Let me start with a true story. When I was seven years old, my family spent a year in France, and I had to go to school there. The only thing was, I didn’t speak French. Luckily my mother was fluent in that language, and she set out to prepare me a few months before we left. Armed only with a second-hand copy of a little picture book called Totor et Tristan, she sat me down on the sofa with her a few times a week for around 10 minutes. Sometimes she read the book to me while I followed the text silently and sometimes I had to read a page myself. She asked me questions in French and I answered in French, or she corrected my pronunciation. That was it.

My first day at school in France was memorable for many reasons, but one of these was that I was the only child in a class of native French speakers to score 100% on our first spelling test! Everyone was amazed, me most of all because I didn’t even know what most of the words meant.

So, what made this possible? I think it was reading with my mother – I guess had read more in French than my classmates and thus was able to recognize the tricky relationship between sound and spelling. My confidence was sky high and I was fluent within four months.

Exploring a written text for fun, on your own terms, is called extensive reading, and teachers can support their students to realize its many benefits.

Graded readers are books which have been adapted to be suitable for specific levels of language learners to enjoy. They can be classics (The Phantom of the Opera), film adaptations (Rain Man) or original works of fiction or non-fiction. They can be purchased online or at bookshops, or you can obtain them from libraries or even find some on websites.

There are many reasons for making them available to students. First, reading is fun. It’s also magic learning. Students who have a sustained habit of extensive reading see improvements in a range of areas: lexical, grammatical and spelling as well as reading speed, which is vital for success in academic and work contexts. Being able to select their own reading material gives students a sense of ownership.

It’s helpful if a teacher initially introduces students to graded readers and explains how to choose and use them. Students should examine both covers carefully, using the picture and the blurb to determine the genre and read a basic description of the story. Additional information can be found inside the book, in the Introduction.

While it’s not necessary to have 100% comprehension of the text, choosing a book which is too difficult or too easy will not lead to an enjoyable experience. Most books are labelled with a level, but no two intermediate readers will have the same needs. Therefore, a simple test can be performed: the student should choose one page at random and read it to see how many unknown words they encounter. If the answer is seven or fewer, this book will be suitable. More than seven, and it’ll be too hard to get a good flow going when reading.

While students are reading, they should try to work out the meaning of unfamiliar items from context. They should also be made aware of the Glossary at the back of some books and, of course, they can use a dictionary if they really need to. However, some items do notreally need further exploration - making decisions about what’s important and what’s not is an important skill for language learners. Some books also have comprehension questions at the back.

However, the main aim is to get into and enjoy the story without lots of interruptions and checks. Encourage students to read ten minutes a day on a regular basis (perhaps in bed or while commuting). Results will not be immediate, but within a few weeks, students should recognize the improvements.

A collection of readers is well worth investing in. Be creative when looking for material – why not try a graphic novel? Even authentic texts not intended for language learners can be worthwhile for advanced students or those with a special interest in or knowledge of a topic.