Although proponents of extensive reading (ER) have recommended easy reading material, book difficulty has been poorly defined and operationalized in previous studies. The present study argues for the use of perceived text difficulty for operationalizing book difficulty based on empirical findings (Holster et al., 2017), reading purposes in ER, and…

In second or foreign language (L2) extensive reading (ER) studies, learners have been encouraged to read easy books despite the lack of consensus concerning how to define book difficulty. In light of previous studies reporting that book difficulty can play an important role in learners' affect in ER (e.g., Bahmani & Farvardin, 2017; Chiang,…

The study investigates the effect of the perception of text and task difficulty on adults' performance in reading tests in L1 and L2. The relationship between the following variables is studied: (a) readers' perception of text and task difficulty in L1 and L2 measured in a self-reported post-task questionnaire, (b) the number of correct answers to…

Macalister and Webb (2019) claim that "children's literature" written for native English speakers is too difficult for intermediate English as a Second Language (ESL) students, those who have acquired the first 3,000 to 4,000 most commonly used words in English. The authors analyzed a corpus of short stories written for a classroom…

The incidental or implicit learning of vocabulary has long been a topic of interest in various disciplines. In studies on foreign language acquisition, reading is often the activity that researchers use to generate their findings. "Reading in a Foreign Language" has maintained its position at the forefront of this research, consistently…

In this study, I sought to investigate whether visuospatial working memory (VWM) explains individual differences in reading fluency growth. One hundred and thirty Japanese junior and senior high school students were administered the Mr. Peanut and reversed Corsi tasks, respectively as measures of VWM, followed by three waves of reading fluency…

This study investigates the effects of the text difficulty of extensive reading materials on the reading comprehension and reading motivation of English as a foreign language (EFL) vocational high school students in Taiwan. Two experimental groups were assigned, on an individual basis, to read graded readers at either one level below ('i-1') or…

This study examined the effects of relevance instructions on English as a foreign language (EFL) readers' text processing and memories. The participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: the experimental condition, where they read texts to identify a specific category of information, and the control condition, where they read texts…

This study used many-faceted Rasch measurement to investigate the difficulty of graded readers using a 3-item survey. Book difficulty was compared with Kyoto Level, Yomiyasusa Level, Lexile Level, book length, mean sentence length, and mean word frequency. Word frequency and Kyoto Level were found to be ineffective in predicting students'…

This study aimed to examine the effects of different text difficulty levels on foreign language reading anxiety (FLRA) and reading comprehension of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. To this end, 50 elementary EFL learners were selected from two intact classes (n = 25 each). Each class was assigned to a text difficulty level (i.e.,…

This study follows a small group of learners in the UK to the end of a graded reading program using the Cambridge Readers and investigates whether this particular graded reading series provides a bridge to reading unsimplified novels for pleasure. The participants' reading comprehension, reading rates, vocabulary text coverage, and overall affect…

This study investigated the effects of (a) the amount of pleasure reading completed, (b) the type of texts read (i.e., simplified or unsimplified books), and (c) the level of simplified texts read by 14 Japanese university students who made the largest reading rate gains over one academic year. The findings indicated that the participants who made…

An adaptation of the traditional literary concept of close reading was developed for use in a largely multilingual classroom in which both first language (L1) and second language (L2) students were struggling to comprehend theoretical, lexically dense texts in English. This simplified method of reading a text iteratively and critically is proving…

This study uses a moving windows self-paced reading task to assess both text comprehension and processing time of authentic texts and these same texts simplified to beginning and intermediate levels. Forty-eight second language learners each read 9 texts (3 different authentic, beginning, and intermediate level texts). Repeated measures ANOVAs…

In this paper the academic English reading proficiency of 578 Norwegian university students was quantitatively examined. Self-assessment items were used to measure reading proficiency in Norwegian and English and validated using an International English Language Testing System Academic Reading Module. The study found that about 30% of the…