In short
- Intensive reading teaches new language through short, difficult texts; extensive reading builds fluency and volume through long, easy ones.
- The dividing line is the share of unknown words: above about one in fifty, extensive reading has turned into intensive reading.
- Extensive reading raises reading rate and supplies the volume needed to meet words often; intensive reading offers focused study of specific language.
- A sensible starting split gives language-focused work, intensive reading included, no more than a quarter of course time.
Intensive reading is the slow, close study of a short text that contains new language, with help from the teacher, a dictionary or a glossary. Extensive reading is the fast, independent reading of many easy texts, chosen by the pupil and read for meaning. The first teaches language. The second builds fluency and a reading habit. This article compares the two side by side, explains why a program needs both, reports what research says about each, and shows how to split time between them in a school week.
What is the difference between extensive and intensive reading?
The difference lies in the text and the purpose. In intensive reading, pupils work through a short text that is hard for them and learn the language in it. In extensive reading, they read long, easy texts for the story or the information, and do not stop to study.
Hu and Nation (2000) divide the reading that learners do into three types:
- Intensive reading: texts with unfamiliar language, worked through with teacher guidance and discussion, or with dictionaries, glossaries or explanations in the text.
- Extensive reading for language growth: texts with some unfamiliar language, which learners cope with without losing the message.
- Extensive reading for fluency: texts with no unknown language, read without interruption.
Their study, of 66 adults on a pre-university course, set the line between the first two. To read fiction without help, learners needed to know at least 98% of the running words: about one unknown word in fifty. Above that load, they write, extensive reading has become intensive reading.
Day and Bamford (2002) set out ten principles for extensive reading. The material is easy, learners choose it, and they read as much as possible. Reading is usually faster rather than slower, and it is individual and silent.
Extensive and intensive reading compared
| Feature | Extensive reading | Intensive reading |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Fluency, a reading habit and slow growth of vocabulary through volume | Learning new words, grammar and reading strategies from one text |
| Text level | Easy: about 98% of words known, or more | Hard: new language the pupil needs help with |
| Amount | As much as possible; Day and Bamford suggest a book a week as the minimum | A short text, studied over a lesson |
| Speed | Usually fast, with no stopping for unknown words | Slow, with rereading and analysis |
| Who chooses | The pupil | The teacher or the coursebook |
| Teacher role | Guide and role model: helps pupils choose, keeps track, reads too | Instructor: explains language, asks questions, leads discussion |
| Dictionary | Discouraged: guess or skip, and keep reading | Expected, with glossaries and teacher help |
| Assessment | Light: a reading record or a short chat, usually no comprehension questions | Comprehension questions, language exercises and tests |
The extensive reading column follows Day and Bamford (2002). They write that extensive reading is not usually followed by comprehension questions, and that dictionaries are best discouraged. The intensive reading column draws on Hu and Nation (2000) and Nation (2007). Its assessment row reflects common classroom practice.
What intensive reading is good for
Intensive reading is deliberate study, and deliberate study is efficient. Nation (2007) places intensive reading in the language-focused learning strand of a course, beside pronunciation practice, vocabulary cards and feedback on writing. Deliberate work on strategies such as guessing from context and dictionary use belongs here too.
He sets three conditions for this strand to work. Learners give deliberate attention to language features. They process them in deep and thoughtful ways. And they return to the same features with spaced, repeated attention.
Nation (2007) credits language-focused learning with 'focused efficiency'. The meaning-focused strands are less efficient but more widely beneficial. So he warns that language-focused learning should be only a small part of a course: no more than a quarter of the time.
Classroom example (invented for illustration)
A B1 class reads a 180-word news report about a flood. The teacher pre-teaches 'evacuate' and 'shelter'. Pupils read and underline the words they cannot guess. Together they work out two from context and look up three more. The class notices the passive in 'Hundreds of homes were damaged' and finds two more examples. Forty minutes, 180 words, and a lot learned about a little language.
What extensive reading is good for
Extensive reading supplies what intensive reading cannot: volume. Nation (2014) estimated how much reading learners need to meet words around twelve times each. For the second 1,000 most frequent word families, it is about 200,000 words of reading. At 150 words per minute, that is about 33 minutes a week over a 40-week year.
For the third 1,000, the figure rises to about 300,000 words, or 50 minutes a week. For the ninth 1,000, it is about 3 million words. A weekly intensive reading lesson on a 200-word text supplies about 8,000 words a year.
Volume also builds speed. Beglar, Hunt and Kite (2012) followed 97 Japanese university students for a year. Three pleasure reading groups gained more reading speed than a group taught through intensive reading. The groups that read most gained most, and comprehension stayed high.
Jeon and Day (2016) combined 49 studies, with 5,919 participants, in a meta-analysis. They found a small to medium effect of extensive reading on reading proficiency. The effect was larger for adults than for children and adolescents, so the case for school pupils rests on fewer studies. The guide to extensive reading sets out the wider evidence.
Why a reading program needs both
The two approaches are not rivals. Nation (2007) argues that a well-balanced course gives roughly equal time to four strands: meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning and fluency development.
Extensive reading serves two of them. Reading easy books is meaning-focused input, and reading very easy books quickly is fluency development. Intensive reading belongs to language-focused learning. A program with only one kind of reading leaves strands empty.
Nation (2014) makes the same point from the other side. He warns that his figures on reading input are not an argument against deliberate vocabulary learning. A well-balanced program, he writes, contains both.
Research on program design points the same way. In Jeon and Day (2016), extensive reading built into the curriculum showed the highest average effect (d = 0.91, from 11 samples). Extensive reading run as a separate reading course showed the lowest (d = 0.24), from a single study.
They also found a higher effect when reading came with other classroom activities, such as vocabulary instruction, group discussion or oral presentation. Some groups held very few studies, and the authors ask readers to interpret these comparisons with caution.
When extensive reading turns into intensive reading
Jeon and Day (2016) note that intensive reading is still the major approach to teaching reading. So the habits of the comprehension lesson creep into extensive reading time. Watch for these signs:
- One hard class reader for everyone. Pupils did not choose it, and for many it is above the one-in-fifty line.
- Long question sets after every chapter. Day and Bamford (2002) write that extensive reading is not usually followed by comprehension questions.
- A dictionary beside every book. Day and Bamford (2002) suggest discouraging dictionaries, so pupils practise guessing, skipping and reading on.
- Marks for the reading. Grading each book turns reading for pleasure into work for the teacher.
A short check that a book was read is different from a comprehension lesson. A one-minute chat or a reading record keeps pupils honest without slowing them down. 15 Extensive Reading Activities for the EFL Classroom offers light follow-ups.
Use one rule of thumb. If a book needs a dictionary every few lines, it is intensive reading material. If a pupil can follow it with only an occasional new word, it is extensive reading material. How to Match Students to the Right Graded Readers shows how to check.
How to split reading time in a week
No study gives a fixed ratio. Nation (2007) offers the most useful starting point: about a quarter of course time on language-focused learning, intensive reading included, and about a quarter on fluency. He admits that equal time for each strand is an arbitrary decision, yet he still prefers a rough balance at every level.
Nation's (2014) figures give a floor for extensive reading. By his estimate, ten minutes a day at 150 words per minute is enough to meet words in the third 1,000 about twelve times over a school year.
- Keep one intensive reading lesson a week, or part of two lessons, on a short text with new language.
- Give extensive reading a fixed slot of 10 to 15 minutes in most other English lessons.
- Ask for 10 to 15 minutes of easy reading at home on most days.
- Add one or two short fluency drills a week on very easy text, as described in Building English Reading Fluency: Activities That Work.
- Review the balance each half term. Count minutes, not lessons.
Example week (invented for illustration)
Class: 13-year-olds at A2, with four English lessons of 45 minutes a week.
Lesson 1: 35 minutes of intensive reading on a 200-word text, then 10 minutes of silent reading of pupils' own books.
Lesson 2: 10 minutes of silent reading, then speaking and writing work.
Lesson 3: 5 minutes of timed reading on very easy passages and 10 minutes of silent reading, then other work.
Lesson 4: 10 minutes of silent reading and book swaps, then other work.
Home: 15 minutes of easy reading on five days.
Total: 35 minutes of intensive reading, 40 minutes of extensive reading in class, 75 at home and 5 of timed reading.
Intensive reading takes about a fifth of lesson time, inside Nation's quarter. Across the whole week, most reading is extensive, and much of it happens at home. To launch the extensive side from scratch, see How to Start an Extensive Reading Program in Your School.
How iRead handles this
In iRead, a pack is a CEFR-levelled set of stories, and each story is a graded reader. Many stories have an audio read-along synced to the text, optional per story. A quiz runs after every session, with questions generated from the story: real sentences from it, the grammar that appears in it, comprehension of the plot and its moral. Schools can also build school packs from their own books.
A rule of thumb: If a text needs a dictionary every few lines, it is intensive reading material. If a pupil can follow it for meaning with only the odd new word, it is extensive reading material.
See it in iRead: Every iRead story is a graded reader levelled to the CEFR, from A1 to C2, and many have an audio read-along synced to the text.
See the iRead programKey takeaway
Use intensive reading to teach language from short, hard texts, and extensive reading to build fluency from lots of easy ones. Protect the extensive reading time from turning into another comprehension lesson.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between extensive and intensive reading?
Intensive reading is the close study of a short, difficult text, with help from the teacher or a dictionary. Extensive reading is the independent reading of many easy texts, chosen by the pupil and read for meaning. The first teaches new language; the second builds fluency and a reading habit.
Is extensive reading better than intensive reading?
Neither is better, because they do different jobs. Extensive reading builds reading speed and supplies the volume needed to meet words many times. Intensive reading is an efficient way to study specific language. Nation (2007) argues that a balanced course needs both.
Can the same book be used for extensive and intensive reading?
Rarely at the same time. A book easy enough for extensive reading has little new language to study, and a text hard enough for study is too slow to read in volume. You can still take a short passage from an easy book for a brief language focus.
How much time should go to extensive reading?
There is no fixed ratio. Nation (2014) estimated that about ten minutes of reading a day over a school year lets learners meet words in the third 1,000 about twelve times. A short slot in most lessons, plus reading at home, reaches that.
Should pupils use a dictionary during extensive reading?
Mostly not. Day and Bamford (2002) suggest discouraging dictionaries, so pupils keep reading and practise guessing or skipping unknown words. If a pupil needs a dictionary often, the book is too hard for extensive reading and belongs in a supported lesson.
Sources
- Hu, M. H.-C., & Nation, P. (2000). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), 403-430. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66973
- Day, R. R., & Bamford, J. (2002). Top ten principles for teaching extensive reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 14(2), 136-141. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66761
- Nation, P. (2007). The four strands. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1(1), 2-13. doi.org/10.2167/illt039.0
- Nation, P. (2014). How much input do you need to learn the most frequent 9,000 words?. Reading in a Foreign Language, 26(2), 1-16. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66881
- Beglar, D., Hunt, A., & Kite, Y. (2012). The effect of pleasure reading on Japanese university EFL learners' reading rates. Language Learning, 62(3), 665-703. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2011.00651.x
- Jeon, E.-Y., & Day, R. R. (2016). The effectiveness of ER on reading proficiency: A meta-analysis. Reading in a Foreign Language, 28(2), 246-265. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66901