THE PLEASURE OF READING.

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Reading for pleasure is often something ESL learners don’t do. Learners will read a book, or newspaper article with a dictionary in their other hand.Reading for pleasure should be about reading for enjoyment. If learners are unable to understand the meaning of a story or book without stopping to look up numerous new words in the dictionary, then the material they’ve chosen to read is too difficult. Learners should be able to read a page of a book without having to look up more than 2-3 words from that page. That is not to say that they will clearly understand every word that they’ve read, but they should be able to understand the general meaning from the context of the sentence.Remember they’re reading to enjoy themselves, not in to study. Encourage learners to choose works that are the appropriate level. Learners may favour novels filled with suspense, action and drama, but these novels may also have difficult vocabulary, complex sentence structure, and topic specific expressions that could leave the reader feeling frustrated and discouraged after reading only a few pages.There are numerous interesting young adult novels and magazines that may be more appropriate for some learners to read. They will enjoy the material, review vocabulary and expressions that are familiar to them, learn a few new words and have a positive reading experience. They will find that reading is a pleasure.