EASY READING IS OK

I like to tell students, “Read what you want, and read what you can, where you can, whenever you can.” Most of us read well below our reading level most of the time. And that makes sense because most of our reading should be pleasurable. That should be the case with students as well. We should not always force or expect our students to read at or above their course level. We as adults don’t do that. We do not read at the outside edge of our ability to understand all the time. We read for pleasure. We read for information. We read for entertainment. And because we do that, we keep reading. Keep in mind that students can acquire a lot of language from easy reading. Idiomatic expressions, colloquialisms, word order, vocabulary that pairs together well, nuances of grammar, and many other language elements are picked up naturally and subconsciously as students read for meaning and for pleasure. Years ago, I asked Stephen Krashen about allowing my students to read easy materials. He said: “I think we don’t do nearly enough ‘very easy’ reading. It may look easy and seem easy to understand, but there is lots of acquisition going on. More complete acquisition of word meanings, grammatical properties of words… I suspect that lots of ‘ i+1 ’ moves into ‘ i ’ with lots of easy reading. My impression is that we feel the urge to include too much ‘new stuff’ all the time in reading, forcing it in.” ―Stephen Krashen, PhD, personal correspondence with the author i = Right at the reader’s current level of acquisition i + 1 = Just a bit above one’s acquisition level, but still comprehensible Allow your students to read what is interesting and comprehensible to them. Compelling reading is more important than reading material that it their supposed reading level. They will get where they need to be if they are reading frequently and enjoyably. Extensive reading is what develops fluency over time. The post EASY READING IS OK appeared first on Bryce Hedstrom - Comprehensible Input Materials & Training.