What is “Extensive Reading”

An important part of attaining fluency in English is reading in English. While reading you learn words and become more familiar with grammar structures. You also develop an important understanding of how native speakers use the language.

Furthermore, reading increases your language speed, which helps with productive skills like speaking and writing. Beyond that, however, extensive reading allows you enjoy your second language. It helps you become comfortable with English and feel accomplished. Reading your first novel and understanding it is a very satisfying benchmark as a second language learner.

What will we be doing? 

Lais and Emerson enjoying the sun and their book

For each level, you will be assigned a number of pages to read before the end of the term. (Level 4 will read 400 pages). You can pick any book you would like to read. For instance, maybe you want to read Hunger Games because it is an important part of American pop culture right now. However, this book may be too difficult for you with lots of complex vocabulary, grammar, slang and idioms. So at the ESL Academy, we have “leveled readers,” which are short novels designed for students at varying reading levels.

Your reading teacher will work with you to help you select books that are challenging yet not too difficult. Every week you will keep “log” of how many pages you have read, and you will also complete two weekly activities in the form below.

By the end of the term, you will also have to complete ONE Book Review or ONE Book talk, both of which will be outlined in more detail later in this packet.

Weekly Activities 

Every Friday in reading class, your teacher will give you the entire hour to read and complete any assignment related to extensive reading. You are not allowed to do assignments for other classes. You must read! By the end of each week, you must complete two activities (see form below). You select any two of the activities, but while you are allowed to choose week-to-week what you do, by the end of the term you will need to have done each activity at least once.

Book Talk

When you finish a book, you can tell us about it.You can do this at any point during the term, but remember that as the term progresses there is more work at the end. So you may not want to do it at the end of the term. This is a relatively simple assignment. First, you introduce the book, who wrote it and why you picked it. Then you summarize what happened in the book. Finally, provide a recommendation and explain it. Should other students read the book? Why/Why not? Who would like this book and why? Here is an example from a former student.

Book Review 

If you would rather not do a Book Talk, you can write a review. This is a formal summary-response essay where you do exactly what you did for the book talk: summarize what you read and provide a detailed recommendation. These must be typed and formatted as instructed by your teacher and turned in by the end of the term.

Final Notes 

The goal is to make you better readers and users of the English language. If there is anything you do not understand or anything you need help with, please to not hesitate to speak with your teacher. Also, it is our hope that you can discover the joys of reading in your non-native language. It is challenging, but the outcome is well worth the effort. …. And, of course, Enjoy! ☺

Here is the paper "packet" version of this post.