Efficiency of Extensive and Repetitive Rereading?

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Steve
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Re: Efficiency of Extensive and Repetitive Rereading?

Postby Steve » Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:14 pm

jeffers wrote:I don't think any of these reading methods are better or worse, rather I think the greatest benefit would come from a combination of the methods. However, the real issue is whether you enjoy what you are doing, because in this context the only bad method is the method that makes you quit.


I think that this is ultimately what makes or breaks any method. I'd also note that our enjoyment of a particular method can depend on our level of progress.

I'd add another type of reading to the list. I think of it as targeted reading. (It needs a better name.) It's limiting intensive reading to a particular topic while extensive reading. If I find that there is a particular grammatical aspect to the language that is consistently slowing down my extensive reading rate and comprehension, I'll target that problem for a time until I reduce its impact on my reading. The first time I did this, I was doing extensive reading of ancient Greek in a parallel text Septuagint (for quick look up of vocabulary). I kept stumbling over verb endings (as to person) because I hadn't had them internalized. I decided to fix it once and for all, so I stopped at every verb and made sure I knew exactly what person it was before going on. With a few days, the problem was significantly reduced. I found that a handful of endings cover the majority of occurrences. Once those were automatic, I was only mentally stumbling over rarer forms which I could quickly resolve by a quick glance at the English text.

As I did this for other things, I found it worked best when I focused on a particular isolated aspect that was giving me noticeable problems. If I tried to do too much, I didn't gain the benefit. For example, looking at every Greek noun as to case does little except slow me down a lot. However, looking only at irregular nouns (and often picking up case from the associated definite article) caused me to start internalizing the general "feel" of the various cases for various families of irregulars. I find that the first reading session where I work on a new target is somewhat mentally disruptive because I often have to use reference materials at first. However, it quickly turns into a momentary disruption that doesn't mess with my extensive reading flow. I tend to just naturally stop noticing those things as they become automatic. I've found that this approach of reducing the biggest stumbling blocks to reading flow and comprehension seems to be a fairly efficient way of improving reading skills for the time invested.
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Re: Efficiency of Extensive and Repetitive Rereading?

Postby luke » Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:36 pm

Steve wrote:I'd add another type of reading to the list. I think of it as targeted reading. (It needs a better name.) It's limiting intensive reading to a particular topic while extensive reading. If I find that there is a particular grammatical aspect to the language that is consistently slowing down my extensive reading rate and comprehension, I'll target that problem for a time until I reduce its impact on my reading.

I found it worked best when I focused on a particular isolated aspect that was giving me noticeable problems. If I tried to do too much, I didn't gain the benefit. I've found that this approach of reducing the biggest stumbling blocks to reading flow and comprehension seems to be a fairly efficient way of improving reading skills for the time invested.

That's a novel method. It makes perfect sense.

Figuring out which bit of grammar is the problem seems to be the challenge. Is there anything you can add about turning "a pattern that seems to be a problem" into "apparently that's this particular grammatical concept"? Is it always Professor Google?
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Re: Efficiency of Extensive and Repetitive Rereading?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Jul 19, 2021 4:58 pm

jeffers wrote:Repeated reading is reading the same books again. 8 or 9 years ago I heard a report on BBC radio about a study in which some primary students were given five different books to read, and others were asked to read the same book five times. All of the students were given a vocabulary test (based on the books I believe) before and after the reading. The result was that those students who read the same book five times learned "significantly" more new words than those who read five different books.


Just a few thoughts.

Does the level of the students have something to do with the result? Would older students also learn more words from re-reading the same book five times, than reading five different books?

Does the language matter? Would students learn more words in a target language from re-reading the same book five times, than reading five different books? (And again, does the level matter?)
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Re: Efficiency of Extensive and Repetitive Rereading?

Postby Steve » Mon Jul 19, 2021 6:46 pm

luke wrote:
Steve wrote:I'd add another type of reading to the list. I think of it as targeted reading. (It needs a better name.) It's limiting intensive reading to a particular topic while extensive reading. If I find that there is a particular grammatical aspect to the language that is consistently slowing down my extensive reading rate and comprehension, I'll target that problem for a time until I reduce its impact on my reading.

I found it worked best when I focused on a particular isolated aspect that was giving me noticeable problems. If I tried to do too much, I didn't gain the benefit. I've found that this approach of reducing the biggest stumbling blocks to reading flow and comprehension seems to be a fairly efficient way of improving reading skills for the time invested.

That's a novel method. It makes perfect sense.

Figuring out which bit of grammar is the problem seems to be the challenge. Is there anything you can add about turning "a pattern that seems to be a problem" into "apparently that's this particular grammatical concept"? Is it always Professor Google?


Very good question I'd not thought of. Here's a few initial thoughts at a potential method I'd try if I wanted to be more systematic. If I had a text I could read with a reasonable degree of comprehension, I might print a page or two and mark it by some system as I read. Maybe circle the things that subjectively frustrate me the most and seemed to hinder my comprehension the most or maybe put an X at each point I found myself pausing to figure out what was going on. An alternative would be to cross out everything that is familiar and easily understood and I'd be left with stuff I was having problems with. I'd then do a quick count of problem things into various categories, verbs, nouns, articles, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns etc. and see if a couple of those jump out as having many more than the others. Then I might break the biggest one into subcategories, i.e. if nouns, into gender, case, number, regular vs irregular, etc. and then count up how many in those. I'd guess that there would be some correlation between what was frustrating me the most and how many times it shows up.
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Re: Efficiency of Extensive and Repetitive Rereading?

Postby thevagrant88 » Mon Jul 19, 2021 10:04 pm

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never understood this dichotomy, or at least it doesn’t apply to how I read in my tl. I just read what I want to read.

The closest I can relate personally is that if I start a new book it will be “intensive” and as I get into the feel of the author’s use of the language it becomes “extensive”. I try not to think to hard about it.

Having said that, “extensive” tends to be tedious and not fun lol.
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Re: Efficiency of Extensive and Repetitive Rereading?

Postby Cavesa » Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:46 am

I don't like rereading in general. Of course there are books I've read multiple times, but always with longer gaps in between the reads.

There is, however, something in between the two. When you opt for a series of books by the same author, fiction or non fiction, you are likely to get much more material in a very similar style, with a lot of repetitions of the content, topics, vocabulary, and so on. No boredom caused by immediate rereading, but majority of the advantages is still there.
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Re: Efficiency of Extensive and Repetitive Rereading?

Postby jeffers » Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:15 pm

Cavesa wrote:I don't like rereading in general. Of course there are books I've read multiple times, but always with longer gaps in between the reads.

There is, however, something in between the two. When you opt for a series of books by the same author, fiction or non fiction, you are likely to get much more material in a very similar style, with a lot of repetitions of the content, topics, vocabulary, and so on. No boredom caused by immediate rereading, but majority of the advantages is still there.


That's what Krashen called narrow reading.

Personally, I don't mind re-reading some things, but I've never finished a book and returned to it right away. For example, I have read most of the books in the Petit Nicolas series several times, but when I finish one I pick another book in the series rather than reading the same one again right away. Nevertheless, returning to a familiar book, whether sooner or later, is very helpful in my experience.

I also find it helpful to listen to an audiobook of a book I'm reading, starting the audiobook once I'm well into the book, so it's sort of like a second wave. When I was reading graded readers, I began with the audio, and listened to the audio several times until I understood almost everything before picking up the book to read. However, with novels I feel like they are too long to do this, so I take the opposite approach: read first to get a good understanding, and then listen to work on my ear.
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Re: Efficiency of Extensive and Repetitive Rereading?

Postby Cavesa » Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:20 pm

jeffers wrote: ...Nevertheless, returning to a familiar book, whether sooner or later, is very helpful in my experience.

I also find it helpful to listen to an audiobook of a book I'm reading, starting the audiobook once I'm well into the book, so it's sort of like a second wave. When I was reading graded readers, I began with the audio, and listened to the audio several times until I understood almost everything before picking up the book to read. However, with novels I feel like they are too long to do this, so I take the opposite approach: read first to get a good understanding, and then listen to work on my ear.


Yes, returning after some time is indeed helpful and a pleasure.

I tried the audiobooks together with the books and hated it. I couldn't really focus on either, I wasn't fully practicing either, the pace was off (I am quite a fast reader. At least until I try a really foreign script, ok, we'll see then. But reading with an audiobook reminded me too much of the torture of having to read out loud in class ages ago, and having to wait for the very slow readers).

But the approach with either book or audio first, that's certainly one of the good things one can do.
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Re: Efficiency of Extensive and Repetitive Rereading?

Postby rdearman » Tue Jul 20, 2021 5:04 pm

Narrow reading, you say? Stephen King, I say.
Why?
  1. Just one book will take ages, only 6 of his books are less than 200 pages. The average is 500+ pages.
  2. One of the most prolific authors alive. So lots of books to choose from (narrow reading) 60+ books
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Re: Efficiency of Extensive and Repetitive Rereading?

Postby einzelne » Tue Jul 20, 2021 8:36 pm

It really depends on your level. Rereading might be good, if it is your first book, but you really have to love the book, otherwise you'll hate it (why not just rereading certain passages/sentences with new vocabulary?) It's good to return to the book you've read after a couple of years: you'll see how much you archived in that time (provided you worked hard, of course). Audiobooks is a nice review tool, as already been mentioned.

One book alone, no matter how many times you read it, won't make you the master of a language. You need to read a lot, so eventually you can finish like this one in a week with a 98-99% of known words. When will it happen? I think after several years of regular reading (ideally a couple of hours everyday, at least an hour).
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