To get maximum benefit from their reading, students need to be involved in
both extensive and intensive reading. Whereas with the former, a teacher
encourages students to choose for themselves what they read and to do so for
pleasure and general language improvement, the latter is often ( but not
exclusively ) teacher-chosen and directed. It is designed to enable students to
develop specific receptive skills such as reading for gist ( or general
understanding – often called skimming ), reading for specific information (
often called scanning ), reading for detailed comprehension or reading for
inference ( what is “behind” the words) and attitude.
Extensive reading
In order to develop our students’ word recognition and their improvement as
reader, it is not enough to tell students to “ read a lot “ ; we need to offer
them a programme which includes appropriate materials, guidance, tasks and
facilities, such as permanent or portable liraries of books.
