This article first appeared in TESOL Quarterly, Volume 47, Number 2, pgs. 300–322. Subscribers can access issues here. Only TESOL members may subscribe. To become a member of TESOL, please click here, and to purchase articles, please visit Wiley-Blackwell. © TESOL International Association.

Research has shown that extensive reading may lead to vocabulary learning (Day, Omura, & Hiramatsu, 1991; Dupuy & Krashen, 1993; Horst, 2005; Horst, Cobb, & Meara, 1998; Hulstijn, 1992; Pitts, White, & Krashen, 1989; Waring & Takaki, 2003), increased reading rate (Bell, 2001; Iwahori, 2008), interest and motivation towards reading (Cho & Krashen, 1994; Constantino, 1995; Macalister, 2008; Shin, 1998), and reading comprehension (Bell, 2001; Elley & Mangubhai, 1983). Texts written for children are often viewed as appropriate for extensive second language (L2) reading (Day & Bamford, 1998; Gardner, 2004, 2008; Kirschenmann, 2004; Mikulecky, 2009; Smallwood, 1998; Takase, 2009). Day and Bamford (1998) provide a strong case for their use in their seminal book on extensive reading:

If a language lacks language learner literature, teachers can turn to a sure source of easy reading material that exists in almost every language: books designed to teach children their first language. The books … can add variety to any extensive reading library. This valuable resource should not be overlooked. (p. 98)

The primary justifications for incorporating text written for children into an L2 extensive reading programme is that it has fairly simple language, is appropriate in text length, and is interesting and motivating for some adult learners.

There are four more reasons why text written for children may be appropriate for extensive reading. First, they may be relatively easy to understand because they use a greater proportion of high-frequency words in comparison to other text types (Mikulecky, 2009). Although Mikulecky (2009) does not draw on any data to support this claim, he reports that texts written for children and young adults provide 98% coverage (the percentage of known words in a text) for intermediate-level L2 learners. Reaching the 98% coverage point is significant because it indicates adequate comprehension of first language (L1) and L2 text (Carver, 1994; Hu & Nation, 2000; Schmitt, Jiang, & Grabe, 2011). Second, children's stories typically contain a large number of illustrations that are likely to aid comprehension (Smallwood, 1998) and help to facilitate incidental vocabulary learning (Elley, 1989; Horst et al., 1998). Third, Smallwood (1998) suggests that children's literature, in comparison to other text types, has a greater degree of vocabulary and pattern repetition that helps learning and increases comprehension. It should also be noted that vocabulary repetition has the added benefit of contributing to incidental vocabulary learning (Chen & Truscott, 2010; Horst et al., 1998; Rott, 1999; Waring & Takaki, 2003; Webb, 2007). Fourth, children learn their first language through reading children's literature to some extent, so it stands to reason that these texts may also be useful for L2 extensive reading.

Research has also provided some justification for the use of text written for children in L2 learning. The book flood studies provide the strongest support for the use of children's literature. These studies involved young L2 learners reading illustrated children's stories extensively for a period of 1 to 3 years and resulted in significant improvement in reading comprehension, speaking, and writing (Elley, 1991). There is little research on the use of children's text with adult learners. Hitosugi and Day (2004) found that university students learning Japanese improved their reading comprehension through reading text written for Japanese children in a 10-week extensive reading program. The young adult learner of Japanese in Tabata-Sandom and Macalister's (2009) case study was initially reluctant to read children's books but later reported enjoying them and that they reinforced her grammatical knowledge. Children's stories have also been found to motivate young L2 learners (Ghosn, 2002), and reading these texts aloud can also be motivating for college-level L2 learners (Khodabakhshi & Lagos, 1993).

Although the research cited so far provides some justification for using text written for children in extensive reading, it does not indicate that this text type is as well suited as texts written for extensive reading. To our knowledge there is no research that has compared the appropriateness of different text types for extensive reading.

There are several reasons why children's text may be less effective than graded reading materials that have been written specifically for extensive reading. First...

This article first appeared in TESOL Quarterly, 47, 300–322. For permission to use text from this article, please go to Wiley-Blackwell and click on "Request Permissions" under "Article Tools."
doi: 10.1002/tesq.70