be a wide variety of reading
material on a large range of topics.
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The success of extensive reading depends on
students reading. To encourage students to read,
we need to have a lot of different books on many
different topics or subjects.
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3. Learners choose what they want to read.

• What to read
• How to read
• Where to read
• When to read
• When to stop reading
• Similar to reading in their first language

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Learners read as much as possible.We know that
the most important element in learning to read is
the amount of time spent actually reading.
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5. Reading is individual and silent.
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Silent, individual extensive reading is real
reading. It allows students to discover that
reading is a personal interaction with the book.
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The purpose of reading is usually related to
pleasure, information and general understanding.
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• There are no comprehension questions.
• Students dont write book reports.
• They dont translate the book to their first
  language.

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7. Reading speed is usually faster rather than
slower.
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Reading rate, enjoyment and comprehension are
closely linked with one another. Students need
to stop using their dictionaries when they come
across words they dont understand. Looking up
words in dictionaries slows down readers.
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Reading is its own reward.
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Three (Important) Rules of ER
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1. Enjoy
2. Enjoy
3. Enjoy

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9. The teacher orients and guides students.
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Extensive reading is very different from usual
classroom practices. Students accustomed to
wading through difficult texts in English might
drown when suddenly plunged into a sea of simple
and stimulating material.
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Introducing Extensive Reading

• Explain the benefits of reading extensively to
  your students.
• Tell them that a general, less than 100,
  understanding of what they read is appropriate
  for most reading purposes.

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• Emphasize that there will be no test after
  reading a book.
• Introduce the library of reading materials and
  explain how it is divided into difficulty levels.

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Guiding students

• Keep track of what and how much each student
  reads, and your students reactions to what was
  read.
• Encourage them to read as widely as possible and,
  as their language ability, reading ability and
  confidence increase, to expand their reading
  comfort zone.

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10. The teacher is a role model of a reader.
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• Is reading caught or taught?
• Students do not just (or even) learn the subject
  matter we teach them they learn their teachers.
• We are selling reading.

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Putting ER into the Curriculum

• A stand-alone course
• An addition to an existing course
• An extra-curricular activity (e.g., an after
  school club)
• During the homeroom period

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An addition to an existing course

• ER is extra the course remains the same.
• Most reading is done outside class
• Do some reading in class.
• Give credit for ER.
• Do ER activities in class to monitor students
  reading and to enhance incidental language
  learning.

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Tracking Student Reading

• ER journals Students report weekly what they
  have read.

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Name
Date Started Title Level Date Ended
Jan. 3 Jojos Story 2 Jan. 7



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Tracking Student Reading

• ER journals
• Individual conferences
• Activities that help teachers determine if
  students have read what they report reading

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Evaluating ER

• Use reading targets
• Give credit for reading
• Monitor reading by doing ER activities
• Individual interviews