4 Extensive Reading

Extensive reading involves reading lots of texts that contain few un-
known words. 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 un-
known 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 reading fluency development. In a language course, ex-
tensive reading should take up just under one quarter of the total course
time, including homework. In a reading course, extensive reading should
take up around three-quarters of the course time.
This chapter draws on the research on extensive reading to make 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 the right levels of books for the
learners, getting learners to do large quantities of reading, having in-
teresting and engaging books, 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 elementary and
intermediate levels of proficiency, it is essential to make use of texts
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which are written within a controlled vocabulary.

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. It can also develop skill in
reading. 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.
The values of extensive reading are now well proven. In a compre-
hensive survey of research on extensive reading, Nation and Waring
(2020) show that extensive reading benefits vocabulary growth, reading

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 56 Extensive Reading
skill, reading fluency, and motivation to read, as well as having positive
effects on overall language proficiency, grammatical knowledge, and
writing skill.
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 rea-
sons 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.
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 & Mangubhai, 1981), or
outside class time. Nation and Waring (2020) see the essential conditions
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of extensive reading as involving reading texts at the right level, reading

with comprehension, reading a lot, reading independently, and reading
silently.
There is now plenty of evidence (Elley, 1991; Nation & Waring, 2020)
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 8–10-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 of language gain in eight months. The time involved was,
however, substantial but not beyond the means of an English as a
foreign-language situation.

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 Extensive Reading 57
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 in-
volved the same 25 words. These three tests represented different levels
of vocabulary knowledge. On the word form recognition test, the lear-
ners scored 15.3 out of 25, on the multiple-choice test 10.6, and on the
translation test 4.6. These results show that only a small number of
words (4.6 out of 25) were learned well, but a much larger number (10.6
and 15.3 out of 25) had taken a useful step towards being known.
Further meetings with these words should strengthen and enrich this
knowledge. The Waring and Takaki study included a delayed post-test
which showed that over a period of time without further reinforcement,
the vocabulary gains from reading were gradually lost. It is thus im-
portant to make sure that there are repeated opportunities to meet the
same vocabulary in reading, and these repeated opportunities should not
be delayed too long. Teachers considering setting up an extensive reading
programme should understand very clearly that such a programme needs
to involve large amounts of reading and needs to continue for a long
time. If this happens, the results will be impressive.

Find Your Learners’ Present Vocabulary Level

Extensive reading can only occur if 95–98 per cent of the running words
in a text are already familiar to the learner or are no burden to the
learner (Hu & Nation, 2000; Schmitt, Jiang, & Grabe, 2011). Hu and
Nation investigated learners’ comprehension of a fiction text at different
levels of known word density. Where only 80 per cent of the running
words were known, no learners gained adequate comprehension. Where
90 per cent or 95 per cent 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
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the optimum density was 98 per cent. 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 per cent 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
especially 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.

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 58 Extensive Reading
Graded readers typically cover a range of levels beginning at around
300–500 words and going to around 2000–2500 words. For example,
there are six vocabulary levels in the Oxford Bookworms series:

Level New words Cumulative words

1 400 400
2 300 700
3 300 1,000
4 400 1,400
5 400 1,800
6 700 2,500

In order to know at what level learners should begin reading, learners

should try reading a text and see how many unknown words they meet.
If there are only a small number per page, around 2 per 100 words,
then the text is likely to be at the right level for the learners. Learners
can test their vocabulary knowledge using parts of the Updated
Vocabulary Levels Test (Webb, Sasao, & Ballance, 2017) or the New
Vocabulary Levels Test (McLean & Kramer, 2015). Both tests are
available at Paul Nation’s webpage (https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/lals/
resources/vocabulary-tests).

Provide Plenty of Interesting and Appropriate Reading

Texts
We have looked briefly at the Oxford Bookworms series. This is an
excellent and well-established series of graded readers with many inter-
esting titles. However, it is only one of many series of readers that are
available (see Thomas & Hill, 1993; Hill, 1997; Hill & Thomas, 1988,
1989 for reviews). There are now over 5,000 graded readers available
from a large number of publishers. See the Extensive Reading
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Foundation website (http://www.erfoundation.org/) for details.

Unfortunately, the levels in these series are not identical with each other
in the number of levels, the amount of vocabulary at each level, nor the
vocabulary lists on which they are based. This is not as serious as it
sounds. There seems to be a big enough overlap between the vocabulary
covered in the different series, and any particular graded reader can only
make use of some of the words available at a particular level.
It is thus not necessary to stick to only one series of graded readers. It
is much better to choose titles from any of the available series that are
interesting and well written. The Extensive Reading Foundation has set
up the annual Language Learner Literature Awards to recognise quality
in the production of graded readers. Awards are given to the best books
each year just like the Oscars for movies. These books are original

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 Extensive Reading 59
stories. There are also very clever adaptations of well-known books
originally written for native speakers. They are all excellent books. These
readers are the first ones to get when starting a graded reader library.
If an extensive reading programme is to be successful, it must provide
books that learners are interested in reading or that will develop their
interest in reading. Teachers’ judgements of books are likely to be dif-
ferent from learners’ judgements of books, and learners’ judgements
should get priority.
Learners should understand what they read and teachers are often
concerned that during extensive reading, learners may read and not
really understand. M-reader (at https://mreader.org/mreaderadmin/s) is
an electronic resource which provides comprehension tests for graded
readers. Research suggests that such tests are not necessary (Robb &
Kano, 2013; Robb, 2015), but teachers may wish to use them.

Set, Encourage and Monitor Large Quantities of Extensive

Reading
In a study of the feasibility of substantial vocabulary learning from ex-
tensive reading, Nation (2014) found that learners would need to read
close to 200,000 running words a year to learn the second 1000 words,
and around 300,000 words a year to learn the third 1000. At a reading
speed of 200 words per minute for five days a week for 40 weeks of the
year, this would involve reading around 20 minutes a week for the
second 1000 and 40 minutes a week for the third 1000. This needs to
continue over several years with the time needed increasing for each
subsequent 1000-word level, but still being feasible.
There are several techniques and procedures that can be used to mo-
tivate learners to do this and to keep a record of their reading.
In an extensive reading programme, reading should be the main ac-
tivity and other activities should occupy only a very small proportion of
the time so that time is not taken away from reading. For this reason,
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most extensive reading programmes do not require learners to do ela-

borate comprehension tests or exercises on the books they read.
Generally learners are simply required to fill out a short record form
indicating the name of the book they have just read, its level, the date,
how long it took to read, and a brief comment on the quality of the book
(Was it a good story? Would you recommend it to others?). Twelve or
more of these short report forms can be printed on one piece of A4
paper, allowing the learner and teacher to see at a glance how much has
been read over what period of time.
Making the amount of extensive reading relate to the learners’ grade
for a course can have positive effects on the amount of reading done
(Robb, 2013). McLean and Poulshock (2018) looked at various quantity
requirements for reading concluding that setting ambitious quantity of

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 60 Extensive Reading
words targets had positive effects on the amount read. After the targets
were eventually removed, learners who had had such targets continued
to read a lot.
Additional activities to motivate reading may take a bit more time.
There may be a slip of paper in the back of each book for learners to
record their opinion of the book. Other learners considering whether to
choose to read this book could look at this slip of paper to see what
others thought of it.
Oral book reports involve a learner presenting a commentary on a
book to the class or a reading group. The idea behind such reports is not
to give away the story of the book but to encourage others to read it.
These reports can follow a set format covering questions like what was the
name of the book, what type of story was it (a mystery, a love story, etc.),
where and when was it set, was it enjoyable, and who would like to read it.
Discussion groups can bring learners together who have already all
read the same book. Such a group should consist of four or five learners.
As a result of their discussion they may prepare an oral book report or a
written review to present to others in the class. They then decide what
book they will discuss at their next meeting.
Awards and displays are another way of motivating learners. After the
extensive reading programme has been running for some time, learners
can vote on what they thought were the best books they read. Labels can
be stuck on the front of the winning books to indicate that they are well
worth reading.
As well as books getting awards, learners can get awards for the
quantity of reading that they do. After reading five books an award can
be given, and after ten a further award and so on.
The way books are displayed can encourage reading. Publishers now try
to make graded readers as attractive as possible with colourful covers
sometimes showing a scene from the movie based on the book. Displays can
be arranged to show the different types of stories, the range of levels, new
books, and books that have won awards or have been highly recommended.
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The aim of all these activities is to keep learners excited about reading
and wanting to read more.

Support and Supplement Extensive Reading with

Language Focused Learning and Fluency Development
An extensive reading programme is only a part of a language course.
Teachers need to make sure that other parts of the course are supporting
extensive reading and that extensive reading is supporting other parts of
the course.
One of the most useful ways in which the course can support extensive
reading is by providing training in reading faster (see Chapter 5).
A speed-reading programme involves the learners reading texts that are

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 Extensive Reading 61
well within their language knowledge; that is, they contain no unknown
vocabulary or grammatical features. Their reading of each text is timed,
and their speed and comprehension scores are recorded on graphs so that
learners can easily see their progress and are encouraged to increase their
reading speed. Properly designed courses are usually very successful with
most learners soon doubling their speed. A good reading speed is around
250 words per minute. Most learners without training read at less than
100 words per minute. The essential requirements for such a course are (1)
easy texts (see Sonia Millett’s material at Paul Nation’s webpage (https://
www.wgtn.ac.nz/lals/resources/speed-reading-and-listening-fluency) for a
wide range of free speed-reading courses), (2) regular practice (about three
times a week), and (3) a push to read faster (see Chapter 5). Research
shows that reading graded readers also increases reading speed (Beglar,
Hunt, & Kite, 2012; Beglar & Hunt, 2014; McLean & Rouault, 2017).
Around one third of the time in an extensive reading programme should
be spent reading very easy graded readers containing no unknown words
and re-reading books that the learners have already read. The aim of such
reading is to increase reading speed. The faster a learner reads, the more
they can read. The more they read, the greater the increase in language
proficiency. In the Beglar, Hunt, and Kite (2012) study, however, the lear-
ners making the greatest fluency increases were not the learners who read
the most, but were the learners who read the most graded readers. Fluency
does not greatly increase through struggling through difficult books.
One way an extensive reading programme can contribute to profi-
ciency development is through vocabulary growth (Suk, 2017). This can
be encouraged in extensive reading by making the vocabulary learning
more deliberate and less incidental. Care needs to be taken, however,
that this vocabulary learning goal does not overshadow reading for
pleasure. Here are some brief suggestions that may boost vocabulary
learning from extensive reading:

1 Before reading a text, the learner quickly skims it and selects five or
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six words to focus on while reading. This has the effect of raising
consciousness about some words and thus making them more
noticeable when they are met again in the text.
2 While reading the learner can collect new words that are repeated in
the text to put on word cards or in a flash-card app for later
deliberate study.
3 A more formal follow-up to this is for learners to report to the class
on a word that they met while reading – explaining what it means,
how it was used in the text, its word parts, its etymology, and any
unusual features about it.
4 The use of a dictionary while reading should also have positive
effects (Knight, 1994; Peters, 2007) although this tends to increase
the time it takes to read a text (Hulstijn, 1993).

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 62 Extensive Reading
After reading a graded reader, the learner can spend a few minutes re-
flecting on new words that were met in the book and looking back in the
book to revise them.
Vocabulary learning and reading are helped if the learners are good at
guessing the meanings of unknown words from context clues. Guessing
from context is a trainable strategy and it is worth spending a few
minutes on it each week. There are several ways of practising the
strategy, but all require a text where there is not a heavy density of
unknown words. Typically, the teacher should model the procedure for
the learners, then work together with the learners on some items, and
then get the learners working together in pairs and eventually working
individually.
A deductive guessing procedure involves the learners making a guess at
the meaning of an unknown word in a text and then justifying their
guesses. This involves a discussion of the various available clues. An
inductive guessing procedure involves looking at the available clues – the
part of speech of the unknown word, its immediate context, and the
relationship between the clause with the unknown word and the ad-
joining clauses (for a detailed description see Nation, 2008, 2013a). It is
worth spending small amounts of time over several weeks or months on
practising guessing because it is a very powerful and useful strategy.
The effort of guessing itself does not increase learning (Mondria,
2003). Guessing simply provides ready access to word meaning. Writers
on extensive reading argue about the use of dictionaries during extensive
reading. Those against the use of dictionaries say it takes time away from
reading and may encourage the learners to read texts that are really too
difficult for them. There is clear evidence that dictionary look-up helps
learning (see Nation 2013a: Chapter 10 for a review of the research).
Probably the best advice is to use a dictionary, or preferably electronic
look-up, but don’t use it too much.
Macalister (2019) reflected on his approach to unknown words when
reading in French. He reported using a variety of strategies which in-
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cluding ignoring a word, guessing, using a dictionary after reading, and

creating electronic flash cards. When learners are aware of a range of
different strategies for dealing with unknown words the temptation to
over-use a dictionary is reduced.

Help Learners Move Systematically through the Graded

Reader Levels
Research on the occurrence of vocabulary in graded readers can provide
useful guidelines for planning such reading. Nation and Wang (1999) in
a detailed study of 42 graded readers in the Oxford Bookworms series
reached the following conclusions, considering only the aim of vocabu-
lary learning:

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 Extensive Reading 63
1 Learners should read at least one graded reader every week, no
matter what level they are reading at. This rate of reading allows
unknown vocabulary to be repeated before the immediately previous
occurrence is forgotten. More recent research suggests that this
amount of reading is not nearly enough.
2 Learners should read at least five books at a level (say Level 2) before
moving to books at the next level (Level 3). This number of books
provides a chance for most of the vocabulary introduced at that level
to occur.
3 Learners should read more books at the later levels than at the
earlier levels. This is because the vocabulary of the earlier levels
occurs very frequently in the books at the later levels. Books at the
later levels thus provide good conditions for learning all the
vocabulary of the graded reader series.
4 Learners should read at least 15–20 and preferably many more
graded readers in a year. This number of graded readers provides
plenty of repetition for the vocabulary and provides the opportunity
to meet most of the vocabulary several times. A programme where
learners read only three or four graded readers per year is not an
extensive reading programme.
5 Learners should work their way through the levels of graded readers
as the later levels provide excellent conditions for establishing the
vocabulary of the earlier levels.
6 Learners may need to directly study the new vocabulary at the earlier
levels or at least make use of a dictionary when starting to read
books at a particular level. This is because the density of unknown
vocabulary tends to be a little high at the earlier levels.

Extensive reading programmes do not run as neatly as indicated by the

guidelines described above. Learners often choose books according to
their appeal without considering the level of the reader. So they may read
a level 2 reader, then a level 5 reader, then a level 3 reader, and so on.
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This does not matter too much as long as plenty of enjoyable reading is
done. An extensive reading programme needs to have a fluency strand
(where learners read very easy texts quickly) and a meaning-focused
input strand (where learners read with around 98 per cent coverage). It
also does not hurt if there is occasional language-focused learning
through extensive reading where learners struggle through an interesting
but difficult text. Moving around the levels provides these different levels
of opportunities for learning. Some learners begin reading with en-
thusiasm and then stall when they see that the reading takes time and
effort. Some learners have great trouble getting started. Others read very
slowly and laboriously and are reluctant to increase their reading speed.
All of these problems have solutions and teachers need to monitor
learners’ progress carefully by looking at their record sheets, observing

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 64 Extensive Reading
them while they are reading, and talking with them individually about
their goals, progress, and problems. When learners are not enthusiastic
readers, it is initially best to do extensive reading during class time, with
the teacher ensuring that the reading is done. When learners become
hooked on reading, it can then be set as an out-of-class activity.

Make It Work
Despite the research and advocacy supporting extensive reading, it too
often remains absent from language learning classes. In a survey of
English language teaching at tertiary level in New Zealand, Macalister
(2010a) found that teachers held positive views about the benefits of
reading, but seemed unfamiliar with research about extensive reading
and they did little to promote it apart from encouraging students to read
at home. They explained the lack of reading in class in terms of a
crowded curriculum, assessment demands, and the learners’ expecta-
tions. But if teachers do not give learners the experience of successful
reading in class, learners are probably never going to become hooked on
reading.
Introducing extensive reading by compulsion does not guarantee that
learners will have successful reading experiences, however. Green (2005)
reported on the introduction of compulsory extensive reading in Hong
Kong secondary schools and found it was not a success. The reading was
done as a stand-alone activity without any clear link to the curriculum.
He suggested that extensive reading would be better if it was integrated
into the class through a task-based approach. This can help counter the
view that “just reading” is not learning or teaching. Some of the activities
mentioned earlier for monitoring reading might achieve this end.
Another activity is the Say-it activity (Macalister, 2014). In this activity
learners take turns talking about events in the book by responding to
prompts. It requires them, therefore, to have read the same book. This
increases the teacher’s role a little, as learners are not necessarily choosing
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what they want to read. There are language learning benefits from using an
activity like Say-it. Boutorwick, Macalister, and Elgort (2019) found that
learners who read a graded reader and followed it with a Say-it activity
learned more vocabulary than those who just read the book.
Teachers should be finding ways to make extensive reading work in
their own context. Every context will be a little different, and have its
own challenges. Finding creative ways to overcome those challenges can
be very rewarding.

Narrow Reading
Narrow reading is a variation on extensive reading. Like extensive
reading it involves readings lots of texts. The texts are closely linked by

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 Extensive Reading 65
theme and topic or are in a series by the same author. The justification
for this is that repeated reading in a narrow field will reinforce back-
ground, content, and language knowledge. In narrow reading there will
be more unknown words at the beginning than in extensive reading, but
these will become known through repeated encounters. Gardner (2008)
tested this idea in a corpus-based study and found more recycling of
specialised vocabulary in single-authored narrative fiction, and more
vocabulary recycling when the themes in expository non-fiction were
tightly controlled.
Schmitt and Carter (2000) suggested narrow reading of newspapers
and magazines for learners who have reached the upper limits of graded
readers. Issue logs (Watson, 2004) are a good example of this approach.
Learners follow a running story in the news and build up expert
knowledge of it. For learners wanting to read authentic texts, issue logs
may provide a helpful transition from more controlled texts.
Research on narrow reading is very limited at present, but it does not
seem the right approach for graded readers, or for learners reading at the
graded-reader level. When Chang and Renandya (2019) looked at
narrow reading with graded readers, they found no significant difference
in vocabulary acquisition between learners who read a random selection
and those who read a single author.

Electronic Reading
Among the challenges that teachers might face when setting up extensive
reading are cost, time, availability, and management issues. The devel-
opment of electronic reading and the widespread availability of devices
that enable e-reading can help teachers overcome these challenges. We
can see how by considering Xreading.
Xreading is a website created specifically to help schools implement
extensive reading programmes. It gives learners unlimited access to a
digital library of over 1000 graded readers from major publishers that
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they can read on their computer or mobile device. Besides the books, it
has audio narrations of the stories, quizzes, ratings, and background
information.
Additionally, Xreading allows teachers to track their learners’ reading
progress, including the books and number of words they have read, their
reading time, and reading speed.
However, Xreading is not free. It is a commercial site that requires
subscriptions, either paid for by the schools, or the students themselves.
But the cost is kept low, and is certainly cheaper than buying hundreds of
books. For the duration of their subscription, learners can read as many
books as they wish, and many learners can read the same book at the
same time. Xreading doesn’t have just 1000 books, but rather 1000
books per student.

Nation, I. S. P., and John Macalister. Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing : Second Edition, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.
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 66 Extensive Reading
There are enormous advantages in having an electronic library of
graded readers for extensive reading such as Xreading. First, a school
does not have to purchase the hundreds of printed books necessary to set
up an extensive reading library. The electronic library is already there,
with books at a complete range of levels from beginning to advanced.
The website uses the Extensive Reading Foundation set of levels to deal
with the different sets of levels used by publishers. Second, the learners’
borrowing and reading is monitored and their comprehension can be
quickly tested. The teachers or the learners do not have to do any record-
keeping. The learner management scheme provides feedback on the
books read and their level, the number of words read, reading speed, and
comprehension scores. Third, the learners have access to an electronic
word look-up dictionary as they read, so they can read independently.
While electronic reading can deal with many issues that might other-
wise prevent teachers from running an extensive reading programme,
other issues are not solved by technology. Learners may not read enough.
They may not enjoy reading. As with paper-based extensive reading
programmes, the teacher needs to be involved and engaged. This means
the teacher should know the books, be enthusiastic and supportive, set
goals, monitor progress, and find ways to make reading relevant to the
learners (Goldberg, 2020).
Even learners who enjoy reading may not always like electronic
reading because, for example, of eye strain. E-reading will grow in po-
pularity and dominance, but books will not disappear just yet.
Whether electronic or paper-based or a blend of the two, teachers just
need to decide to make extensive reading part of their course.

Simplified and Unsimplified Texts

For some teachers and researchers, graded readers are seen as being in-
authentic, watered-down versions of richer original texts. Vocabulary
simplification is also seen to result in more complicated grammar be-
Copyright © 2020. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

cause what could be neatly expressed in one word now has to be ex-
pressed in several simpler words. These criticisms are largely true of
the poorest quality graded readers but we need to beware of taking the
perspective of a highly proficient or native speaker rather than that of the
language learner. In a close examination of simplification in graded
readers, Claridge (2005) concluded that the patterns of word-frequency
distribution provided learners with an authentic reading experience.
Publishers and editors of graded readers would say that the most
convincing argument in favour of graded readers is that there are nu-
merous interesting well-written books, many of them not simplifications
but original language learner literature. This is undoubtedly true. From a
vocabulary learning perspective, however, the most convincing argument
is that the vocabulary control required by the graded reader schemes

Nation, I. S. P., and John Macalister. Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing : Second Edition, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.
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 Extensive Reading 67
results in texts where there are very few low-frequency words, and the
high-frequency words of the language get plenty of repetition. As a
contrast, let us compare a simplified version of Dracula (written within a
700-word vocabulary at level 2 of the Oxford Bookworms series) and
the original version (Nation and Deweerdt, 2001).
Table 4.1 shows that the books differ greatly in length. The simplified
version is much shorter than the original. The coverage by the first two
thousand words and proper nouns shows how accessible each book
would be for a learner with a limited vocabulary. Proper nouns are in-
cluded because these do not need to be known before reading the text.
98.6% coverage means that there is just over one unknown word in
every 100 running words. 92.8% coverage in the original text means that
there are just over seven unknown words in every 100, or almost one in
every line of the text. This is a heavy vocabulary load.
The total number of word families in the book is another indication of
how accessible the book would be to a learner with a limited vocabulary.
This figure is directly affected by the different lengths of the books, but
even if the lengths were the same, the number of word families in the
simplified version would be much less than in the original. (The first
7,957 running words of the original Dracula contains 1,435 word fa-
milies.) The most striking contrast, however, is in the number of words
occurring only once in the books. The original version has a very large
number (3,038) and when we look at the kinds of words that make up
this number, it is easy to see how difficult and unrewarding it would be
for an elementary or intermediate language learner to try to read such
books. Here are some of the 3,038 words that only occur once in the
original of Dracula: solicitude, therapeutics, physiognomy, mundane,
lugubrious. If these words were looked up in a dictionary while reading,
they would not help with later parts of the text because they occur only
once. They are also likely to be forgotten before they are met again in
other texts. Eventually, advanced learners may need to learn these
words, but they should be learned when the more useful high-frequency
Copyright © 2020. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

words are already very well known. Unsimplified texts have a very heavy
vocabulary load and for the purposes of extensive reading do not set up

Table 4.1 A comparison of the vocabulary in the simplified and original versions
of Dracula

Simplified version Original

Length of the books 7,957 words 161,425 words

Percentage coverage by the first 2000 98.6% 92.8%
words of English plus proper nouns
Total word families 556 5,640
Number of word families not in the first 19 3,038
2000 occurring only once in the book

Nation, I. S. P., and John Macalister. Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing : Second Edition, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vuw/detail.action?docID=6284512.
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 68 Extensive Reading
the conditions needed for successful learning from meaning focused
input. Dracula, in spite of its age, is typical of other unsimplified texts,
.

including recent unsimplified texts written for teenagers.

The Extensive Reading Programme

The single most effective change that a teacher could make to a language
programme is to include extensive reading. The research on extensive
reading shows that the effects are substantial, that they are long-lasting and
that it is a very efficient use of time. Its effects are wide reaching and have a
strong influence on motivation. After initial planning and preparation,
such a programme places low demands on the teacher, and if an electronic
resource such as Xreading or M-reader is used the work involved in the
management and running of the programme is small.
The interest in extensive reading programmes is now growing, sup-
ported by high-quality research (Elley & Mangubhai, 1981; Pigada &
Schmitt, 2006; Pellicer-Sanchez & Schmitt, 2010; Beglar, Hunt, & Kite,
2012; McLean & Rouault, 2017; Suk, 2017), by regular international
conferences on extensive reading, and by the activities of the Extensive
Reading Foundation through its website and the efforts of its members.
A language course without an extensive reading programme is not
giving its learners the best opportunities to develop their language pro-
ficiency. Teachers need to convince themselves of the value of such
programmes by reading the research and by observing such programmes
in action. They then need to take the important step of making extensive
reading a substantial part of their reading course.

Tasks
1 Read a graded reader. Getting teachers to experience extensive reading
has been shown to be an effective way of convincing teachers to
introduce extensive reading in their classrooms (Cho, 2014).
Copyright © 2020. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

2 List four arguments why it would be difficult to introduce an

extensive reading programme in your school. Work with others to
find ways of overcoming these obstacles.
3 Make a ranked list of extensive reading principles.

Further Reading
Nation and Waring (2020). This book is a thorough examination of the
research and practice in extensive reading. It provides practical guidance
in setting up an extensive reading programme, case studies, and critical
reviews of research on various aspects of extensive reading.
Elley and Mangubhai (1981). This is the classic study of extensive
reading in learning English as a foreign language. It is a very short and

Nation, I. S. P., and John Macalister. Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing : Second Edition, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vuw/detail.action?docID=6284512.
Created from vuw on 2023-07-23 20:35:00.
 Extensive Reading 69
readable report. This study acted as the model for several other studies of
learning from extensive reading.
Extensive Reading Foundation’s Guide to Extensive Reading. Look
under “What is ER?” on the Extensive Reading Foundation website.
This is a very practical guide to extensive reading which aims to show
teachers how to set up an extensive reading programme. It is available
free from the Extensive Reading Foundation website in several lan-
guages.
Look in the JALT ER SIG’s journal, Extensive Reading in Japan
(hosted.jalt.org/er/sites/jalt.org.er/files/ERJ/).
Copyright © 2020. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

Nation, I. S. P., and John Macalister. Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing : Second Edition, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vuw/detail.action?docID=6284512.
Created from vuw on 2023-07-23 20:35:00.