Demonstrate understanding of textual evidence that supports a writing piece.

Determine and
analyze central and supporting
ideas of texts

When you are reading, think about the following:
• What are the main ideas?
• What are the crucial details necessary for supporting the ideas?
• What information is irrelevant or unnecessary?

Preface
Extensive Reading is booming in Asia. In the last decade in North East Asia,
there has been a massive increase in the number of schools and education
boards helping students to read extensively.
Nowadays, there are international conferences dedicated only to extensive
reading and extensive listening; there are extensive reading associations in
Korea, Japan, Taiwan and other places; thousands of Extensive Reading
programs throughout Asia, and millions of students reading extensively.
Moreover, a few years ago there were only a few hundred books suitable for
extensive reading, now there are several thousand. So what has led to this huge
increase?
A few years ago, many teachers had never heard of Extensive Reading (ER)
but now that is changing fast. In Japan it is known as tadoku or rakudoku, in
Korea it’s called Tadok. Until recently, many teachers believed the only way to
teach reading was by working intensively with short difficult texts sentence by
sentence, or word by word, and through translation if necessary. This tradition
still continues in many institutions in Asia and around the world.
Teachers realized that this only helps students build their knowledge about
English, and it wasn’t really helping them to actually read fluently and
confidently, nor read quickly. Importantly, they realized that this knowledgebased approach to reading wasn’t helping students do better on tests, nor
help them read real-life materials. The skill of reading means fluently and
confidently processing a text for its meaning, not using a text as a language
exercise.
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Teachers are not the only ones to understand this difference. Read what some
students say about their extensive reading experiences.
‘I never liked reading in English before. It was always so hard. But now
extensive reading has helped me to read better, it’s not tiring and I
understand more, too.’ Mizuki Kameyama
‘I love reading graded readers. They are so much fun.’ Emily Tan
‘My TOEIC score went up 100 points in three month. I think it’s because
the graded readers helped me to read faster. This time I could finish the
test.’ Ahn Jung-Oh
The extensive reading boom doesn’t look like ending soon. In some countries,
extensive reading and listening are part of the curriculum, and elsewhere it is
taking hold very quickly. Even in some ‘non-reading’ cultures like Thailand,
extensive reading is booming too. This is because teachers are beginning to
realize that extensive reading and listening are essential components of the
overall picture of language learning.
But soon extensive reading and listening will become a normal part of school
life where children read fluently as well as study reading texts. Ministries of
education in various countries are now deciding how to get students to read
more and improve their reading ability. Soon, it seems, extensive reading will
be a standard part of the curriculum.

Here are some of the questions.
1 What is extensive reading?
2 What are graded readers?
3 How can learners know what books are at the right level for them?
4. State four benefits of extensive reading.
5. How can you improve your reading?
6. State three feedback of the learners in the passage.

Extensive reading involves learners reading texts for enjoyment and to develop general reading skills.11 Why should my course include an extensive reading program?

Graded readers or ‘readers’ are books that have had the language level simplified to help second language learners read them.