Reading Pain or Reading Gain? Reading at the Right Level

[Rufus]

Plus are there really enough Readers out there to provide intermediate level learners with reading that is truly extensive, i.e. resources that they won't exhaust pretty quickly? If it's truly 'extensive' they should be reading quickly, my guess is people would either burn through the available material quickly, or -- if they're taking their time -- then we're talking about 'intensive', not 'extensive'.

Realmayo, you bring up a good point. The more content available for extensive reading, the better. For example, there are over 3,300 graded readers in English, but there are less than 30 true graded readers in Chinese. We hope to be able to be part of filling that need but it will take time. If you can put down one book a day, that is fantastic and I hope one day that there will be enough content available for a learner to read 1 million words in a year. 

 

I think it's important to note for some of the comments in here that Extensive Reading is not a new experimental method. It's now quite large in Japan and Korea, with even as many as 50% of schools in some areas adopting extensive reading programs. There are dozens of academic studies that indicate the superiority of ER over many different forms of traditional education. However, ER has been met with resistance and skepticism in America. 

 

In general, if you are just making a post to drive up awareness and exposure of your blog, don't.  If you are making a post because you want to engage others in conversation about a topic, then first see if there are relevant existing threads (98% exposure, Krashen's input hypothesis, extensive reading and more have all been discussed here quite a lot in other threads).  Then read those threads and see if what you want to say will add anything to the previous discussion or if you're just repeating previous points.  If you have something relevant and new to add then do so (even if it's an older thread that hasn't seen activity in a while).  If you think there's no appropriate existing topic then consider creating a new one, but when you do, once again remember you'll get a much more positive response if you write it in a way that engages people in a conversation rather than coming across as 'here's a blog post'.

 

Imron, I tried to delete this thread after the first comment but I was unable to find a way to do so. The best I could do was edit the post to remove links to the blog in attempt to be "fairer". Regardless I hope that we can all appreciate the discussion that is ensuing. Considering there is an international ER organization, an annual 3 day Congress with 150+ presentations, an academic journal, and 500+ academic papers solely dedicated to Extensive Reading, I think this topic is deep enough to expand beyond one or two threads. I will certainly take note of all of the comments about posting in the future

[icebear]

Plus are there really enough Readers out there to provide intermediate level learners with reading that is truly extensive, i.e. resources that they won't exhaust pretty quickly? If it's truly 'extensive' they should be reading quickly, my guess is people would either burn through the available material quickly, or -- if they're taking their time -- then we're talking about 'intensive', not 'extensive'.

This is the reason I mentioned that intermediate learners (e.g. ~1500 characters) should just dive in with a certain topic of newspaper articles. Yes the first few weeks or months will be frustrating, but once you get over the hump it is so, so much more pleasant than reading a textbook. And you have literally thousands of choices everyday to pick from - such a liberating feeling. Plus, after building a lot of familiarity in one type of news (e.g. business) its not hard to branch over into others (e.g. business policy, then health care, then social policy, then social studies, etc...) because the extra additional vocab is relatively limited. 

 

Fiction is much less consistent (perhaps more interesting). But in general people are obsessed with chatting about China news, so why not develop a deeper understanding than what we all get from the copy at WSJ or Bloomberg. After getting in the habit of reading Chinese news daily you'll start to realize that besides occasional investigative journalism nearly everything published in western newspapers is more or less a translation of a similar article written a few days earlier in Chinese (China news, I mean). 

 

So insisting that jumping into newspapers is an ineffective strategy is wrong, I think. First, the investment is relatively limited (a few weeks times 30 min/day) compared to what it really takes to learn a language. Recognizing 1500 characters is something every learner is capable of in the first year. Many people get to it even quicker, but delay native material painfully longer because of intimidation. Second, as pointed out by others, the breadth of material available for intermediate learners wanting to "extensive read" is quite limited. Even at lower levels its a joke - some readers mentioned enough to barely fill a full day of reading. For all those beginners and intermediates out there, they could either keep crushing the characters and multiple text book series (which thus are overlapping/reinforcing) and move onto native topic-specific articles in 6-12 months, or wait 5 years for marginally more graded readers to be available. Even once those resources are available, 130 total books will still be a joke relative to a learners needs (I think). A great bridge, especially early on, but a band-aid for the needs of intermediates.

 

Regarding your comments on discipline: my impression is that those who get to a decent level of speaking are quite outgoing. Those who get to a decent level of reading are without fail disciplined and persistent. Learning a language isn't easy - it takes actual work. Anyone that thinks they can find an easy way usually is just avoiding the eventual conclusions of either rolling up their sleeves and getting to work, or quitting. This is probably the most frequent kind of Chinese student - hemming and hawing over how to best study for a few weeks/months/years, but in reality spending very little time studying and wondering why their Chinese goes nowhere. More graded readers will marginally improve the transition, but for the foreseeable future will not radically change the daily routine that any series learner should have - there just won't be enough graded material to fill many days/weeks/months of 1 hour of study.

[Silent]

 

Now, I'm the first to say that instant lookups generate problems of their own (it's so easy that it can lead to vocab laziness); however everybody can start reading earlier and in greater quantity. We may have gained 5%.

I've to agree with this though I think we may have gained a bit more. The first book I read had almost 12% unknown vocabulary (defined as reviewed once or more in my anki deck) when I started reading it and it went surprisingly smooth. The second book I started with about 15% unknown vocabulary and felt very hard to read, but apart from the vocabulary I think also the subject played some role in the difference I felt.

 

As some-one already remarked, there's a danger to the pop-up dictionary. When starting out I felt I was reading the translations and feared to continue to do so. In reality however I found that though I went over all the words with my mousepointer, I soon read the characters and only looked at the translations when I had no (quick) recognition.

 

I feel that there are several ' problems'  with graded readers (at least for learning chinese). The availability is fairly limited, though at the lower levels have clearly improved. Characters and pinyin are (at lower levels) often interlined which detracts from the characters and makes natural reading harder. Many graded readers have a limited size often div'ed up further in several short stories. The end of every story feels like a natural point to stop reading while longer stories encourage to continue reading to find out the rest of the story.  Also, the restraints on vocabulary and limited number of titles available makes it hard to find interesting reading material at the right graded level. Choosing native material solves several of these problems.

[icebear]

I've to agree with this though I think we may have gained a bit more. The first book I read had almost 12% unknown vocabulary (defined as reviewed once or more in my anki deck) when I started reading it and it went surprisingly smooth. The second book I started with about 15% unknown vocabulary and felt very hard to read, but apart from the vocabulary I think also the subject played some role in the difference I felt.

As some-one already remarked, there's a danger to the pop-up dictionary. When starting out I felt I was reading the translations and feared to continue to do so. In reality however I found that though I went over all the words with my mousepointer, I soon read the characters and only looked at the translations when I had no (quick) recognition.

This is also my experience. If you are disciplined enough to only use the pop up when truly needed, after a few weeks use will decline considerably. It's important to habituated the proper pop up use - eg consistently reading the character, pinyin, definition and maybe again, to avoid just skimming the English and loosing the quasi-flashcard benefits.

[Rufus]

Hey icebear, I think we're largely on the same page. We agree that reading can greatly assist in language progression and fluency, and we've both experienced that. I am impressed with your degree of dedication to learn Chinese and the world would be a better place (and a lot more multi-lingual) if everyone had similar dedication. But unfortunately not everyone does or they instead focus their efforts on other areas of life which may be equally or more important. For every person at your level, there are hundreds far below. When one arrives at a point of success, it is often easy to look back and suggest that others follow a similar path to success because, hey, look where you are! With somebody as dedicated as yourself, just about any method will work because you'll do what it takes to make it work. 

 

Your experience is 100% valid and I imagine it will work for everyone if they are willing to put in the hard work required. Scores of studies and hundreds of academics have been researching these learning methods over the last couple of decades and there is hard data to show that both intensive and extensive reading are effective methods with extensive reading being the more effective of the two and reading at the "reading pain" level is, well, painful with low gains relative to the others. I could give you the names of a hundred academics and experts in the field willing to hang their entire careers on this. 

 

More than anything, what this conversation highlights is the lack of suitable reading content for Chinese learners. Because of the lack of such content, learners must resort to reading native level texts at a much earlier stage. So perhaps this is really more like a chicken-and-the-egg debate; Graded level-appropriate materials will help learners progress the quickest and should avoid reading text at too high of a level but there is not enough material like this so instead we must read native level texts at an earlier stage and endure reading pain to progress to higher levels. But do note, the idea of Extensive Reading is to help you improve your skills to be able to read native level texts (actual readers) as soon as possible. If you are able to read and comprehend native texts, this is exactly where you want to be and graded readers are no longer useful. And you, icebear, are at this level. 

[icebear]

My experience for the first few years is completely typical, I think. I avoided characters, mostly, and just assumed they were too hard/time-consuming/painful to ever see tangible results. I assumed everyone that was good (as in, could read comfortably, not just use some flashcards) had a natural, god-like talent for languages.

 

I actually had similar views for the first year regarding spoken Chinese. Simply seemed too alien, and I was happy to just party and have fun with my English speaking friends, which teaching English provided plenty of time for (I was 23, after all). After my 1 year of teaching English I realized that most of my colleagues had done exactly what I did, build up the challenge to be too large. One didn't studied every morning and spoke whenever he had the chance, and had pretty respectable 口语 at the end of the first year. After seeing that I got serious about speaking, and saw confidence-building results very quickly (as in months/quarters, not days/weeks). But I still had my personal doubts/excuses about reading.

 

After a long period out of China, I came back for a summer in 2011. I had a tutor then who bluntly told me my Chinese, spoken included, would never get any better if I didn't just get over my excuses and start reading already, including at least learning the basics of handwriting to help with differentiating similar characters. Within a year I was reading books, after which I switched to news related to my job, which is much easier.

 

As you mentioned, all of this is largely supportive of the value of extensive reading - I didn't intend to give that impression anywhere, I think its a great idea. But until there is enough graded material to cruise through for 30-60 minutes a day, I think preaching about its value is meaningless to students today. There certainly is demand for it, so your business will probably do well in the future, but again, its a band-aid on the needs of the learning community, especially lower to intermediate levels.

 

What I think does a disservice to all learners, on this board or elsewhere, is implying that those who have done what I did are somehow very special. I'm not, and neither are most advanced Chinese learners I met (I know many). Some are actually quite plain, as far as intelligence goes. They just have good habits, and maintain them for years, not weeks or months. Studying more or less efficiently may make studying more bearable, as well as help shave some percentage of time off the total needed to become proficient, but I doubt it exceeds the low double-digits in percent-terms. Any learner that seriously wants to reach an advanced level is still looking at investing thousands of hours into their Chinese. And everyone is capable of doing that, so long as they align their priorities/habits accordingly, with or without a few more extensive reading resources. I'd guess that anyone who doesn't simply isn't going to learn Chinese to a proficient level.

[realmayo]

Presumably the benefits of 'extensive reading' only really kick in if you do a lot of it. And these graded readers are too short and too few. Therefore graded readers are not a good idea for 'extensive reading'.

[li3wei1]

It would be helpful to have a thread devoted to listing, reviewing, and comparing the graded readers that are available.

[imron]

Feel free to start a "Grand Graded Readers Project" at any time

[Rufus]

Therefore graded readers are not a good idea for 'extensive reading'.

Hi realmayo, I don't think that anyone is coming to that conclusion. Graded readers are the best for extensive reading depending on your level. For elementary and intermediate learners, it's often that graded readers are some of the few available types of content that they can read. If not graded readers for Extensive Reading, then what else?

 

I think that the graded readers available are likely below your level and you are in need of higher level content. I'd suggest for you to get your hands on what you can for now. And as I said previously, there are lots of ways to learn a language and they can all work, its just that some are more effective than others. You'll have to find the most effective route for you under the current circumstances

[realmayo]

Hi realmayo, I don't think that anyone is coming to that conclusion.

Well, I am!    Seriously, how can you call it 'extensive reading' if you're not reading an extensive amount? 

 

How many hours would it take someone to read one of your graded readers, assuming it's at the correct level?

[Rufus]

Thanks for bringing this up. We've been discussing here mainly one aspect of extensive reading; known vocabulary. If this were the only important factor of language, then we could just study flashcards and dictionaries to become fluent. This, of course, is preposterous. We have grammar, collocations, colligations, tone, and context among others. These only come with exposure to the language at a comprehensible level.

How many hours would it take someone to read one of your graded readers, assuming it's at the correct level?

 

This really depends. Just because it's at your level doesn't mean you are proficient at reading. This is common with lower level learners. They may be able to read every character but their reading speed is slow because they have less familiarity with the language. They have not had enough exposure to the language to move beyond reading word-by-word to processing "chunks of language" that native readers do. For instance, everything you've written and what you are reading right now you do not write "word by word". You aren't going through every letter and sounding it out in your head to read it. You are familiar enough with the language that you are able to automatically process the language. You have moved beyond reading word-by-word to reading (and writing) with ideas. This is perhaps the most important thing that reading at an extensive level is very efficient at doing: training your brain to automatically process the language.

 

In extensive reading best practices, your reading speed is a large indication of whether or not you are ready to move to higher level material. The fact that you can read a Level 1 Mandarin Companion book so fast is a strong indication that you are ready for a level higher. I suppose if I gave you Romance of the Three Kingdoms in native Chinese, you wouldn't be talking about how fast you're reading it. But if we found material at the right level for you, you'd probably start a bit slower but after a number of chapters or books, you'd pick up your reading speed which is exactly what you want. 

 

If you want a really in-depth explanation about this, I'd direct you to a very comprehensive paper by Dr. Rob Waring, one of the foremost researchers in ER, titled "The Inescapable Case for Extensive Reading". 

[Ruben von Zwack]

Rufus, you said extensive reading was met with skepticism in the US. Why is that? What do they suggest instead? I have a hard time trying to imagine what sort of arguments might speak against reading.

[realmayo]

That recommended paper says:

 it is vital (not just a good idea) that the learners have chances (and are required if necessary) to read and listen to massive amounts of comprehensible texts within their comfort zone.

Graded readers do not provide Chinese learners with "massive amounts of comprehensible texts". So, Chinese graded readers are not a good source of 'extensive reading', according to Dr Rob Waring.

 

Edit:

I'm not saying for a second that graded readers aren't valuable and important. The more the better! I remember getting a massive confidence boost from being able to read one from beginning to end. But until there are massive amounts of comprensible texts available for the Chinese learner I would have thought a better strategy is to focus on intensive reading until you can get to the level where extensive reading -- albeit below the 98% supposed benchmark -- is possible by reading texts targetted at Chinese people. Graded readers at lower levels should be excellent for intensive reading, or reading that is somewhere between intensive and extensive. 

[imron]

Graded readers do not provide Chinese learners with "massive amounts of comprehensible texts"

Surely this is a problem with a lack of graded readers, rather than with graded readers themselves.

[realmayo]

Absolutely. I'm just saying they don't deliver 'extensive reading' now, or in the forseeable future.

 

Or: actually there's no lack of graded readers, instead the problem is they're all just one-twentieth of the length they should be if they are seeking to provide the benefits of extensive reading. But, they no doubt provide lots of other benefits.

[querido]

There's no limit to materials keyed to the Chinese education system's grade levels. The path is impractical for the first few thousand words but it leads to the same readers for young adults, adaptations of great novels, etc., that Chinese students had to step through. You could add their textbooks in subjects other than language. These would hopefully be similarly keyed but probably focus on the basic vocabulary of those subjects. Yeah, it's impractical and ideal at the same time.

The greater impracticality was not the flowers and little animals but the focus on the written language. Edit: ...because Chinese children can already listen and speak at that level. So, don't forget the need for "Extensive Listening" too. THAT is the harder to find resource.

[戴 睿]

I agree that Graded Readers probably need to be lengthened significantly.

The readers by Mandarin Companion, for instance, seem to be of a good quality, but are just soooo short. Even reading at the proper comprehension level, where you are encountering 1-2 unknowns every 50 words, you still plow through those books pretty quickly. Three days of light reading MAX.

I realize that reading speed is varied amongst learners, but I think the real issue is this:

With one or two graded readers, your reading fluency/speed significantly increases. Basically to the degree where you are now prepared for higher level content (in terms of reading speed).

However, your vocabulary acquisition rate improves MUCH slower than your reading fluency does.

So you are left in a state where your reading fluency would suggest you upgrade to a new level, but your vocabulary base does not.

And now here is the real question: at that point, do you continue reading under your actual reading fluency level, purely to maintain the "98%" ratio, or do you bump up a degree, to expose yourself to greater reserves of new vocab.

If you bump up in order to keep pace with your reading speed, it looks like you get thrown right smack dab in the middle of "intensive reading."

[li3wei1]

you are now prepared for higher level content (in terms of reading speed)

 

I'd say there's the problem: the assumption that reading speed determines level. Why should it? Level is determined by the percentage of new words. The fact that you can read quickly simply means you can read more, and therefore be exposed to a greater number of new words. When reading in your native language, you don't think "I'm reading this too quickly, I should move up to something more difficult", do you? However, you might say "There are too many words here I don't understand, I should find something easier".

 

"reading fluency" isn't just speed, it's comprehension. And the gain in speed you talk about after one or two graded readers, I suspect, is a one-off. You don't get faster and faster with each one (or if you do, the rate of increase is much smaller).

[querido]

Sixth grade. Not flowers and birds. No lack of such materials: