For children

A suitable book, audio, illustrations and activities help students focus on the story without translating every word.

For teachers

Recommendations, classes, results and reports reduce manual checking. MetaLibrary adds missions and speaking activities.

For parents

Visible activity, results and completed books make progress easier to discuss.

For schools

A large catalogue and modern reading experience can support a distinctive school reading programme.

e-Library

MetaLibrary

Lots of accessible books. Fluency built step by step.

Dr Rob Waring has presented and published widely on Extensive Reading and second language vocabulary acquisition[cite: 8]. In eFuture’s material, he explains the purpose, scale and reported benefits of Extensive Reading[cite: 8].

Books students can read without a dictionary

Extensive reading is a vital part of all language programs[cite: 8]. Extensive reading happens when students read lots of books that are easy, fun and can be read without a dictionary[cite: 8]. The aim is to build reading speed, fluency and confidence when reading, not to learn new language - that is the job of the textbook[cite: 8].

From individual words to meaning

One of the main advantages is that students can learn to read faster and process English text quickly and with high comprehension[cite: 8]. When students read naturally and smoothly, they process two or three words of text in one eye movement allowing them to ‘chunk’ text into meaning units rather than just focusing on words[cite: 8].

Repeated encounters require a large amount of text

A simple rule of thumb is that a typical word needs 10-20 meetings before it stays in your head[cite: 8]. To meet all the 1,000 most frequent words in English at least 20 times, students need to meet about 160,000 words[cite: 8]. To master 5,000 words they need to meet about 3,000,000 words[cite: 8].

Textbooks introduce. Extensive Reading deepens.

Typical course books only contain about 30-60,000 words and can take a year to finish[cite: 8]. Graded readers are a fantastic way to do this because they are designed within a set syllabus[cite: 8]. When reading in this way, the students are building on previous learning in predictable ways that consolidate previous learning[cite: 8].

What the research described in the source reports

The Extensive Reading Foundation’s bibliography of research into extensive reading has over 600 articles, books and reports[cite: 8]. Extensive reading has been found to improve motivation, reading speed, deepen vocabulary knowledge, support learner autonomy and have facilitating effects on speaking and writing, as well as spelling[cite: 8].