Extensive reading

Extensive reading fits into the meaning-focused input and fluency devel­opment strands of a course, depending on the level of the books that the learners read. When the books contain only a few unknown vocabulary and grammar items, extensive reading provides the conditions for meaning-focused input. Where the books are very easy ones with virtually no unknown items, extensive reading provides the conditions for fluency development.

This chapter examines the research on graded readers to draw up a set of guidelines for setting up and managing extensive reading programmes. These guidelines involve understanding the type of learning that can occur through such reading, determining learners' existing vocabulary knowledge, having interesting and engaging books, getting learners to do large quantities of reading, and making sure that the learning from reading is supported by other kinds of learning. In order to meet the conditions needed for learning from extensive reading at a variety of levels of proficiency, it is essential to make use of simplified texts.

Reading is a source of learning and a source of enjoyment. It can be a goal in its own right and a way of reaching other goals. As a source of learning, reading can establish previously learned vocabulary and gram­mar, it can help learners learn new vocabulary and grammar, and through success in language use it can encourage learners to learn more and con­tinue with their language study. As a goal in its own right, reading can be a source of enjoyment and a way of gaining knowledge of the world. As learners gain skill and fluency in reading, their enjoyment can increase.

However, because of the nature of reading and learning from reading, a reading development programme will benefit from careful planning and monitoring. There are two major language-based reasons for this. First, reading requires considerable knowledge and skill. This knowledge includes recognising the letters and words of the language, having a large vocabulary and substantial grammatical and textual knowledge, being able to bring knowledge of the world to the reading task, and developing a degree of fluency with the reading skill. Second, learning through extensive reading is largely incidental learning, that is, the learners' attention is focused on the story not on items to learn. As a result, learning gains tend to be fragile and thus it is important to have quantity of input with substantial opportunities for vocabulary repetition.

This quantity of input needs to be close to 500,000 running words per year, which is equivalent to 25 graded readers a year, or one and a half substantial first year university textbooks, or six unsimplified novels. This needs to continue over several years. In the following discussion of plan­ning and running an extensive reading programme, we will look at the conditions for learning that need to exist, the quantities of text that learners need to read, how to keep learners motivated, and the principles that teachers should follow in running the programme. The chapter is organised around a set of guidelines for planning a programme.

Understand the Goals and Limitations of Extensive Reading

Extensive reading is a form of learning from meaning-focused input. During extensive reading learners should be interested in what they are reading and should be reading with their attention on the meaning of the text rather than on learning the language features of the text. Extensive reading can occur within class time (Elley and Mangubhai, 1981), or out­side class time. In their very useful survey of extensive reading, Day and Bamford (1998) characterise extensive reading as involving a large quantity of varied, self-selected, enjoyable reading at a reasonably fluent speed.

There is now plenty of evidence (Elley, 1991) that reading can result in a variety of substantial proficiency gains. However, it is important to note that these gains require considerable time and effort. In their classic study of extensive reading, Elley and Mangubhai (1981) had 8 to 10-year-old learners read in class time for no more than 30 minutes per day each school day for almost eight months. The results were remarkable with learners making the equivalent of 15 months' gain in eight months. How­ever, the time involved was substantial, but not beyond the means of an English as a foreign language situation.

In a study of learners reading a single graded reading text, Waring and Takaki (2003) used vocabulary tests at three levels of difficulty (Which of these words did you meet in the text? a multiple-choice test, and a transla­tion test) to measure vocabulary learning. The three tests all involved the same 25 words. These three tests represented different levels of vocabulary knowledge.

Find Your Learners' Present Vocabulary Level

Extensive reading can only occur if 95 to 98 percent of the running words in a text are already familiar to the learner or are no burden to the learner (Hu and Nation, 2000). Hu and Nation investigated learners' comprehen­sion of a fiction text at different levels of known word density. Where only 80 percent of the running words were known, no learners gained adequate comprehension. Where 90 or 95 percent of the words were known, a few learners gained adequate comprehension but the majority did not. The degree of comprehension was predictable from the density of unknown words and the optimum density was 98 percent. That is, no more than two words in every 100 running words should be unfamiliar to the reader. This estimate is probably conservative because research with native speakers (Carver, 1994) indicates that a density of 99 percent is preferable for meaning-focused input. If we relate these densities to the vocabulary size needed to read an unsimplified fiction text, we find that learners would need a vocabulary of 9,000 words to read novels written for adults (Nation, 2006). The clear message from this is that for learners of English to do extensive reading at the elementary and intermediate stages of proficiency, it is essential that they read graded readers that have been specially pre­pared for learners of English. It is only by reading such texts that learners can have the density of known words that is essential for extensive reading. Graded readers typically cover a range of levels beginning at around 300-500 words and going to around 2,000-2,500 words. For example, there are six vocabulary levels in the Oxford Bookworms series.

In order to know at what level learners should begin reading, it is useful to measure their receptive vocabulary size. This involves measuring their knowledge of the most frequent 2,000 words of English. The test developed by Schmitt, Schmitt and Clapham (2001) provides a means of doing this.