What is Extensive Reading?
It’s when we read a lot. Not just reading a few text messages here and there or reading a few paragraphs in a textbook but reading something long! To do this, the stuff we read must be interesting and easy.
It’s what we did to develop our native language. Our parents did it for us when we were children and we sat on their laps. We did it when we sat under a tree and passed the summer away with story after story of our favorite character.
It’s something we think we can’t do in our second language that we actually can if we find the right source!
Why should we spend time on extensive reading?
We are busy people. Not only do we have to eat three times a day, including preparing the meal and cleaning up after the meal, sleep for 8 or 9 hours a night, be friends with people, and work/study, but we also try to develop our second language!
Anyone else wishing we had 34-hour days?
How can we fit in another thing to our modern lives? Can we pause life to read for long periods of time? The answer is “yes” if we have a good enough reason. Let’s look at why we should make a habit of extensive reading.
There are dozens of articles about why to do extensive reading all over the internet, let’s just look at a quick summary of the main reasons!
Enjoyment
We should read extensively in our second language for pleasure. It helps us to like the language more. It gives us more to talk about. It gives us a sense of achievement.
Immersion
Reading extensively is like listening to a native for a long time. We get a source of steady, accurate language! We soak in the language slowly and deeply. It’s like fertilizing your garden: it has a slow, long-term, positive effect on the growth of your tree.
Repetition
How many times did you have to hear the word “apple” before you remembered it? If you’re like me, it took me around 20. The readers in textbooks tend to use the new vocabulary once or twice each, and then you have to study them purposefully to remember. Extensive reading often has words repeated over and over throughout the book, and each time with more context. This builds deep memory with less effort than studying.
Expansion
My sons knew everything about excavators before they had ever seen one. We didn’t have one in our house, and we didn’t live on construction site. We read about them! I still remember the joy in my son’s voice when he looked out the window and saw an excavator for the first time! This came from reading. We can expand our vocabulary, grammar, and especially style by giving our brains the content within books.
Fluency
Of course we develop reading fluency. But did you know this affects thinking fluency? If we read aloud in our brains, we develop thinking fluency (I don’t think this is a real term, but in my life it’s a real thing so I’m making the term up). That also affects speaking fluency, and if we read aloud, we get more speaking fluency. Wow!
Now you know why you should be doing extensive reading. What about how? We’ve already talked more than enough for now (aren’t you tired of my voice?), so we’ll talk about that next time!
Practice the language you just read with these activities!