The Lexical Advantages of Narrow Reading for Second Language Learners
By N. Schmitt, R. Carter. TESOL journal, 2000
113 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Vocabulary Learning and Narrow Reading There is a consensus that the incidental vocabulary learning stemming from reading is an essential complement to the explicit teaching of vocabulary (e.g., Coady & Huckin, 1997; Schmitt & McCarthy, 1997). A major reason for this consensus is that the number of words necessary for effective language use is greater than that which can be taught easily (although see Meara , 1995, 1998, for a rebuttal to the limitations of vocabulary teaching). Estimates for the number of words required vary from about 2,000 for everyday oral ability (Schonell, Meddleton, & Shaw, 1956) to 10,000 or more for reading academic texts (Hazenberg & Hulstijn, 1996). Another reason is that a reader must know a very high percentage of words in any text in order to either obtain the gist of the passage or to guess the meaning of any unknown words. The exact percentage depends on factors such as background knowledge of the text topic and purpose of reading, but figures of95% or higher are normally suggested. These high percentage figures translate into the necessity of knowing approximately 5,000 words to begin to read authentic texts (Hirsh & Nation, 1992). Language instructors would have trouble teaching this number of words in any explicit way. In all likelihood, they will be able to teach only a small percentage of these words in class, so the rest need to be met and learned in exposure activities outside the
Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Language and Linguistics
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Citations in the corpus
- Second language vocabulary learning through extensive reading with audio support: How do frequency and distribution of occurrence affect learning? (2015, background): “If texts were selected from the same genre, it is more likely that genre specific vocabulary such as inspector, blood, and, judge from the mystery genre would reoccur (Hwang & Nation, 1989; Schmitt & Carter, 2000).”
- Vocabulary input through extensive reading: A comparison of words found in children's narrative and expository reading materials (2004, background): “…Snow, and Wesche 1989; Chamot and O'Malley 1987: Enright and McCloskey 1988; Krashen 1985; Hwang and Nation 1989; Paribakht and Wesche 1999; Schmitt and Carter 2000; Stoller and Grabe 1997; Sutarsyah, Nation, and Kennedy 1994; Walmsley 1994)Ða claim which itself may deserve more extensive…”
- A framework for developing EFL reading vocabulary (2005, background): “Second, instructional techniques such as narrow reading can contribute to enhanced levels of lexical access and reading fluency ( Krashen, 1981; Schmitt and McCarthy, 2000).”
- What Reading Teachers Should Know about ESL Learners. (2003, methodology): “Schmitt and Carter (2000) suggested narrow reading as an effective method for developing vo cabulary.”