What is ER?

Extensive Reading -- and the most simple definition of it is reading in quantity. Not two or three pages a week or a book a term, but a book or two each and every week.

For ER To be effective, three conditions are necessary:

1. materials that are interesting
2. materials that match student (or class) proficiency
3. maintaining a good reading speed

Graded-readers (also called simplified readers) meet the first two conditions. Thousands of titles are available to choose from and, though publishers' grading criteria (and quality) vary, many have been categorized and reviewed by teachers and students of all ages and all nationalities.

Fulfilling the third condition, though, is more difficult. Extensive Reading presents a drastic step up in reading speed when compared to the 2 or 3 page-per-week rate of the Intensive Reading classes students are more accustomed to in Japan.

To help students make the transition, then, teachers need to convince students that:

• ER does not require 100% understanding. Aim for the main idea of the book, and try to enjoy the reading experience without worrying too much about missing this word or that
• reading has to happen at an appropriate speed. Choose a graded-reader level that feels as close as possible to the way you feel when reading in your own language
• consulting a dictionary too often can lead to frustration. If an unknown word is important to the story either the illustration will provide a strong cue or it'll re-appear in a new context to allow its meaning to be inferred
• a problem in misunderstanding is not necessarily a second-language problem. Like any other book, a good graded-reader story will take sudden turns that are not explainable or understandable until later on in the story