Graded Readers

A graded reader by Derek Strange

Graded Readers are books which have been adapted or written for a certain level of English. They can be fact or fiction, new works or older classics.

For example, reading Shakespeare in the original requires a high level of English, but learners can pick up a copy of Romeo and Juliet suitable, say, for an intermediate level class, and read the story, understanding it well.

Style

Many graded readers have several different components making them easier to use:

1. The text.
2. Glossary of potentially unknown words.
3. Character list.
4. CD (spoken text).
5. Exercises after each chapter.
6. Illustrations helping in understanding the story.

The vocabulary for graded readers is checked to conform to a particular level. For example, the word "imprison" is regarded as an upper intermediate (or thereabouts) word and so it won't appear in a book for beginners which may typically contain just 200 - 300 "core" words.

Likewise certain grammatical constructions will appear in one level but not another. For example, in a beginner's book you will not see long sentences with subordinate clauses or conditional sentences.

Why Use Graded Readers?

The main reason to use graded readers is because texts written for native speakers can be daunting and impossible to read by learners of English. Even books for native English speaking children are likely to contain slang and cultural references which would simply not be understood by many learners.

Graded readers allow students to practice English and enjoy the language in an informal and pleasurable way, much as they might enjoy reading novels or texts in their own language.

Use in Class

Graded readers tend to be used as an adjunct to the class or for personal study and enjoyment. Handled in the right way they can be an excellent resource, but handled in the wrong way, they can be boring and off-putting for students.

First, the right book for the right student. This means both the subject and level should be appropriate. A beginners version of Jane Austin is not right for an advanced class of unruly teenage boys! Some publishers insist of recreating graded versions of dry classics, whilst others will provide more interesting and up to date books by contemporary authors.

There are different ways to use graded readers in class depending on whether you use them as individual study aids or with the class as a whole.

Pre-Reading Tasks

• Guess the Story from the Title. Hand out the book to the students but don't allow them to open it yet. Allow them to go over the title and cover illustration and brainstorm some ideas about what the book is about and what the story might be. The students might like to write a single short summary of what they think it will be about which you can collect. When the class has finished reading the book you can give a small prize to the student who got closest! Of course, if the book is famous (of the film of the book is famous) the students may already know quite a bit about the story.

• Picture Description. If you can get hold of pictures of the main characters (or obviously if there are pictures in the book) you can show these and again, brainstorm ideas about what the book might be about. Pictures of characters are good as students can try to guess what their personalities are based solely on appearance.

During Reading

It is probably not best to interrupt reading to do a task. The book, after all, should be read for enjoyment. That said, you can stop at the end of each chapter and do a couple of tasks based on what the students have just read.

• Predictions. Stop regularly and have general discussions on what will happen next. Explore ideas and relationships in the book and introduce plenty of "what if" ideas.

• And then stop regularly to see if those predications came true!

• News Reports. Have the students write short news articles about what's been happening in the book.

London in Chaos!

The city of London is in chaos. There a dead bodies on the streets. There are many groups of blind people are walking in the 
streets looking for food. 

It all began last night when lights appeared in the sky...

• If the book has been made into a film, you can also show the film in parallel and have the class check out differences between the two.

• Roleplays. Have students work in small groups to develop role plays of various key scenes.

Post-Reading Tasks

• Bring a Graded Reader to Life! With some classes you may be able to bring the graded reader to life by preparing it (with the students of course) as a radio play or perhaps even a film!

• After the book is finished, put students into teams and have them come up with quiz questions for the others in the class.

• Write a review of the book!

Other Ideas

• School Library. As in a normal library, the books can be taken out by students and read for enjoyment at home or in their free time. You may be able to set up a "book club" scene where students give presentations on the book they've just read, recommending it or not to other students.

• Write Your Own. Either individually or as a class project, you can work with the class in creating graded readers for each other. These could be simple narratives of a story they already know (e.g. a film or local story) or they could be totally original. Small groups could create and illustrate graded readers (on the PC or in booklet form) which can then be passed to other groups for reading.