Krashen tele-presentation: reading

Some new evidence for an old hypothesis (self-selected pleasure reading is good for you!)

Stephen Krashen   www.sdkrashen.com   twitter: skrashen 

Free voluntary reading  – the source of reading ability, writing style, much of spelling, vocabulary, grammar

The evidence

Sustained Silent Reading

-        

The Fiji Island study (RRQ, 1983): Elley & Mangubhai: gains in RC

Grade	ALM	SSR	Big Books
4	6.5	15	15
5	2.5	9	15

year 2: larger differences, readers better in writing, listening and grammar

Elley – The Singapore Project (Language Learning, 1991).

Evidence from English as a foreign language  (Krashen, 2007, ijflt.com)

Study	n	titles	titles/S	Duration	ES Cloze	ES RC
Yuan & Nash, 1992	37	200	5.4	one year	0.38
Sims, 1996	30	550	18.3	one year		0.81
Sims, 1996	30	550	18.3	one year		0.65
Mason retakers	30	100	3.3	one sem	0.702
Mason Jr college	31	200	6.4	one year	1.47
Mason university	40	200	5	one year	1.11
Mason: response L1	40	550	13.75	one year	0.24	0.61
Mason: response L2	36	550	15.28	one year	0.63	0.48
Lituanas et al, 2001	30			6 months		1.7
Bell, 2001	14	2000	142.9	one year	1.31	3.14
Sheu, 2003	31	57	1.84			0.71
Sheu, 2003	34	55	1.62			1.04
Lee, 2005a	65	215	3.3	12 weeks	0.24
Hsu & Lee, 2005	47	354	7.5	one year	0.58
K. Smith, 2006	51	500	9.8	one year	0.47	0.39
Lee, 2006	41	1200	29.3	one year	1.02
Hsu & Lee, 2007	47	500	10.6	3 years
K. Smith, 2007	41	500	12.2	one year	0.56
Liu, 2007	46	450	9.8	one year	1.59

Correlational: The Sullivan and Brown study:

Predictors of scores on vocabulary test given at age 16

Variable	beta	p-value
SES: higher job status	-0.012	0.613
Parent has degree	0.255	0
Higher income family	0.02	0.542
Read to everyday at age 5	0.115	0.01
Reads books often at age 10	0.313	0
Visits library often at age 10	0.009	0.791
Reads newspapers more than once/week at age 16	0.183	0
Reads books more than once/week at age 16	0.353	0
Reading proficiency at age five	0.039	0
Reading proficiency at age 10	0.117	0

http://skrashen.blogspot.com/2013/09/new-evidence-for-power-of-reading.html

Pratheeba & Krashen, 2013, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 117, 2, 1-7

Engineering students in India, demanding vocabulary test, survey of reading habits

Variable	M	SD	Correlation	p (one-tail)
Vocabulary	30.04	7.39
Reading Questionnaire (total)	62.8	7.31	.78	<.001
Book Reading (4 items)	13.00	3.34	.36	.04
Computer Reading (4 items)	15.84	2.25	.20	.22

Book reading: historical novels, political novels, science fiction, biographies and autobiographies

Ccomputer reading: used the internet to read about current affairs, for academic purposes, pleasure, online journals

Only one item dealing with computer reading   only one item of the four computer reading items, pleasure reading on the internet, correlated significantly with vocabulary test results.

Correlation between book reading and computer reading: r = .19

Case histories

The Beniko Mason series

Gains on TOEIC

	Mr. Tanaka	Mr. Nakano	Mrs. Fujita
age	42	75	66
duration	12 months	5 months	9 weeks
Pages read	5456	2624	1739
Gain	475-655 = 180	495-580 = 85	680-740 = 60
Points/hr	.56	.78	.35
Points/page	0.03	0.03	0.03
Hours CI	247	109	72.5
Hours study	70 (vocabulary)	"a few" (TOEIC prep)	94.5 (TOEIC prep)

Traditional instruction = .27

Mason, B. (2011). Impressive gains on the TOEIC after one year of comprehensible input, with no output or grammar study. The International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 7(1).  http://www.tprstories.com/images/ijflt/IJFLTNovember2011.pdf

Mason, B. (2013). Substantial gains in listening and reading ability in English as a second language from voluntary listening and reading in a 75 year old student. The International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 8(1), 25-27.

Mason, B. (in press). The case of Mr. Kashihara: Another case of substantial gains in reading and listening without output or grammar study, Shitennoji University (IBU) Journal.

FVR = the bridge between conversational and "academic" language – the missing link: Another case hsitory  In all cases, reading material is comprehensible, compelling, reading is narrow and self-selected.

Compelling Input

A Fan Ti and Daniel - Lao, C. and Krashen, S. 2008. Heritage language development: Exhortation or good stories? International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 4 (2): 17-18.

Reaching the highest levels: A  3 stage plan

1.     For children, stories. For L2, good classes (TPRS, Natural Approach)

2.     Extensive narrow self-selected, compelling reading, the bridge

3.     Extensive narrow, self-seleted, compelling reading in your area of interest.

Gaps in the research: Massive extensive free voluntary listening.

1.     pedagogical material

2.     narrow, easy authentic

3.     harder authenttic