Extensive Reading
“What music
is to the spirit, reading is to the mind. Reading challenges, empowers,
bewitches,
enriches. We perceive little black marks on white paper or a PC screen and they
move us to tears, open up our lives to new insights and understandings, inspire
us, organize our existences and connect us with all creation.”
“What is
reading then? The answer is not simple, as the act of reading is variable, not
absolute. In
its most general modern definition, reading is of course the ability to make
sense of written or printed symbols. The reader ‘uses the symbols to guide the
recovery of information from his or her memory and subsequently uses this
information to construct a plausible interpretation of the writer’s message.’”
(S. R. Fischer’s A History of Reading are taken
from those that Maria Popova’s refers to
in brain pickings at http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/10/26/a-history-of-reading/)
1.1 Introduction
In
this Chapter, extensive reading (here after ER will be used) is looked at from the
point of view of a formal system of education in a non-native environment. So the
discussion here treats what happens or what should be happening in the
classroom. As for extensive reading as an informal reading habit, it is
something that the educated blend and stretch their formal-education-induced ER
into their future lives for profit (in terms of
gaining knowledge) alone or pleasure alone or both.
1.2 Background
Here
we take a brief look at the histories of reading and extensive reading. The
bibliography provides relevant sources as references.
1.2.1 History of
teaching reading
Reading
as a skill developed only after humans began to express themselves through
symbols—caricatures, figures and much later through language in its written form.
It started with a syllabary alphabet adopted by the Greeks that was the
beginning of Western alphabet For the Greeks and the Romans,
reading was incidental to the real education of rhetoric, physical fitness and
codes of conduct, and there is evidence that the Celts regarded the ability as
unmanly. All early reading involved very simple code recognition and was
invariably task-oriented such as accounting, storage and transport with names,
dates and places.
The
reading method was ‘alphabetic’. Oral reading was usual and silent reading was
unheard of and became known only after
mass production of books happened through the printing press but recognition
and teaching of reading as a special skill did not occur until the 20th
century. Reading in the vernacular began after the Reformation when the Bible
was translated and published.
Till
the late 19th century, synthetic phonics approach, which converted letters into sounds and then
blended the sounds, still dominated the early reading scene in
schools, drills and practice continued after the
primer level, but moved from letter names and sounds into other aspects of the
language arts, including grammar, rhetoric, and elocution.Towards the end of
the century, it was felt that meaning and understanding were important, and
sentence-method and story-method began to be used as part of reading
instruction. Friedrich
Gedike (1754-1803), Ernst Trall, Jean Jacotot (1790-1840), John Keagy
(1792-1837), Farnham in 1881 were advocates of the whole sentence method. Also silent
reading replaced oral reading.
Of
course there were hand-written manuscripts and there were libraries too but
they were not for the masses. Reading as an activity, if only to read religious
books, evolved with the advent of printing press, as books began to roll off
the machines. In England, right from 600
A.D. down to today, reading has been part of formal system of school and
college education initially to read religious books and as time progressed to
read books written to teach English, history, geography and science.
The first thirty-five years of the 20th
century witnessed several reforms taking place: from words to reading,
meaning-based a whole sentence approach, assessment of reading performance,
text difficulty, readiness emerging as important research areas, reading as a
skill, remediation. The next thirty-five years saw
several things happening: word recognition, comprehension and interpretation as
goals, context-based phonics instruction, children to be put into small groups,
children still passive recipients, silent reading becoming important. The last
thirty years witnessed considerably useful contributions made to teaching
reading through fields other than education: linguistics--no need to teach pronunciation rules, psycholinguistics—learning to read from
reading, deriving
meaning from orthographic, semantic, syntactic cues rather than visual cues, sociolinguistics—reading
errors to be seen as linguistic differences, not linguistic deficits, cognitive psychology—schema theory, literary theory—meaning creation lying
in the transaction between the reader and the written piece, literature-based reading—gains to be had
from getting children to read literary pieces.
ER
became part of the English curriculum through supplementary readers or
prescribed non-detailed texts. And the general reading public must have also
indulged in extensive reading turning the pages of printed literary works.
Today of course there is books galore—both fiction and non-fiction, and
e-books. There are also a lot of books and journals available to enable
professionals in various knowledge fields to absorb information.
1.2.2 History of
extensive reading
Kelly
credits Harold Palmer with first applying the term extensive reading in foreign language pedagogy. By extensive
reading, Palmer meant reading book after book rapidly. In contrast, intensive reading meant taking a text
and studying it.
Evidence
for interest in extensive reading can be seen in the summaries of articles, books
and studies/investigations that follow. The next four paragraphs contain the
essence as drawn from Jacobs’
Annotated bibliography.
Almost
all investigators who have conducted
experiments to teach German, French, Spanish and English to speakers of other
languages are in favour of ER as an essential component of foreign language
learning. They recommend class and school libraries with graded readers,
literary works, magazines, newspapers. They believe that ER can support
vocabulary acquisition, grammar learning and reading skills as well. But
opinion is divided about the supremacy of ER over intensive reading and vice
versa and whether ER is conducive to a cultural understanding.
Readers
may find this interesting: Crossley, S. A., Louwerse, M. M., McCarthy, P. M.
& McNamara, D. S.’s (2007) A
linguistic analysis of simplified and authentic texts published in Modern
Language Journal, 91 (1), 15—30 will be a good guide to material developers,
publishers, and classroom teachers to judge accurately the value of both
authentic and simplified readers.
Like
the investigations, articles consider
ER an essential component to learning another language. While some favour
teacher selection of reading material, the general consensus seems to be to
give free reign to learners in choosing reading material. Several talk about ER
as part of reading activity in the formal system and for EAP (English for
academic purposes) activities. There is also consensus about ER as an outside
class activity.
No
reading on ER can be complete, among others, without these publications:
1. Kelly, L. G.,
in his 25 centuries of language teaching,
summarises the history of extensive
reading from the medieval times to the
present.
2. Brumfit, C.
J.’s 1979 Readers for foreign learner of
English brought out by British Council
is perhaps the first bibliography of
English language graded readers. Interested teachers
may look it up.
3. Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading
(1992) is a guide prepared by Edinburgh:
Institute for Applied Language Studies, University
of Edinburgh.
4. Day, R. R., &
Bamford, J.’s (1998) Extensive reading in
the second language classroom
published by Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press is an important contribution to the
field of extensive reading.
5. Brown, D.’s (2008)
Why and how textbooks should encourage
extensive reading shows
how textbooks could encourage
extensive reading directly and indirectly.
Like Harold Palmer in Britain, Michael West in
India pioneered the theory of extensive reading as an approach to reading, in
particular. “The 1929 Coleman Report on "Modern Foreign Language
Study", introducing the Reading Method , recommended inclusion of ER
in its Method.” Students were to read in the second language without a
conscious effort to translate. Emphasis was placed on developing
independent silent reading and increasing reading rate of individual
students. Frequency word counts were developed and used as a basis for
graded readers. Broughton (1978) argued in favour of ER in second language
programmes. (ibid) Nuttall’s
"slogan" (1982) was: "The best way to improve your
knowledge of a foreign language is to go and live among the speakers. The next
best way is to read extensively." Krashen (1993) recommended ER because he
felt it automatically gave rise to competence in writing and termed it
"free voluntary reading". David Eskey drew the analogy of reading instruction to
teaching swimming strokes to people who hated the water. Elley, W.B. (1996), in
his report on a study involving 210,000 students and 10,000 teachers in 32
educational systems around the world, concluded that "instructional
programs that stress teacher directed drills and skills are less
beneficial in raising literacy levels than programs that try to capture
students' interest and encourage them to read independently." (Jacobs, G.
et al 1999) “Dupre's research in French (1997) supported the theory that
ER is more pleasurable and beneficial for language acquisition than grammar
instruction and practice. (Macleod) Nuttal (1998) argued the case for ER
programmes citing research studies that showed "impressive"
gains in reading ability, motivation and attitude, and overall linguistic
competence. There was also evidence of gains in vocabulary and spelling.”
Paul
Nation (1997) concludes that there are a wide range of benefits including:
improved reading skills, improved language use and knowledge, and increased
enjoyment of language learning. To achieve such results, Nation stresses that
this needs to be a long-term project and that it requires large amounts of
reading. Another researcher in this field, Rob Waring says that extensive
reading is essential if learners are to access the massive amounts of language
required in order to learn the words, collocations and registers. He maintains
that such reading helps to develop the readers' own sense of language. He
stresses, however, that an extensive reading programme should be developed in
conjunction with course books and that “When the teacher introduces the library
of graded readers, she or he needs to explain to the learners why Extensive
Reading is important and convey this to learners as often they cannot see the
benefits of this reading and just see it as yet more homework.”
William
Grabe says (2009):
Extensive reading implies fluent reading
which is possible only when the reader knows 98-99 percent of the words in a
text and how texts are structured, when the reader is able to make inferences,
possesses evaluation skills, is motivated to persist reading.
There
is evidence to suggest that in L1 and L2 settings the amount of reading is
strongly related to reading abilities more generally. There is also good
evidence that long-term extensive reading leads to increased vocabulary growth.
Finally, there is some evidence that extensive reading is more motivating for
students than more traditional textbook-oriented reading instruction.
He states further:
“There is argument about providing ‘authentic’
material for extensive reading. Related arguments go thus: First, it is not
clear at all what an authentic text is and who has the right to make the
decision. Second, taking any text into a classroom setting and using it for
pedagogical goals removes the context assumed by the writer, in effect,
rendering the text non-authentic.
He
provides tips for ER:
1.
Provide many attractive reading materials and have a class library.
2.
Provide time for free reading or SSR.
3.
Create many opportunities for all types of reading in and out.
4.
Read interesting material to students.
5.
Find out what students like to read and why.
6.
Create a reading lab and give time for students for free reading.
7.
Create ways to interest students in reading topics.
8.
Keep records and provide simple and appropriate rewards.
9.
Create incentives to start students in their reading.
10.
Have students take books and magazines home.
11.
Talk about what you read and why that material is interesting to you.
12.
Have students share and recommend reading material. (327)
Domenica Petulla (2010), in order to implement an
ER programme, she reviews reading in second language and the benefits of ER,
focuses on challenges and issues she has to
resolve and proposes activities to enhance her students’ ER experiences.
Budi Prasetyono (2014) expresses satisfaction at the usefulness of ER in the
reading process.
There
seems to be sufficient evidence, therefore, to conclude that extensive reading
programmes do contribute to the development of a variety of language skills, if
all of the key elements are in place: if the quantity of material read is
adequate, if the time period involved is long enough, and if other methods of
language learning are employed as well. However, more is to be done towards
making ER a successful learner activity. While Section 1.7 recommends a
specific technique to make speed reading a reality, Sections 1.9 and 1.10
elaborate on an environment conducive to ER.
1.3 Description
of ER
ER
is a reading habit that is developed through a school reading curriculum,
carried over beyond formal education and extended to an almost lifetime
activity that is pursued to whet curiosity or to derive pleasure. Simply put,
ER is a thirst, a yearning for more and more, be it for knowledge or pleasure.
1.4 ER as a concept in non-native environment
Reading in one’s own language requires effort. Much more so
in another’s language.
Because reading as a skill demands a lot from
learners. We read to comprehend, to
understand messages in a write-up. This is the basic purpose of reading. To decode
language symbols in their written form, we must go through a series of steps.
We need to recognise (1) sound grammar—sounds and their
patterning as words—pronunciation and stress patterns. Next in line is (2) word grammar—denotations, connotations,
homonyms, collocations. We thus pick up our active and passive vocabulary with
the help of the teacher, the course book writer and the dictionary. Next to
follow is (3) sentence grammar. We
recognise sentence types (simple, complex with its various clauses and
compound), patterns (SVOAC) and forms (statement, interrogative and
exclamatory). We recognise word forms (noun, verb etc), word functions (verbs
as nouns, adjectives as nouns), coordinators and subordinators, articles,
prepositions. We learn to read with punctuation as well, pausing slightly at
every comma, full stop and semi-colon. Finally, there is paragraph grammar. We need to recognise, understand and follow
unity, coherence and cohesion, topic sentence, paragraph sequencing (from specific to
a general statement and vice versa, spatial, linear, chronological), paragraph
development (illustrations, comparison and contrast, cause and effect,
classification, problem and solution). Of course, we need to also identify,
understand and appreciate writing as narrative (analytical), descriptive,
argumentative (inductive, deductive, persuasive) and expository.
There are other equally important considerations. Style can be cumbersome or smooth, concepts and their presentation and
treatment can be simple, complex or complicated. There may or may not be clarity in the thought process, thought
flow and their physical expression on paper.
I can only talk in a general fashion about ER’s
place in the reading curriculum for schools and colleges in India. The English
curriculum of the 1950s in Tamil Nadu prescribed
detailed texts (for intensive reading) and
non-detailed texts (for extensive reading). I distinctly remember reading
abridged versions of A Tale of Two Cities, Robinson Crusoe and The Treasure
Island as non-detailed texts. Tamil Nadu 2004 English syllabus for higher
secondary education in schools does provide for extensive reading through
supplementary readers for home reading, class discussion and internal
assessment. Classes 8 to 10 also have supplementary readers. English majors have non-detailed texts. Several
universities in India appear to have non-detailed texts as part of their
English language syllabuses for BA/BSc.
Even though how successful and useful such limited handling of ER programme has
been has not been investigated to my knowledge, and I am not too sure about its
successful continuation in the lives of several educated residents of Tamil
Nadu.
ER cannot happen, cannot succeed without intensive
reading beginning the reading activity. Both can go hand in hand in
professional institutions as well where learners go beyond the textbook and
seek other sources (books, magazines, journals and theses) to gather
information or knowledge related to a given discipline for its own sake or
research purposes. In this sense, ER is a formal activity. ER can become an
informal activity and can be an end in itself when literatures of various
countries, fiction or non-fiction are read for pleasure or enjoyment.
1.5 Gains from
ER for the non-native learner
History of ER, narrated briefly earlier, reveals
all too clearly the advantages.
· It
helps learners interested in pursuing their areas of interest in a given
knowledge
discipline. It provides information and
knowledge.
· It
helps readers to dwell in the realm of fantasy and fiction. It provides
pleasure and
enjoyment.
· It
helps improve language acquisition and gain knowledge of various cultures.
· It strengthens speed reading and comprehension.
· It takes language learning forward in its
wholesomeness.
· It enables readers to gain mastery and apply this
mastery while listening, speaking, reading
and
writing.
· In the absence of a live environment to learn English, it serves as an
excellent substitute
where books
can bring alive the atmosphere, culture, language through story books,
novels,
non-fiction, newspapers, magazines and
literatures.
1.6 Initiating
ER
The
most important thing to consider is the content.
Print media and electronic media can be used to provide plenty of:
1. interesting mythology-based story books (both Indian
and non-Indian) to children who are
learning to read in the class,
2. abridged versions of famous novels from literature
‘greats’, of course free from grammar
and vocabulary errors, to adolescent
learners who have studied English for five or six
years.
3. fiction—Indian and non-Indian (American, British,
African, Japanese, Russian writers, for
instance).
4. non-fiction: travelogues, autobiographies,
articles on wonders and treasures of
civilisations,
astronomy, health, descriptions etc.
Though research
recommends these, common sense also tells us: the book content has to
· be highly comprehensible;
· be abundantly and reliably available;
· be frequently encountered;
· contain language features that are at or slightly beyond the learners
current level;
· contain language features that engage the learners’ attention;
· be meaningful and interesting.
1.7 Ensuring
success in reading
Comprehending
a given material, critically analysing it, storing it, appreciating it,
enjoying it are reading activities. To achieve all these, students need to read
with comprehension. They must be enabled
to develop speed reading, for slow reading hardly helps retention of comprehended messages.
Before
describing my method to develop speed reading, I thought I would take a look at
some of the websites that talk about speed reading:
Sources:
1. Mindtools at http://www.wikihow.com/Learn-Speed-Reading
2.Tim
Ferriss ‘s Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes at
3. Maria Popova’s How to Read Faster: Bill Cosby’s Three Proven
Strategies
one of the strategies is
‘clustering’.
4.
Deb Patterson in her “Evelyn Wood’s Former Partner Shares Speed Reading
Secrets” lists
six reading techniques from Wechsler to be
learnt in six weeks: Week 4: Read in chunks
6.
How to learn to speed read at http://www.wikihow.com/Learn-Speed-Reading
7.
Dennis Doyle at http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/methods.html
Sources 1, 4, 6 and 7 recommend
· Use a pointer or other device to help you push your reading speed
Sources
1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 recommend (only source 3 provides a sample)
· Read in blocks of words
Source
2 and 6 recommend
· Time your reading speed regularly:
Click a
timer on (stop watch is the best), read a paragraph of say 1000 words with
understanding. Stop the timer the moment you finish reading. Let’s say
you took five
minutes,
then it means your speed is 200 words per minute.
And almost all emphasise removal of negative habits
like sub-vocalisation, regression.
Here is Cosby’s clustering example (source 3):
|
“Cluster — to
Increase Speed AND Comprehension
Most of us learn to read by looking at each word
in a sentence — one
at a time.
Like this:
My — brother — Russell — thinks — monsters…
You probably still read this way sometimes,
especially when the words are difficult. Or when the words have an extra
special meaning, as in a poem, a Shakespeare play or a contract. And that’s
okay.
But word-by-word reading is a rotten way to read faster.
It actually cuts
down on your speed.
Clustering trains you to
look at groups of words instead of one at a time, and it increases your speed
enormously. For most of us, clustering is a totally different way of seeing what we read.
Here’s how to
cluster: Train your eyes to see all the words in clusters of up to three or four words at a glance.
Here’s how I’d cluster the story we just skimmed:
My
brother Russell thinks monsters live in our bedroom closet at night.
“Go and check then,” he said.
I
didn’t want to. Russell said I was chicken.
“Am
not,” I said.
“Are
so,” he said
So
I told him the monsters were going to eat him at midnight. He started to cry.
My dad came in and told the monsters to beat it. Then he told us to go to
sleep.
“If
I hear anymore about monsters,” he said,“ I’ll spank you.”
We went to sleep fast. And you
know something? They never did come back.
(My
brother Russell) (thinks monsters) (live in our bedroom) (closet at night.)
(“Go
and) (check then,”) (he said.)
(I
didn’t want to.) (Russell said) (I was chicken.)
(“Am
not,”) (I said.)
(“Are
so,”) (he said,)
(So
I told him) (the monsters) (were going to) (eat him at midnight.) (He started to cry.)
(My
dad came in) (and told the monsters) (to beat it.) (Then he told us) (to go) (to sleep.)
(“If
I hear) (anymore about monsters,”) (he said,) (“ I’ll spank you.”)
(We went) (to sleep fast.) (And you know something?) (They never did come back.)
Learning to
read clusters is not something your eyes do naturally. It takes constant
practice.”
|
I
also read a few interesting articles on speed reading:
“These
early insights led to growth in the development of speed reading courses, and
to the belief that individuals requiring to read faster could be trained to do
so through the use of paper-based techniques, and also by way of technological
aids such as metronomes, and projectors or reading machines.” (Bell, 2001) “The
early insights” in the quote refer to “... the writings of Fry (1963) and De
Leeuw & De Leeuw (1965).” (ibid).
Bell
notes: “Williams (1984:96) has argued for extensive reading
as a way to develop adequate general reading speed, and Hill (1986:17) calls
for the provision of class sets of graded readers as a means to the same end.”
(ibid) He reports that the
results of the study undertaken indicate that subjects exposed to ‘extensive’
reading achieved faster reading speeds and secured a higher score of reading
comprehension than subjects exposed to ‘intensive’ reading.(ibid) Nation (2009) describes a range of activities for
developing reading fluency, suggests how the development of fluency can become
part of a reading programme, and states that speed reading courses use both
words per minute graphs and comprehension score graphs. Macalister (2010) suggests that a
speed reading course, measured in words per minute, may contribute to faster
reading speeds on other types of texts.
Chang and Millet (2013) report that repeated timed reading did help
improve speed and comprehension. Mu He (2014) reports the positive relationship between extensive reading and students’
progress in reading speed.
Grouping
words while reading is known as clustering, phrased reading, or structural
technique. Browning (2003) mentions Plaister (1968) and Klaeser (1977) who
recommend the structural technique. It helps reading fluency and takes ER to a
higher level.
My Speed
reading with comprehension
technique improves ‘phrased reading’ further. It lies in clustering words in as
large sense groups as possible without affecting comprehension. I used it
in my 1993 textbook, prescribed for first year engineering students of Madras
University, India, and guided my students to read comprehension passages in
short and long chunks. I have posted this with more examples in my blog:
kolipakam.blogspot.in.
1.7.1 Essential
conditions
For
speed reading to be successful, four things are essential:
a. good command of the language—lexis,
sentence structure (forms, kinds, patterns)
b. paragraph structure (topic sentence,
unity, coherence, cohesion)
c. reading free from
· going back often to where we started
before continuing to read because we’re unable to
remember what we read earlier and so
we’re unable to follow what the writer is saying
· using a tracker or pointer to read (finger or a pencil, for instance)
· mouthing (moving your lips to read) the
words.
d. Desire to read beyond course books.
1.7.2 Achieving speed reading
In
natural reading, we don’t read every word separately, that is, we don’t stop at
every word before proceeding to the next. Our eyes take short or large jumps;
that is, we read words in small or large groups or chunks as sense groups
which make comprehension possible.
1.7. 3 Reading
single sentences
You
have below a sentence, which is divided with the help of slashes [/]. Read each
division and then decide which one helps you understand each sentence without
difficulty and increase your reading speed.
Sample Sentence
|
1. a. One/of/ the/ mistaken/
ideas/held/by/too/many/programmers/is/that/ the/
documentation/for/a/program/should/
be/written/only/after/the/program/is/
‘finished’. (26 groups )
b. One of/the
mistaken/ideas/held by/too many/programmers/is that/ the
documentation/for a/program/should be/written only/after/ the program
is/
‘finished’. (14 groups)
c. One of
the/mistaken ideas/held by /too many programmers/is that/the
documentation/ for a program/should be written/ only after/ the
program is
‘finished’. (10 groups)
d. One of the
mistaken ideas/ held by too many programmers/ is that/ the
documentation for a program/should be written/only after the program
is
‘finished’. (6 groups)
e. One of the
mistaken ideas held by too many programmers/ is that/ the
documentation for a program should be written/ only after the program
is
‘finished.’ (4 groups)
|
The
lesser the number of groups, the better the comprehension. Understanding best
what is written happens when you read
words in small or large sense groups.
1.7.4 Improving the speed further
1.a.
You read words individually and found it difficult to get the message
comfortably.
1.
b You read some words together and some others individually but this time it
was less
difficult to understand.
1.c.
You put more words together and thus reduced the number of groups and so
understanding the message is becoming
less difficult.
1.d.
You enlarged each group by reading more words together. You are comfortable now
and
understanding the message is easy.
1.e.
This time you reduced the groups from six to four. This reduction helps your
comprehension and increases your speed
as well.
As
you can see, it was very slow in 1.a, the speed picked up in 1.b, the speed
increased along with comprehension in 1.c. When you read 1.d. and 1.e. your comfort level increases and the
message reaches the brain without difficulty and the speed also moves up.
Now
we can increase the speed further
without affecting comprehension:
|
1. f
One of the mistaken ideas held by too many programmers is
that
the documentation for a program should be written
only after the program is ‘finished’.
(2
groups)
|
The
eye here takes the longest possible jumps and yet the mind receives the message
in comfort. Maximum speed is achieved without sacrificing comprehension.
The
same technique is to be employed while reading paragraphs.
However,
/ it must be borne in mind/ that such large groups, / as the ones you see in
the box above,/ are not frequent because/ sentences do usually contain phrases
or clauses in between,/ in front/ or at
the end./ In which case,/ pauses have to be made/ and such reading will
naturally increase the sense groups/ and the reading speed will vary./
I
have used the slashes in the previous paragraph to indicate that the length of
sense groups will depend on the kind of sentence being read.
Practice
makes perfect, they say. This is true in the case of speed reading with
comprehension.
1.8 Ensuring
success in ER
It’s
all very well to talk tall about implementation of ER in schools and colleges
and to invest a lot of money in the purchase of appropriate readers and
abridged versions and short stories for class or school library. And teachers
may sincerely propagate ER and laboriously wax eloquent about the multiple
advantages of ER. But it won’t work. The next two sections will say why it
won’t unless certain conditions are met.
1.9 reasons for disinterest in ER
Despite the convincing arguments ER literature offers, despite the
overwhelming support for it from researchers, experienced teachers, ER is not
happening in educational institutions except sporadically. Even in those
places, it
seems that ER in its true sense is yet to be implemented—to satisfy curiosity
or derive enjoyment.
Reasons
are not far to seek.
Students,
teachers and parents—given today’s social and professional environment—are keen
on spoken English, they even realise that ‘listening’ is also an important skill,
they also know ‘writing’ is a desirable skill but they don’t seem to treat ER as
something that needs to be developed. For them, ER is not a utility skill like
the other three.
Syllabus
writers do not think ER need be given specific attention. Managements of
schools—private or public—do not consider spending time and money on ER worth
the effort. They seem to feel that once comprehension is achieved, students
will likely continue reading beyond the curriculum if they feel the need.
Classroom teachers probably don’t update their professional knowledge and are
not aware of ER and its advantages. And even if they knew they would probably
not take any steps because they know preparing students well for exams is their
first duty. And also this is what parents and managements and even students
expect of teachers. Anyway, it’s a known fact that students struggle with the
content, lexis and structure of course books. Then there is homework pressure.
To top it all, youngsters are pretty busy with electronic gadgets listening to
music and sending and receiving messages and texts, watching the TV, visiting
Face book and Twitter to exchange thoughts and information, spending time
gossiping or visiting pubs.
Little
wonder if English learning is not taken to the next level through ER.
1.10
Steps we need to take to encourage ER as a reading habit
Charity
begins at home, they say. ER should begin at home. But children don’t see their
parents reading books in the local language, let alone in English. The
environment around them is bereft of the reading habit, and teachers (and
parents) hide their guilt by probably saying that their time is taken up by
professional and social activities and argue that students should read
extensively without being invited to.
If
children are to take an interest in ER in English, the foundation must be laid by encouraging
children to develop ER in local
languages. That ER will happen on its own in regional languages is the
general assumption but that hardly happens. Expecting ER to happen in English
is then illogical, to say the least. Parents should be good readers themselves
and must be seen to be practising ER so children can emulate them. Once this
interest is kindled there can be a smooth extension to ER in English. Parents
and schools should build a library in their homes and schools. Parents must be
able to convince their children with sufficient information about their book
collections. Section 1.6 provides details of the kind of books that should
occupy book shelves.
Through
internet activities via games, today’s children are attracted to violence.
Winning by any means is becoming a culture. Education ministries and
governments must prohibit such games. And parents should take steps to prevent
children from playing and watching games of violence. Students must be
encouraged to spend that time reading a variety of books.
The
society must take the blame and set matters right.
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