The Case for Pleasure Reading: Impact of Language, Knowledge, and Understanding of Others Stephen Krashen University of Southern California

第八届全国中小学英语阅读教学学术研讨会专题

培养儿童和青少年的阅读素养对培养学生核心素养、落实立德树人根本任务具有重要意义。2023年1月印发的《关于健全学校家庭社会协同育人机制的意见》明确了学校、家庭和社会在协同育人机制下的责任，并给出了具体建议。在新的教育形势下，家庭和学校作为对儿童和青少年实施教育的两个主阵地，必须协同合作，共同实现育人目标。但是在实际的阅读教育中，学校和家庭尚未找到协同提升学生阅读素养的有效途径。本期“第八届全国中小学英语阅读教学学术研讨会专题”特别邀请美国南加利福尼亚大学荣休教授、著名语言教育家斯蒂芬·克拉申（Stephen Krashen）深入阐释了有趣和可理解性阅读的重要性。此外，专题内其他两篇文章分别从理论建设和实践的角度深入剖析了学校和家庭如何共同协作推进家校协同阅读育人。希望广大教师进一步学习和思考，不断探索更加科学、有效的家校协同阅读育人方式，促进学生阅读素养的全面发展。

Abstract： Most people would agree that reading is helpful in acquiring language. I present here a much stronger position： Genuinely interesting and comprehensible reading is not only the main source of literacy and language， but also an important source of knowledge in a wide number of areas， and also contributes to our understanding of others， otherwise known as empathy.

Keywords： pleasure reading; grammar; spelling; knowledge; empathy

Reading and language / literacy development

A substantial amount of research shows that students who participate in in-school reading programs （sustained silent reading， self-selected and other forms of extensive reading） do as well or better on tests of reading than comparisons in traditional programs （reviewed in Krashen， 2004）.

In the first part of this paper， I focus specifically on time spent “just reading” versus time spent on the study of grammar. I then present evidence that pleasure reading leads to more knowledge in a variety of topics and greater understanding of others （empathy）.

An important tool for doing this is multiple regression， which allows us to pit competing hypotheses against each other in a single analysis. I illustrate the method by presenting data from Stokes et al. （1998）， an analysis of predictors of the ability to use the Spanish subjunctive in a “monitor-free” situation， a communicative situation in which subjects， English speakers who had studied Spanish， were not focused on form. （Subjects were asked to complete sentences such as “Siempre studio quando…”.） Only data from subjects who said they were not aware that the test probed competence in the use of the subjunctive was included in the analysis.

In Table 1， the “beta” statistic presents the strength of each predictor， uninfluenced by the others. For example， it may be the case that two predictors of literacy are related to each other， e.g. “study” （years of formal study of Spanish） and years of “residence” in a Spanish-speaking country （those students who had more years of study of Spanish also lived in a Spanish-speaking country longer）. Multiple regression controls for this， and allows a comparison as if there were no relationship among the predictors.

The strongest predictor， by far， was “reading”， the time spent doing free voluntary pleasure reading done in Spanish. As presented in Table 1， “reading” was stronger than all other predictors including “subjunctive study”， the amount of formal study specifically of the subjunctive， and the amount of time living in the country where the language was spoken （“residence”）. “Reading” was the only predictor that was statistically significant.

Thus， comprehensible input in the form of self-selected reading defeated skill-building， as represented by “study” and “subjunctive study”.  The analysis also suggests that for late-acquired aspects of language such as the subjunctive， the everyday input one gets simply by living in the country where the language is spoken is not enough. You need to read.

Lee et al. （1996） reported nearly identical results. Their subjects were native speakers of Korean who were students of English as a foreign language while living in the US.  They were given two kinds of tests： （1） Grammaticality judgement of English sentences （e.g. Which is correct， “She is the woman who helped me”， or “She is the woman which helped me”？） and （2） A translation test （Korean to English）.

Predictors， as was the case in Stokes et al. （1998）， were years of formal study of English and length of residence in the US. As presented in Table 2， once again the only significant predictor was the amount of reading reported in English.

A common view is that everyday use of a language in interaction with native speakers is an effective way of improving competence in that language. Once again， multiple regression comes down on the side of reading.  Subjects in Gradman and Hanania （1991） were international students enrolled in intensive English classes at Indiana University who took a well-established test of academic English， the TOEFL. There was no measure of the amount of English study students did or of the length of residence in the US， but informal use of the language （“extracurricular speaking”） was slightly negatively related to TOEFL scores， as was “total exposure” to English.  In agreement with the studies reviewed so far， “extracurricular reading” was a significant predictor of TOEFL performance.

1. A case study

A single subject case study （Lin et al.， 2007） also provides a direct comparison of self-selected pleasure reading and traditional study. No statistical analysis was done， nor was it necessary. The two treatments compared here did not overlap in time， and the same measure was used to determine the effectiveness of study and reading.