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Graded Readers & Extensive Reading
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Fri, 03/13/2009 - 18:39
Another hot topic for teachers who want to help learners to develop their reading skills and also get in contact with literature in English. Just a couple of questions to start our discussion:
To what extent do Graded Readers contribute to language awareness and development?
Do you use graded readers with your students? When? Where? With what levels?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using simplified versions of original stories?
Looking forward to your comments :)
Cheers - Chris
Tue, 03/17/2009 - 18:45
#2
Dear Christien
Thanks a lot for your question because I suspect many teachers may be asking themselves the same. We consider Graded Readers books that are written for language learners. They are written obeying certain criteria such as the number of headwords and the level of vocabulary and they are usually classified into levels, such as Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate and so on and so forth.
They may be original texts written specifically for this purpose or they may be simplified versions of *real* books, I mean books not written for language learning.
Some Readers come with language exercises and audio material. Each year the Extensive Reading Foundation chooses the best Readers in each category. The finalists for 2009 will be announced during the IATEFL Conference. You can know more about it visiting the ERF website at
Cheers - Chris
Wed, 03/18/2009 - 07:34
#3
Hi Chris and Christien
I like to use graded readers in my summer camps because invariably I have a huge range of abilities in each class, graded readers allow for self leveling which is a great help for classroom management, makes for a quiet industrious part of the class and gives me time for plenty of meaningful 1 to 1. I read some remarkable research on graded readers some time back that suggested that they are a very efficient way for learners to strengthen the form meaning connection of vocabulary and grammatical forms already met through multiple meetings, and to develop guessing from context skills. I use LearningAtoZ.com to source my materials- it is a cheep solution for me as I can not afford to purchase the number of books I would need for my classes. Their books are not designed for the ESL market, but they are graded, so with careful selection I think I have produced a good library for my learners-- the books also come with activities and comprehension checkers making it easy to move around the class and and interact with many students reading many different books.cheers, tom
Thu, 04/02/2009 - 17:30
#4
Hi thomas and Chris,
I was wondering: should students alweys have to do something after reading a book/reader. Isn´t it just enough just to enjoy a book? Will they learn from that as well?
Christien
Sat, 04/04/2009 - 03:31
#5
Hi Chrstien,
A freelance reader can read for the sake of reading, but when it comes to ss it's another thing. As an answer to your query, I can suggest to you to ask your ss after they finish reading a book:
1- to ask questions the book didn't answer,
2- to express their feeling towards some characters of the story,
3- to draw things, animals, characters the way they imagine them in the story,
4- to imagine another ending to the story.......
cheers
Dear Chris,
What do you mean with 'graded readers'? Books that have been written with a particular level in mind or simplified books on the basis of novels?
I myself do not like the last ;-)
But I use a lot of books for my students (adults): I run a conversation class where the basis is on speaking but the students can take books home to read - and they like doing that, esp the ones that also have spoken material to go with it - I think that at lower levels it is very important that students also have the story on tape so that they can hear the story!
Christien van Gool