Extensive Reading - Reading Process

Partner Reading Observation

• How often do they move their eyes?
• How would you describe their eye movements - smooth, jumpy, flowing, other?
• What else did you observe?

Reading Processes

People have a visual field of about 120 degrees in front of them, which contains three regions for viewing information:   the foveal, the parafoveal, and the peripheral. The foveal region is the area in which we think of as being in focus, providing us the greatest visual acuity. The foveal region is only 2 degrees of what we are looking at; in terms of reading, that would be about 6 to 8 letters. Beyond the foveal is the parafoveal, which extends to 15 to 20 letters. Everything else is considered to be in the peripheral region.

We do NOT read letter by letter but rather by recognizing whole words by sight. To illustrate the point we use this 'fi yuo cna raed tihs' handout. This is why comics are often harder to read for second language learners of English because they are in capital letters giving no tall/tail letter patterns that the mind uses to recognize words.

There are three basic eye movement processes involved in reading

• fixations
• saccadic jumps
• regressions

Slower readers have longer fixations, shorter saccades and more regressions. Hence fluency activities aim to decrease the time of fixations, increase the length of saccades to an appropriate level and reduce the number of regressions. Good readers therefore read at 250-300 words per minute. If people are reading faster it is termed 'expeditious reading' which is like skimming or scanning.

Videos

• Eye Movements in Skilled Readers
• Eye Tracker
• Reading, Eye Movement, and the Brain
• What Eye Movements During Reading Reveal About Processing Speed
• Science of Word Recognition

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The original General Service List of 2000 words was created in 1953 by Michael West and this is used by most graded readers in the development of their level system.
This list includes the list of 300 sight words which cover 50~70% of most texts.
(Dolch Sight Words About   Word Lists)

The New General Service List is an updated version that includes 2818 words. It is a "list of the most important high-frequency words useful for second language learners of English, ones which gives the highest possible coverage of English texts with the fewest words possible."Newgeneralservicelist.org

NGSL Quizlets
50 word blocks here
100 word blocks here
560 word blocks here

TestYourVocab.com

Findings: 

• Most adult native test-takers range from 20,000–35,000 words
• Average native test-takers of age 8 already know 10,000 words
• Average native test-takers of age 4 already know 5,000 words
• Adult native test-takers learn almost 1 new word a day until middle age
• Adult test-taker vocabulary growth basically stops at middle age

• The most common vocabulary size for foreign test-takers is 4,500 words
• Foreign test-takers tend to reach over 10,000 words by living abroad
• Foreign test-takers learn 2.5 new words a day while living in an English-speaking country

• Native adult vocabulary size appears to be principally determined by
  reading habits between ages 4 and 15
• For native vocabulary growth, reading fiction specifically is just as important as reading in general
• Native test-taker children who read "lots" learn 4 new words a day
• Native test-taker children who read "somewhat" learn 2.5 new words a day
• Native test-taker children who read "not much" learn 1.5 new words a day