Building Fluency with Extensive Reading

Abstract

Recently, more and more learners, teachers, and administrators are beginning to understand the central role that extensive reading plays in the foreign language curriculum (Grabe, 2011; Waring, 2011) and with the development of reading fluency. Several researchers have pointed out that reading fluency has been an undervalued part of many EFL curriculums (e.g. Gorsuch & Taguchi, 2008; Nation, 2009). This chapter will first discuss the concept of reading fluency and suggest some ways that this can be developed with special reference to extensive reading. Then the benefits of extensive reading for developing reading fluency will be reviewed and a research agenda will be proposed.