Tips for Reading Extensively

Summarizing an Article “Tips for Reading Extensively.
(English Teaching Forum. 2004)”

Extensive reading has the potential to help English language learners that may not understand the language learning value of reading easy, become better readers and make improvements in other aspects of their English skills
In extensive reading, English language learners read large quantities of easy material to get information and enjoyment.
The reason why language learners should read extensively is to examine the student’s abilities or skills. Extensive reading help students to improve their words they knew before, to improve their skills (writing, reading, listening and speaking).
Teachers have an important role to play in helping their students get the most out of extensive reading. Teachers should give introduction to the students about extensive reading and, as a guidance, they should give tips to the students.
Tip 1 : Read, read, and read some more. It can help students become better readers.
Tip 2 : Read easy books. It will increase student’s confidence and help them to become more comfortable with the process of reading in the foreign language. When learners read a lot of easy books, it allows them to become more fluent, effective readers. And they can learn new words and phrases. Teachers can help students select material by knowing the precise book for them. If book is too difficult for extensive reading, they should find another. It depends on the abilities of the students and the resources available to teachers, such materials may include children’s books, comic book, or online texts that are graded readers.
Tip 3 : Read interesting books. If the learners are excited about their books, they won’t want to put them down. It merely focuses on grammatical aspects.
Tip 4 : Reread books you found particularly interesting. If the students have already read a book once, they will be able to read it more fluency the second time. This helps build vocabulary and leads to increase in reading rate.
Tip 5 : Read for general understanding. When students read extensively, it is not necessary to read for the whole words. They should simply read for general overall understanding, to follow the general storyline and grasp the main ideas of the text.
Another way to encourage reading for general understanding is to remind students that reading is for pleasure and increasing fluency and vocabulary.
Tip 6 : Ignore unknown or difficult words. Skip them and continue reading. Students do not need to understand every word. Often, they can ignore words they do not know and still maintain a general understanding of the passage. Most likely, students will grasp the overall meaning, despite encountering a few unfamiliar words. If a student is unsuccessful, then it is likely the book is too difficult.
Tip 7 : Avoid using dictionaries. Stopping two or three times per page to look up words in dictionary is laborious and time-consuming, and it can distract students from reading for general understanding.
Tip 8 : Expand your reading comfort zone. Being familiar with extensive reading materials and having an awareness of each student’s level and reading interests will allow teacher to better help students while they expand their reading comfort zone.
Everyone has a desire to improve as quickly as possible, some learners might challenge themselves too much, too soon. It is important to pay attention to what the students are reading and to make sure that they are not struggling with texts that are too difficult.
Tip 9 : Set reading goals and keep a reading log. Extensive reading targets are flexible and can be adjusted to fit the reading abilities and schedules of the students.
One way to set and monitor reading goals is to encourage the students to keep a log of their extensive reading. Two samples of simple extensive reading logs are provided in the appendix. Others require students to provide a very brief summary of each book entered into the log in order to monitor general comprehension.
Tip 10 : Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! The more students enjoy what they are reading, the more they will read. If they do not enjoy reading, their desire to stick with it will probably dwindle, and they may give up on reading.
Conclusion : Teachers can increase their student’s competency in English and help them become fluent readers in English by engaging them in extensive reading. It’s important to realize that the increased fluency, confidence, and motivation that so often result from reading extensively will help students in their academic endeavors, such as improving exam performances.
When teachers provide insightful and careful orientation and guidance to extensive reading, they are not only helping their students improve many aspects of their overall reading and language ability, teachers also might be opening a door to the variety of worlds that reading can be sent.
A tip for teacher : “Be a role model as a reader.” Nuttall observed, “reading is caught, not taught.” (1996, 229).