Step 3
Here you will learn about usual things to read for extensive reading. You will learn important things to help you choose your own reading.
Graded readers are what you will probably use most for your extensive reading. These are books written for language learners and they are graded – this means they have levels based on the level of vocabulary and grammar they use. The lower numbers are easier and higher numbers more difficult. However, each series of readers has a different way of leveling. This means the level numbers from one series often do not equal the same level number in another series.
So how can you find the right level for you? Well, one of the most important things to pay attention to is the number of headwords or basic words. This is the vocabulary that is used when writing the books. The smaller the number of the headwords or basic words, the easier the vocabulary is. You can usually find this information on the backs of the books, or on one of the first couple of pages, with the level.
You might also find a number for word count, running words, total words, or length. These all mean the same thing. It is how many total words are used in the whole book. This number is usually higher than the headwords. So you may have a book with 100 headwords and 781 word count. This means that from the same 100 words, some are used many times. For example, "and" might be used 23 times in the book. For headwords (or basic words) it is 1 word, but for word count (or total words, etc.) it is 23 words. Also, your teacher may ask you to keep track of this number to see how many words you read each week or semester. Do you get it?