Citation 5:

Richard, R. D. (1993). The Writing Activities for Extensive Reading. New ways in teaching reading, 5(4), 188-189.

Summary:
In extensive reading, students select their own books and read a great deal at their own pace. They are encouraged to read easy and interesting books and to stop reading a book if it is too hard, too easy, or boring. Generally, students do not answer comprehension questions on the books they have read. When students have finished reading a book, the author does not give them comprehension questions or test them on what they have read. Rather the author uses activities that allow them to draw on their reading to help them with other aspects of English, such as increasing their vocabulary knowledge or improving their oral fluency.

Many teachers of English, in both second and foreign language contexts, are familiar with the activity called free writing. The purpose of free writing is to help students get started, to generate ideas, often considered one of the most difficult steps in writing. Generally, the teacher does not correct or evaluate free writing. Here are the instructions that the author gives to his students for timed repeated thinking and writing:

1. For one minute, think about a book that you have read.
2. Now write about the book for two minutes.
3. Stop. For two minutes, read what you wrote and think again about the story.
4. Now write again for two minutes. Start over from the beginning. (Do not continue from what your wrote in step 2.)
5. Repeat step 3.
6. Repeat step 4.

Teachers of English might also be familiar with timed repeated reading, an activity that helps learners improve their reading fluency. Students are instructed to read a text at a comfortable pace for overall understanding for a set period of time, often one or two minutes. At the end of the time, they stop, making the last word they read. They go back to the beginning of the text, read again for the same period of time, stop, and mark the last word. The process is repeated a third time. Most often, learners read more the second and third times than they did the first time.

Timed repeated skimming and writing combines timed repeated reading with timed repeated writing. Instead of reading at a comfortable pace for overall understanding, students skim their books. Then they write about their books for a given period of time. The goals are to improve the skill of skimming, to help students with getting started in the writing process, and to help students become more fluent writers.

Review:
The author is a strong supporter of extensive reading. Good things happen when EFL students read extensively. Studies show that they not only become fluent readers, but they also learn new words and expand their understanding of words they knew before. In addition, they write better, and their listening and speaking abilities improve. Extensive reading activities such as the two described in this article make student reading a resource for language practice in reading, vocabulary learning, listening, speaking, and writing.