Free Voluntary reading: New Research, Applications, and Controversies

Stephen Krashen
Presented at PAC5 (Pan-Asian Conference), Vladivostok, Russia, June 24, 2004

Recreational reading or reading for pleasure is the major source of our reading competence, our vocabulary, and our ability to handle complex grammatical constructions The evidence for FVR comes from correlational studies, showing that those who read more show superior literacy development, case histories of those whose growth in literacy and language is clearly attributable to free reading, and studies of in-school recreational reading, such as sustained silent reading (SSR).

In in-school studies, students who engage in free reading for a certain time each day are compared to similar students who have only "regular instruction." Reading has done well in these studies; in my survey (1), readers were at least as good as those in traditional instruction in 51 out of 53 comparisons, and when the study was long-term (longer than one school year), readers were nearly always better and were never worse. The finding that in-school reading works best in long term studies makes sense; it takes some time for children to find reading material of interest.

The efficacy of in-school free reading has been established with a variety of groups including native speakers of English, second language acquirers in several different countries, and students of different ages.

The success of in-school free reading is also consistent with the more general Comprehension Hypothesis, the hypothesis that we acquire language when we understand messages (2). Recreational reading is, of course, comprehensible input.

Issues and Controversies

1. Do they really read during in-school reading time?

It has been claimed that many children do not actually read during sustained silent reading sessions, but only pretend to read. Von Sprecken and Krashen (3) examined the behavior of middle-school children in SSR classes in the middle of the academic year, and reported that 90% of the children they observed were reading, a result confirmed by Cohen (4), who made a special effort to make observations unobtrusive.

Von Sprecken and Krashen also concluded that children were more likely to be reading during SSR when certain conditions were met: When there was access to interesting reading in the classroom and students are not required to bring their own reading material, when teachers read while students are reading, and when teachers made efforts to promote and discuss certain books. Even in a class in which none of these conditions were met, however, Von Sprecken and Krashen found that 80% of the students were reading when observed.

2. Will they stay with easy reading?

There is a concern that students will always choose books that are too easy and will never move on to more challenging reading material.

Easy books, however, can provide the taste and background knowledge that will lead to and facilitate reading other books. This appears to happen. Readers don’t stick to light and easy reading – their reading tastes gradually develop and broaden (5). Finally, it has been argued that reading has to feel effortless for it to result in language development; studies indicate that a text needs to be about 98% comprehensible in order for it to help the reader acquire new vocabulary (6).