The Lexical Advantages of Narrow

Reading for Second Language Learners

An Introduction to Vocabulary Learning and Narrow Reading

There is a consensus that the incidental vocabulary learning stemming from reading

is an essential complement to the explicit teaching of vocabulary (e.g. Coady and

Huckin, 1997; Schmitt and McCarthy, 1997). A major reason for this consensus is

that the number of words necessary for effective language use is greater than can

be taught easily (although see Meara, 1995, 1998 for a rebuttal to the limitations of

vocabulary teaching). Estimates for the number of words required vary from about

2,000 for everyday oral ability (Schonell, Meddleton, and Shaw, 1956) to 10,000 or

more for reading academic texts (Hazenberg and Hulstijn, 1996). Another reason is

that a reader must know a very high percentage of words in any text in order to

either obtain the gist of the passage or to guess the meaning of any unknown words.

The exact percentage depends on factors like background knowledge of the text

topic and purpose of reading, but figures 95% or higher are normally suggested.

These high percentage figures translate into the necessity of knowing somewhere in

the region of 5,000 words to begin to read authentic texts (Hirsh and Nation, 1992).

Language instructors would have trouble teaching this number of words in any

explicit way. In all likelihood, they will be able to teach only a small percentage of

these words in class, so the rest need to be met and learned in exposure activities

outside the classroom. Krashen (e.g. 1989) has long argued for the power of

incidental learning from exposure, with reading a particularly good source. In

general, research has supported this position, showing that although the probability

of learning new words from any single meeting in context is low (somewhere

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between 5% and 14% depending on various factors), the cumulative effect of

multiple exposures from sustained reading is considerable. (See Nagy, 1997, for an

overview of the role of incidental learning and context in vocabulary learning.)

Thus, due to the incremental nature of vocabulary acquisition, repeated exposures

are necessary to consolidate a new word in the learner's mind. Moreover, there is

another essential advantage to meeting a word repeatedly through reading.

Knowing a word well enough to use it competently involves more than just an

awareness of a single meaning sense; it also includes knowledge of lexical aspects

like its grammatical behavior, collocations, register constraints, and even alternative

meaning senses (Nation, 1990). It would be impossible to gain mastery over all of

these from the information available in a single (or even a limited number of)

contexts. Rather, learners need to meet to meet words in a wide variety of contexts

in order to gain an appreciation of the true range of a word's usage.

In sum, the case for reading as an aid to vocabulary learning seems to be strong,

both in terms of providing the repetition necessary to establish new words in the

learner's mind, and in supplying the different contexts necessary to elaborate and

expand the richness of knowledge about those words. The question remains,

however, of how to best encourage and organize such reading.

Newspapers or magazines in the target language have often been suggested as a

good source for learner reading. It is assumed that such authentic materials will be

interesting for students, because they cover 'real world' events, some of which

should affect the students’ lives and touch them personally. In addition, they are

generally readily available in most parts of the world, at least if English is the target

language. Sternfeld (1989) lists several other desirable traits: a) students are

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already familiar with the style and organizational structure of newspaper stories, b)

newspapers often provide extralingual cues to meaning, e.g. photographs and

tables, c) L2 newspapers are likely to report similar news to L1 newspapers which

learners may have already read, allowing learners to approach the L2 reading with a

considerable amount of background knowledge, and d) the variety of topics covered

in newspapers allows a progression from more concrete action-oriented stories to

more abstract, issue-oriented news.

However, a potential problem with L2 newspapers and magazines is that learners

may not initially have the prerequisite vocabulary necessary to read them. One way

to ease learners into authentic texts like these is to use narrow reading (Krashen,

1981). Narrow reading is reading on the same topic over the course of a number of

texts. One advantage is that readers become familiar with the topic and have much

better background knowledge for future passages on that topic. Another advantage

has to do with the mechanics of vocabulary distribution. Key words in topic-related

passages tend to reoccur, easing the lexical burden on readers as they become

familiar with this vocabulary (Hwang and Nation, 1989). From a reading

perspective, focusing on texts on a recurrent topic should give learners the chance

to practice reading more quickly and fluently. From a vocabulary perspective,

multiple exposures to recurrent words should facilitate vocabulary learning.

This article approaches narrow reading from three perspectives. The first

perspective employs a corpus analysis of two sets of newspaper readings to

demonstrate how narrow reading lowers the vocabulary load of texts. The second is

learner-focused, reporting students' perceptions of narrow reading for facilitating

their reading and vocabulary learning. The third is pedagogical, with practical

suggestions being offered of how teachers can install a narrow reading component

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into their language classes.

Using Corpus Analysis To Explore The Benefits Of Narrow Reading

The Two Sets of Newspaper Stories

This section focuses on the vocabulary in two different sets of newspaper stories:

one a series of reports on a running story and the other a collection of unrelated

stories. By comparing these two sets, we hope to illustrate how the vocabulary load

is lessened in related stories, and thus demonstrate why narrow reading can indeed

be a useful pedagogical approach for emerging readers. To do this, we had to find

a news report which continued over a number of days. The tragic death of Princess

Diana provided such a story, with daily front page lead stories in most newspapers

around the world. We collected the newspaper reports relating to Princess Diana's

death and funeral every day for a week from a regional newspaper in southern

Idaho. We compared these to other front-page stories from the same newspaper

during the same period of time. The two types of story are summarized in Table 1.

**** Table 1 about here ****

The DIANA reports follow the same developing story, while the OTHER stories

cover a wide variety of topics, ranging from politics to finance to armed conflict.

Both categories include nine news stories which total 7843 words (the Cassani story

was trimmed slightly so that OTHER would have exactly the same number of words

as the DIANA stories). The stories in both categories were then analyzed to

discover the differences in vocabulary.

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The Most Frequent Words

First, let us examine the most frequent words in both the DIANA and the OTHER

newspaper stories. We find the most frequent words of all are function words (also

known as grammatical words, e.g. articles, prepositions, pronouns, etc.). This result

is the standard finding for most texts, for the simple reason that function words are

needed to form syntactically-correct sentences regardless of the topic. At the top of

both frequency lists are the words the, to, and, a, of, in, for, and it. Thus narrow

reading relies on knowledge of these function words just as 'broad' reading does.

However, the essence of a text comes through in content words (the words which

carry meaning). It is with these words that we begin to see the difference between

the two sets of texts. Table 2 shows the content words occurring in the top 50 most

frequent words in the DIANA and OTHER sets (all missing words are function

words).

**** Table 2 about here ****

Not only are there a greater number of different high-frequency content words in the

DIANA texts, but the total number of their occurrences is far greater as well (77%

greater). These figures illustrate the advantage of narrow reading when it comes to

vocabulary recurrence at the highest end of the word frequency scale. Moreover,

this is not only a high-frequency phenomenon; the DIANA texts retain some

advantage in this respect even with words at lower frequency levels.

Total Number of Different Types of Words

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A second way to analyze these story sets is to find the number of different types in

each. Both sets of stories contained the same number of words (sometimes called

tokens), but the argument for narrow reading would benefit if there were fewer

different individual words (types). [An example of types and tokens: the sentence

“The big cat drank milk from the big dish” contains 9 tokens, but only 7 types "the,

big, cat, drank, milk, from, dish".] We find this is the case: the OTHER news stories

contained 2224 types, while the DIANA stories contained only 2068. Thus, the

variety of stories in the OTHER category contained about 7½% more types than did

the stories on a common topic. Therefore, not only do content words reoccur more

frequently in topic-related texts, there are also fewer word types to be dealt with.

Taken together, these features can do much to reduce the vocabulary load on the

developing reader.

Proper Nouns

One category of lower-frequency word which occurs in newspaper stories is proper

nouns. In fact, about 10% of the words in newspapers are proper nouns, most of

them names of people or places (Hwang and Nation, 1989, p. 324-325). If a story

refers to people or places well-known to the reader, then this facilitates the reading

process. However, stories often involve subjects which are totally unfamiliar. For

example, OTHER stories contain proper nouns such as Tom Welch (former Olympic

official), Cassini (a man-made satellite), and Targhee (a national forest). Hwang

and Nation suggest that such unknown names are explained in context in the news

stories, but some of these explanations may be challenging for L2 readers to grasp.

For example, the following extract is the first place the name Joklik occurs in its

news story:

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Frank Joklik is approaching his new job as chief executive in charge of the 2002

Winter Olympics much as he oversaw $2 billion worth of projects while at the helm

of mining giant Kennecott Corp.

Although the information about being the 'chief executive of the Olympics' is present,

it is not set off in a separate clause, and there is so much other information available

that readers may have trouble sorting out the basic definition. Of course, once a

name is familiar, later repetitions of it should pose fewer problems. Overall, more

repetitions of proper nouns generally eases the vocabulary load for readers.

Let us again compare the DIANA and OTHER stories to illustrate how topic-related

stories contain more repetition of proper nouns. If we count each token in a proper

noun as an individual type (e.g. Princess Diana = 2 types), then we find that the

OTHER stories contain 736 tokens and 344 types, while the DIANA stories contain

828 tokens and 262 types. Since both story sets contain 7843 tokens, these results

support Hwang and Nation's (1989) estimate of about 10% proper nouns in

newspaper stories. The topic-related stories have 12½% more repetition of proper

nouns, and in addition, there are 31% fewer different proper noun types to deal with.

If we choose to count each proper noun as a separate type (e.g. Princess Diana = 1

type), there is a similar trend of more tokens and fewer types in the ongoing stories.

When we look at the individual proper nouns, we find that the less frequent ones

seem to be repeated at about the same rate for both sets. However, the difference

between the two sets is very pronounced for the most frequent proper nouns (Table

3).

**** Table 3 about here ****

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We again find the beneficial pattern of more overall repetition of vocabulary, with a

greater number of word types being very frequent. In fact, over 41% of the proper

nouns recur 8 or more times in the DIANA stories, while less than 16% do in the

OTHER stories.

It is important to note that the content words and the proper nouns which frequently

reoccur in the ongoing texts may or may not be particularly useful for other texts.

For example, it is unlikely that learners would meet Langevin again in a text for a

very long time, whereas the most frequent content words in the DIANA stories would

probably prove quite useful in future reading. The important point is not how

valuable these words are in other texts or language use, but that the recurrence of

these words make the ongoing stories more accessible to read. The language

benefits come from being able to read and manipulate these texts. Any additional

vocabulary learning should be seen as a beneficial supplement, rather than a

negative because some of the words are not immediately useful.

Learner Reactions to Narrow Reading

The previous section has illustrated how narrow reading can help emerging readers.

However, we know that introducing new language strategies can often be ineffective

if learners do not see their value. With narrow reading, this danger should be

minimal, because it is something they already do in the their native language.

Following a continuing story in a newspaper or reading magazines on a particular

topic of interest are examples of narrow reading which many learners are likely to

already be familiar with. If this is pointed out to them, there should be little student

resistance to transferring a reading behavior already in place in the L1 to an L2

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learning situation. In fact, learners may already have intuitions of how narrow

reading can make both reading and vocabulary learning easier, and a classroom

discussion on the subject can bring these ideas out into the open.

To illustrate some actual learner attitudes towards narrow reading, we looked at how

one group of four emerging readers responded to the narrow reading activities they

participated in as part of their regular reading classes. This class was part of an

intensive pre-university course and was aimed at developing the reading and

vocabulary skills of low intermediate students. The students read one report on a

continuing story (the earthquake in Taiwan) over a period of several days in addition

to reading stories of their own choosing. At the end of this period, they filled out an

informal questionnaire, which asked them to consider their ease of reading and

vocabulary learning when dealing with related and unrelated newspaper stories.1 In

the questionnaire, all of the students responded favorably to the narrow reading

task. The two comments below illustrate ways in which they could see clear value in

this approach to reading and vocabulary study. There was only one criticism: a

student stated that, despite the value of narrow reading, she preferred to choose her

own topic rather than having a topic chosen by the teacher.

"I like reading one story because after the first day, I don't have to use the dictionary

as much, so it makes reading more enjoyable."

"You can learn more information about the topic if you read about it over several

days."

Incorporating Narrow Reading Into the Syllabus

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There is considerable advice available about how to encourage learners to read

more in general (e.g. Day and Bamford, 1998). However, there are a number of

things which teachers can do to promote narrow reading in particular. Below are a

number of suggestions:

§ Collect stories on a given topic in a newspaper for students to read. This should

not be difficult, as Hwang and Nation (1989) report that 19% of stories in

international, domestic, and sports sections of the newspapers they looked at were

on a recurring topic.

§ Because students will be reading a number of reports on a continuing story, it is

important to choose one that retains their interest. This implies that polling student

preferences is an important preliminary step in choosing an appropriate story.

§ Teachers can give students narrow readings even when focusing on other

language aspects. For example, teachers could assign readings on the same story,

but from different types of newspapers, e.g. the New York Times versus a local

newspaper, or a 'quality' newspaper versus a more sensational tabloid. This would

still involve narrow reading, but the focus in the classroom exercises could be on

something else, for example, the different kinds of language used in the different

newspapers, or the way language is connected to point of view (see Carter, et al.

1997).

§ Have students bring in magazines on topics they like and read several articles

from these magazines.

§ Have students read books. Following a storyline within a single book should yield

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much the same facilitation as reading several separate articles on the same news

story. (See Dupuy, Tse, and Cook, 1996, for more on bringing books into the

classroom.)

§ If students are not yet to the level where they can attempt authentic adult-level

texts, then simplified readers can provide useful reading input as an interim step.

Beyond this, learners can be encouraged to read authentic materials written at a

primary- or secondary-school level. Cho and Krashen (1994) found that a series of

novels designed for junior high and high school girls became compelling reading for

their four adult subjects, who ended up reading more than two of the books per

week. From this experience, they suggest that reading in a single genre (like a

series with recurring characters and situations) is valuable in promoting literacy

development.

§ Narrow reading does not have to imply solely paper-based texts. If one has the

computer resources, the internet is a source with a vast amount of authentic text

available on almost any topic imaginable, a majority of it in English. (See Li and

Hart, 1996, for more on the world wide web.)

§ By reading from a single author, one can also limit to some degree the vocabulary

and structures which will be met, as authors often draw from the same vocabulary

pool and use a similar writing style in their different writings.

§ If one is teaching using a content-based approach, staying with a particular topic

area for a sustained period of time should produce the same recurring exposure as

narrow reading, presumably with the same benefits. This is especially true if

learners are reading in the content area as part of the course.

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§ Any kind of reading can only succeed if the learner knows enough vocabulary to

comprehend a majority of the text and guess the meanings of new words from

context. This fact may well necessitate an explicit focus on vocabulary in order to

bring learners up to the point where comprehension and inferencing are possible.

Conclusion

Reading should be a key component in most language learning programs.

Simplified readers are useful for beginning students, but eventually learners will

want to start accessing authentic texts. Narrow reading can facilitate the transition

to these texts, and perhaps permit earlier access to them, by lowering the lexical

load required of the learner. Our small survey suggests that learners can be quick

to realize the benefits of narrow reading, and are willing to have it become a part of

their coursework. We hope that this article has succeeded in illustrating the

advantages of narrow reading, and has provided some concrete ideas about how to

incorporate it into the classroom.

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References

Carter, R., Goddard, A., Reah, D., Sanger, K., and Bowring, M. (1997). Working

with Texts. Routledge: London.

Cho, K-S. and Krashen, S. (1994). Acquisition of vocabulary from the Sweet Valley

Kids series: Adult ESL Acquisition. Journal of Reading 37, 8: 662-667.

Coady, J. and Huckin, T. (1997). Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Day, R.R. and Bamford, J. (1998). Extensive Reading in the Second Language

Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dupuy, B., Tse, L., and Cook, T. (1996). Bringing books into the classroom: First

steps in turning college-level ESL students into readers. TESOL Journal 5, 4: 10-

15.

Hazenberg, S. and Hulstijn, J.H. (1996). Defining a minimal receptive

second-language vocabulary for non-native university students: an empirical

investigation. Applied Linguistics 17, 2: 145-163.

Hirsh, D. and Nation, I.S.P. (1992). What vocabulary size is needed to read

unsimplified texts for pleasure?. Reading in a Foreign Language 8, 2: 689-696.

Hwang, K. and Nation, P. (1989). Reducing the vocabulary load and encouraging

vocabulary learning through reading newspapers. Reading in a Foreign Language

Krashen, S. (1981). The case for narrow reading. TESOL Newsletter 15, 6: 23.

Krashen, S. (1989). We acquire vocabulary and spelling by reading: Additional

evidence for the input hypothesis. Modern Language Journal 73, 4: 440-464.

Li, R-C., and Hart, R.S. (1996). What can the world wide web offer ESL teachers?

TESOL Journal 6, 2: 5-10.

Meara P. (1995). The importance of an early emphasis in L2 vocabulary. The

Language Teacher 19, 2: 8-10.

Meara, P. (1998). Review of Coady, J. and Huckin, T. (eds.) Second Language

Vocabulary Acquisition. Applied Linguistics 19, 2: 289-292.

Nagy, W. (1997). On the role of context in first- and second-language vocabulary

learning. In Schmitt, N. and McCarthy, M. (eds.). (1997). Vocabulary: Description,

Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nation, I.S.P. (1990). Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. Boston: Heinle and

Heinle.

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1We wish to thank Diane Schmitt for assisting us with this investigation.
Table 1 Summary of the Newspaper Stories

DIANA-related OTHER

Sunday Diana dies Salt Lake Olympics

Monday Body returned; mourning Trade unions in Idaho

Tuesday Driver was drunk; mourning President Yeltsin

Wednesday Paparazzi as suspects Dow Jones record day

Thursday Royal family panned for Ski area development

mourning style

Friday No story NATO-Serb clash

Saturday Queen's speech Parking at state fair

Sunday Funeral Tobacco deal in danger;

Cassani spacecraft

security worries
Table 2 Most Frequent Content Words

DIANA Occurrences OTHER Occurrences

8. said 100 7. said 93

10. Diana 79 21. pay 33

15. princess 53 22. school 32

30 car 32 29. work 29

31 Diana's 32 30. union 28

33 photographers 31 44. people 21

35 Fayed 30 45. right 21

38 people 29 48. one 20

41 death 26 49. year 20

43 palace 25

45 royal 24

47 crash 23

48 police 23

50 time 20

Total 527 297

DIANA OTHER

Name Occurrences % of Name Occurrences % of

Proper Proper Nouns

Nouns

Diana 58 10.49 Joklik 17 3.45

Diana’s 29 5.24 NATO 14 2.85

Princess Diana 20 3.62 Yeltsin 13 2.64

Paris 19 3.44 Cassini 12 2.44

London 15 2.71 US 12 2.44

Langevin 12 2.17 August 9 1.83

Sunday 12 2.17

Buckingham Palace 10 1.81

Fayed 10 1.81

Princess of Wales 10 1.81

Mercedes 9 1.63

St. James Palace 8 1.45

Britain 8 1.45

Prince Charles 8 1.45

TOTAL 228 41.25 77 15.65

Norbert Schmitt lectures at the University of Nottingham, UK in vocabulary studies,

language testing, and TESOL methodology. He recently published Vocabulary in

Language Teaching with Cambridge University Press. He likes traditional Irish

music and often dreams of renewing his private pilot's license.

Ron Carter is professor of Modern English Language at the University of

Nottingham, UK. He has published widely in the fields of literary, educational, and

applied linguistics. It would take a lot of money to get him in a plane flown by

Norbert Schmitt.