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legere discitur legendo
: extensive
reading in the Latin classroom
by Andrew Olimpi
As a Latin teacher, I think a lot about
reading. Without texts I would not
have a subject to teach, and the goal of
many Latin programs (including my own)
is teaching students to read Latin texts. I
began my Latin teaching career while
teaching the language to myself as well.
The goal (both for myself and my
students) was to read Latin confidently
and fluidly, from left to right, processing
the meaning of the words as my eye
scanned the pages. Yet my good
intentions were soon frustrated, and I was
baffled by a problem which I soon
realised was not unique to my situation:
despite years of training, neither I nor my
students could read Latin in a natural,
fluid way. Furthermore, textbooks and
colleagues seemed resigned to the view
that such a goal was unrealistic or
unobtainable. Best to treat language as a
puzzle to be solved, or linguistic knot to
be untangled, rather than a language
expressing a message. Only the most
intellectually gifted students continued in
my ‘puzzle-solving’ course; consequently,
my enrolment dropped off steeply after
the second year. Looking for more help,
I even implemented various ‘rules for
reading’ and ‘reading strategies’ advocated
by others, yet rather than improve student
reading ability, I felt my curriculum begin
to feel increasingly cluttered with activities
and processes that stole away from my
students the valuable time needed to
interact with the language itself. It was not
until I began investigating the field of
Second Language Acquisition (hereafter
SLA) that I discovered some simple, yet
fundamental principles about language
that helped explain my students’ struggles
and helped me rethink language teaching
in general.
SLA is a broad field lacking at
present a single unifying theory. As
VanPatten points out, it is more correct to
discuss ‘theories’ of SLA (VanPatten,
2014). Therefore, to narrow the focus for
this article, I want to discuss a single issue:
reading; more specifically, what
researchers call ‘extensive’ reading. My
purpose is to define extensive reading,
show its close relationship to language
acquisition, and finally to advocate for
extensive reading practices in a Latin
classroom specifically.
Two Readers
Two primary difficulties present in any
discussion about reading in any language
(classical or modern) are that (1) reading
is a complex series of conscious and
subconscious processes (Krashen, 2004)
and (2) there exist many types of and uses
for reading (Grabe, 2009). Like Proteus, a
unified, specific definition of ‘reading’
can be difficult to pin down, as that
elusive word can shift meanings subtly
(and suddenly), sometimes in the same
discussion. Broadly speaking, reading is
‘the construction of meaning from a
printed or written message’ (Day &
Bamford, 1998). Yet people read in
different ways and for different purposes
and can quickly and often unconsciously
slip between reading modes whenever
necessary (Grabe, 2009).
Imagine two students reading the
same text. Although they are both
showing the outward signs of reading,
they are in fact engaged into two entirely
different activities. Student A reads
quickly and naturally, moves her eyes from
left to right, comprehends each sentence
line after consecutive line, interprets
vocabulary at sight, and despite this fluent
performance may only be vaguely aware
of the linguistic processes that she is
using. She attends primarily to the
message of the text. Student B may
struggle with much of the same book; her
eyes may move slowly over the text,
scanning back and forth as she puzzles
out sentences, ‘untangles’ the word order,
and guesses at the meanings of a
multitude of unknown words. Her
attention is taken up with the mechanics
of interpreting and decoding language,
making it difficult for her to follow the
message of the text as she reads. Student
A reads the text extensively, while Student
B reads intensively.
Extensive reading is reading with a
focus on comprehension of a message.
Extensive reading is the most common
sort of reading; i.e., it is what people
generally mean when they talk about
reading. For example, most people
(assuming they have the requisite
proficiency in English) are reading this
paragraph to understand the message and
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legere discitur legendo: extensive reading in the Latin classroom
follow the discussion, not to analyse the
use of language or the organisation of
thought. I am not implying that the reader
who is reading for meaning will never
shift their attention to matters of
language or style, nor am I arguing that
reading intensively is not a legitimate way
to approach a text under certain
circumstances. Traditionally intensive
reading is heavily favoured in Latin
classrooms, to the point that extensive
reading (i.e. fluent, easy reading) is
regarded as unnecessary, impractical, or
ineffective for language learning.
However, there exists a large body of
research that suggests that just the
opposite may be true, and there is a strong
case for including extensive reading in any
language program.
Intensive vs. Extensive Reading
Extensive reading is the purpose for
which most texts are written. Intensive
reading is needed when there is an
interruption in communication, for
example when reading something beyond
one’s comfortable fluency or reading a
text that is highly technical or poetic.
Palmer, who first coined the terms
intensive and extensive reading, described
intensive reading as slowly studying the
language and expressions of a text
‘referring at every moment to our
dictionary and our grammar, comparing,
analysing, translating, and retaining every
expression that it contains’ (Palmer,
1921/1964). This reading process likely
sounds familiar to anyone who has
studied a classical language. Yet, while
‘intensive reading’ is technically a form of
reading, it is often far from what people
generally mean by the term. The intensive
process that Palmer describes and the
other ‘reading strategies’ advocated by
others are essentially mechanisms for
coping with a text that is too far beyond
one’s proficiency to read fluently
(i.e., ‘extensively’) (Bailey, 2014). Most
textbook reading passages assume
‘intensive’ reading. Ironically, many books
labelled Latin readers or ‘reading method’
in reality provide students with very little
material to read in the natural, ‘extensive’
sense. They treat Latin as an object of
study not a vehicle for communication.
Like people who have trained as bicycle
mechanics, but have never ridden the
vehicle for themselves, students trained to
analyse and dissect the mechanisms of
Latin would experience great trouble
when then asked to hop on and take it for
a ride themselves. Teachers cannot expect
students trained in such a way to have the
ability necessary to read extensively. Their
training has been of another sort.
Language Learning vs. Language
Acquisition
To understand what extensive reading is
and how it is different from other types
of reading, a distinction must first be
made between two types of language
learning, which researcher Stephen
Krashen identifies as ‘learning’ versus
‘acquisition’ (Krashen, 1983). One way of
looking at this distinction is to consider
learning something ‘from the inside’ as
opposed to learning ‘from the outside’.
Learning a language ‘from the outside’
means examining the language as an
artifact of study and analysis. This shares
similarities with other content area
subjects like Physics or History. The focus
is on the language itself as a content
material to be examined and explicitly
learned. Communication in the language
is a secondary consideration - if it is
considered at all. The goal is to master a
definite set of discrete information about
the language’s structure, vocabulary,
grammar, and syntax. The learner is
looking under the hood of the language
and learning how all the various moving
parts work together. This approach to
language study makes heavy use of the
learner’s native language. Students
typically demonstrate mastery of the
material through translation from second
language (L2) to the first (L1). A heavy
emphasis is placed on rote memorisation
of lists and paradigms. The goal of such
an approach is accurate and rapid
translation and philological analysis.
Nearly all Latin language curricula
approach the language in this way
(including so-called ‘reading methods’).
This is language learning, or ‘learning
about language’ (Waring, 2014).
Alternatively, learning a language
‘from the inside’ considers the L2 a
vehicle rather than an artifact. It involves
understanding and interacting in the
language to accomplish a purpose beyond
language study per se. The learner is a
participant in and active contributor to
the language community - whether that
means out among the native speakers or
in a classroom context (VanPatten, 2017).
If a student’s goal is reading Latin -
picking up a text and constructing and
interpreting meaning from the figures
printed on the page - she is desiring a
communicative act. By engaging in the act
of listening to or reading messages that
the student can easily understand, the
student gradually develops an implicit
understanding and fluency in the
language, that allows them to then
interpret increasingly complex messages,
as well as begin to communicate messages
of their own.
The process of language
acquisition
So, how does this work?
How does a student develop the implicit
knowledge necessary for fluent, extensive
reading? SLA researcher Bill VanPatten
would say that the student learning the
language implicitly is developing a
‘mental representation’ of the language
(hereafter MR), which someone studying
the language from the outside would lack.
The MR is the speaker’s implicit language
system (VanPatten, 2010). The system is
implicit because even a native speaker
may not have an awareness of what is
going on in their mind when they
communicate in their native language, as
the processes involved are both complex
and largely subconscious. Stephen
Krashen first clearly articulated the
process by which a learner gains implicit
knowledge of the language: by
comprehending messages in the L2
(Krashen, 1983). Comprehended
messages are the driving force behind
increasing mental representation. This is
the process of language acquisition.
Since it focuses on the
comprehension of messages, extensive
reading is an efficient way to build mental
MR. As a cyclist learns to ride by riding,
much evidence suggests that learners
become better readers by reading (Krashen,
2004). This is true for reading both in the
L1 and L2, as the processes are
fundamentally the same. The difference is
a language learner (especially one in the
first couple of years of study) will have a
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legere discitur legendo: extensive reading in the Latin classroom
smaller MR than a native speaker and may
not read complex texts as easily as a native
speaker.
Let us return to the two hypothetical
readers. Ironically, Student A by reading
effortlessly and pleasurably, by focusing
on the text’s meaning and getting ‘lost’ in
the message of the book, is making more
language acquisitional gains than Student
B, who clearly appears to be doing more
work. For Student A, the text is
comprehensible, her mind is processing
more messages. Student B spends most
of her time struggling to either recall
lexical items or decipher complex
sentences that she is not yet skilled
enough to read proficiently; Student B
processes far fewer messages, and
therefore her fluency gains are
proportionally fewer, despite her hard
work. To move beyond slow, laborious
decoding and translation, she needs a
greater implicit knowledge of the
language (or MR). Student B needs a text
better suited to her proficiency.
Free Voluntary Reading1
So how do teachers approach reading in
the Latin classroom in a way that
encourages students to read extensively?
Stephen Krashen has proposed what he
calls Free Voluntary Reading (or FVR).
Other names for this activity also include
‘sustained silent reading,’ ‘self-selected
reading’, or even simply recreational
reading (Krashen, 2004). The idea behind
FVR is simply that students make the
most gains in literacy and language
proficiency through reading texts that
they can select for themselves. Students
can read at their own pace and are free to
explore topics and narratives that most
appeal to them. In a second language
context, students are free to choose texts
that most align with their current
proficiency. In the Power of Reading,
Krashen has demonstrated the
effectiveness of Free Voluntary Reading
in classrooms all over the world. It is easy
to see how such a practice could facilitate
the implicit language acquisition necessary
to build reading fluency. If students can
select the type and difficulty of their texts,
they are more likely to encounter
messages that they are not only able to
comprehend but are also willing to
comprehend. The more messages that
students comprehend, the more their
implicit knowledge of the language (or
mental representation) will develop. FVR
facilitates acquisition.
Over the years I have built a Latin
FVR library in my classroom, beginning
with my own novellas as well as a few
written by fellow Latin teachers. Recently,
this collection has expanded to include
nearly 40 titles, and continues to grow
month by month with the release of new
novellas. FVR began in my third-year
Latin class (five to ten minutes of reading
three times a week), but soon expanded
into my first- and second-year classes, as
simpler and more accessible Latin
novellas were printed. As increasingly
greater numbers of Latin teachers around
the world are beginning to stock FVR
libraries in their own classrooms,
I thought it may be helpful to provide
teachers with some guidelines for
implementing FVR and for selecting (and
creating) texts appropriate for their
students.
Day and Bamford, writing about
extensive reading in second languages,
have clearly articulated ‘Ten Principles for
Extensive Reading’ which describe the
conditions of texts and classroom
environment that must be present to
promote an extensive reading program
like the one Krashen describes, especially
among low-proficiency readers (e.g.
students in their first years of language
learning) (Day & Bamford, 1998).
I have chosen to discuss four of
these principles below most foundational
to discuss using Latin novellas in a
classroom setting. I will also use Day and
Bamford’s principles to describe how
many of these new ‘comprehensible’
novellas and readers are different from
many other Latin texts currently available
for Latin students.
Principle 1: The texts are easy.
Extensive reading must be easy. Some refer to
it as ‘pleasure’ reading or ‘light’ reading
(Krashen, 2004). The term ‘pleasure’ or
‘light’ can be misleading, because the
purpose behind the reading may extend
beyond mere pleasure or enjoyment (for
example, reading an article in a scholarly
journal for information on a topic). This
activity, however, is still the act of
extensive reading, as the reader is
attending to the arguments and evidence
presented, not the language itself.
Extensive reading is the most natural use
of a text.
For students to read a text
extensively, that text must be below the
students’ reading level. Day and Bamford
call this ‘i minus 1’, where ‘I’ stands for
the reader’s current reading proficiency
level, and the ‘1’ signifies a step below that
level. This principal reflects the common
practice of most readers (Day &
Bamford, 1998). When reading for
pleasure or information, a reader
gravitates towards a text that is clear and
understandable to read. When reading a
difficult text - for example a highly
technical scholarly article for research -
the intensive reading involved often
creates an enormous amount of mental
strain, as the mind is occupied with both
decoding and deciphering jargon and
technical language, while also trying to
attend to the continuous thread of the
argument. The reader must constantly
redirect his attention between decoding
and understanding. Reading is necessarily
Figure 1. | Day and Bamford’s Ten Principles for Extensive Reading.
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legere discitur legendo: extensive reading in the Latin classroom
slower, and comprehension less complete.
Therefore, both the quality and the
quantity of comprehended messages is
greatly diminished. Easier texts that sit
well below the proficiency threshold
demand less attention to the mechanics
of the language; the reader can get lost in
the text. Thus, the reader experiences one
of reading’s greatest pleasures: what some
researchers call ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi,
1990). Nation refers to this experience as
‘fluency practice’, exposing learners to
easily-understood speech and texts
comprised almost entirely of known
vocabulary and structures. He further
recommends dedicating 25% of
classroom instructional time to such
fluency practice (Nation, 2013).
Defining an ‘easy text’
‘Easy texts’ here will mean texts
appropriate to novice, low-proficiency
readers in the first two years or so of
Latin study, which are also likely to be the
highest-enrolled classes, and therefore the
largest audience for FVR/extensive
reading. While every program follows its
own curriculum and pacing, principles
drawn from reading research may help
provide some general guidelines for
selecting texts. Easy texts have limited
vocabulary, straightforward and
uncomplicated syntax, student-friendly
aids for comprehension, and a compelling
topic and/or plot.
Limited Vocabulary
The high density of unknown vocabulary
is the primary barrier for a novice reader.
If a reader struggles with recognising and
understanding vocabulary,
communication ceases between reader
and text, and conscious attention is
moved to deciphering the language, not
the message. To read fluently and rapidly
for comprehension, a reader must know
98% of the words or more (Nation, 2013;
Waring, 2009). Grammatical structure and
syntax factors less in determining
comprehension of a text, meaning
beginners can tolerate syntax beyond their
acquisition when reading for
comprehension (through contextual clues,
cognates, the reader’s familiarity with the
subject matter, etc.) (Krashen, 1983). A
high concentration of unknown
vocabulary, however, will bring any reader
to a halt. The amount of unknown
vocabulary must be low for novice
readers.
Straightforward and Uncomplicated Syntax
For novice readers syntax and clause
length should be limited, but not
necessarily grammatical features. Active
and passive voice, participles, deponent
verbs, and subjunctives may appear
frequently, if the meaning is clear and
subject concrete. The key is helping
students process the language quickly and
effortlessly. Readers process short clauses
faster than longer clauses. Simplifying
compounded sentences into shorter
clauses helps the reader follow the
message of the text and leads to the
natural repetition of ideas and vocabulary
which can be helpful to a learner. Also,
reading a large quantity of shorter clauses
does in fact prepare students for longer,
more complex sentences. Cicero’s longest
and most tortuous periodic sentence is in
its essence just a series of short phrases
and clauses artfully arranged and
eloquently expressed. As students’
proficiency (and MR) grow, they will
process longer and longer clauses with
increasing ease and accuracy and
diminishing effort as their proficiency
grows. It just takes a great deal of
comprehended messages.
‘Un-sheltered Grammar’
‘Un-sheltered grammar’ simply means
that the grammatical structures in a text
are not necessarily pre-determined, nor
do they follow a prescribed grammatical
sequencing. There is no communicative
reason for a text not to include manus
because it is fourth declension, or loquitur
because it is deponent; they are often
delayed for reason of the systematic
learning and practising of grammar.
Roman authors do not limit themselves
this way; they are communicating a
message to an audience. An author
writing to tell a good story may liberally
use third declension verbs without fear
that the audience has not yet ‘covered
them’ in class; what concerns such an
author is whether or not the story
connects with and is comprehensible to
the intended audience. Texts with
unnaturally or artificially sheltered or
sequenced grammar lack this
communicative authenticity, even if they
are otherwise stylistically and
grammatically sound. Texts written by
native speakers for native speakers are the
best examples of authentic texts, because
they were written to communicate a
message and they adjust their style and
tone to their audience. While many would
define any text written for learners and/or
by non-native speakers as ‘inauthentic’,
for the sake of language acquisition, what
matters more than who wrote the text is
how the text is being used. Rather than asking
if the text is authentic, a better
consideration would be: ‘Is the text being
used authentically; i.e., to communicate a
message’ (Day & Bamford, 1998).
Student-Friendly Comprehension Aids
Books written for novice readers need to
provide comprehension aids in to
establish meaning quickly and easily.
Traditionally, graded readers and
textbooks provide glossaries that use
traditional dictionary entries: principal
parts for verbs or declension and gender
information for nouns, followed by
various definitions. Such entries assume
that the reader has mastered the discrete
grammatical information need to
decipher the terms they are seeking.
Imagine a student looking up tulimus
discovering the word is from tuli, the third
principal part of the verb fero. The reader
must then deduce that tulimus is in the
perfect tense. Then after recalling both
the -mus personal ending, meaning we’,
and the tul- perfect tense stem, meaning
‘has carried’ or ‘carried’, this reader must
finally conclude that tulimus must mean
something like ‘we carried’ or ‘we
brought’. And this of course assumes that
the student somehow found his way to
verb fero in the first place, rather than
fruitlessly browsing the ‘T’ section. More
helpful glossaries may provide such
irregular forms with a note that says
something like ‘see fero’, demanding yet
more flipping from the student rather
than answering their query. On the other
hand, aids friendly to the novice reader
include pictures, footnotes or marginal
glosses, and/or expansive glossaries,
including every inflected form of the
word translated list as separate
alphabetical entries, providing a full
English equivalent. In such a glossary, the
entry for tulimus might simply state: ‘we
carried’. My point is not that students
need not learn to use a Latin dictionary.
Rather, one should not confuse the
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legere discitur legendo: extensive reading in the Latin classroom
destination with the journey. The best use
of traditional dictionary entries are
language study and scholarship, not
reading fluency development and
language acquisition.
Compelling Topic or Plot
Student interest in a text is the key to
extensive reading. The easiest way to
motivate a reader is to give them
something to read that they can
understand and that is interesting to them.
If a reader’s interest in the text is strong
enough, that reader may well choose more
difficult books (e.g., ones that have a
greater density of unknown vocabulary).
Conversely, the simplest text may present
great difficulty to a reader who has no
interest or investment what they are
reading.
Principle #2: A variety of reading
material must be available
Since students in any given classroom will
most likely read at varying levels of
proficiency and possess a variety of
interests, an FVR program ought to
consist of a large pool of texts that reflect
this diversity of skill and interest. While
more and more accessible texts for Latin
students are appearing (many self-
published), the total amount is
exceedingly small compared to other
languages. Day and Bamford recommend
a book per week of independent,
extensive reading; currently, meeting that
recommendation is far too difficult given
the students simply need more easy texts
in Latin, on a variety of topics (fiction and
nonfiction). More available texts would
allow students to better self-select texts
based on their current proficiency.
Principle #3: Learners choose what
they want to read.
In The Power of Reading, Krashen presents
a vast amount of data supporting what he
calls Free Volunteer Reading (FVR),
defined broadly as ‘reading because you
want to’ (Krashen, 2004). Students choose
their own reading material with little to no
traditional accountability attached
(worksheets, book reports, etc.). Also, all
forms of literature are acceptable for
reading material, from novels to comic
books. In Krashen’s view, supported by
Day and Bamford, students improve their
reading by reading (Krashen, 2004). Since
one purpose of extensive reading in a
second language is to provide large
amounts of comprehensible messages (to
build the student’s MR), books need not
be sequenced or graded. Reading in the
classroom should mirror the way readers
outside the classroom use books. Students
should let their interest and inclinations
guide them. Students should be free to
stop reading a book at any point and pick
up another one.
Choice is a powerful motivator. As
stated above, interest will eventually guide
the student towards more complex texts,
as their confidence and proficiency grow,
in the same way that native language
children over time tend to self-select more
and more difficult books for themselves.
To be truly effective, however, an FVR
program first and foremost needs a
library of texts from which students can
choose. While indeed many
‘comprehensible’ novellas and readers
have been published already, the work has
only just begun. Authors are publishing
texts at a steady trickle, when students
need a deluge. In order to appeal to the
diversity of student interest, a similarly
diverse corpus of texts must be readily
available. Scarcity of accessible texts is the
largest obstacle for a Latin classroom’s
FVR program.
Principle #4: The purposes of
reading are generally related to
pleasure, information, and general
understanding.
People typically read for pleasure,
information, or understanding. This
reflects how readers use texts assuming
they freely choose their own texts.
Extensive reading is simply reading for
meaning, i.e., the most natural and
common form of reading in the L1. Few
learner texts in Latin (if any) exist with
this form of reading as the primary goal.
With few exceptions, the material
written for Latin students generally falls
within a few limited categories. A
textbook provides passages and practice,
auxiliary readers provide additional
reading material for a textbook program,
and graded readers contain passages that
begin simple and gradually grow in
complexity. There are also many
transitional readers on the market which
attempt to bridge the gap between
textbook passages and the authentic Latin
literature that make up the traditional
Latin curriculum. These books typically
present a classical text intact or adapted
with copious grammatical and lexical aids
for the student, as well as cultural and
historical background information
essential for interpreting the text. All texts
have a common goal: some form of
intensive reading. Their aim is language
study. The aids exist to assist students in
deciphering a text that is cluttered with
otherwise incomprehensible language.
The reader must parse, translate, decode,
and disentangle the language just to
discover the meaning.
Comprehensible texts for language
learners (like the novellas discussed
above) should exist to communicate a
message to a particular audience. Their
ultimate purpose is to provide a novice
reader with engaging material in order to
facilitate acquisition. Ideally, the author
did not select individual points of
grammar or vocabulary around which to
focus the narrative. The intended
audience, the demands of the narrative,
and the work’s genre freely determine the
vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of the
book, rather than a predetermined
syllabus. Such books by their nature tend
to be more interesting and accessible to
readers (Krashen, 2004). Not only should
the text be simple enough that the reader
can decode it quickly and effortlessly
enough to attend to the message, but the
text should present the reader with a
reason to read it.
Selecting FVR/Extensive Readers:
An overview of available material
organised by levels
Below is a scheme I have devised for
organising some of the currently
available novellas. Three factors guide my
organisation: number of word families,
lexical density, and the amount and
accessibility of vocabulary aids (footnote:
an accessible vocabulary aid might be a
footnote providing a clear English gloss,
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legere discitur legendo: extensive reading in the Latin classroom
Figure 2. | FVR novellas arranged by word count.
and/or a glossary that lists each inflected
form of a word as a separate entry). As is
clearly laid out in the previous section,
the linguistic requirements of the text are
not the only factor to consider when
selecting texts. However, excessive
vocabulary demands may be a novice
reader’s largest obstacle in extensive
reading, and vocabulary count and
density prevent a convenient and
transparent standard by which to divide
the available texts. The audience for this
list is high school students (aged 14-18)
reading Latin texts independently
beginning in the second semester of
Latin I (or first semester of Latin II) until
their final semester of Latin IV.2
Though a recent phenomenon, the
corpus of independently published Latin
novellas continues to grow rapidly;
doubtless by the time this article is
published four or five more will have
been added to their number. As an
author of a few novellas myself, I am
most gratified to see more and more
authors providing a greater diversity of
reading options; and I hope that many
more volumes follow. However, as the
above chart made plain to me even as I
compiled it, there is a large dearth of
intermediate works which can span the
gap between the simplest texts aimed at
near-beginners and the novellas which
demand knowledge of increasingly
greater amounts of vocabulary. Teachers
using novellas to replace a textbook or to
transition their intermediate students to
Latin authors may find many of these
more advanced novellas useful for that
purpose; such novellas, however, may be
less accessible as part of an extensive
reading program, which I confine
narrowly to Day and Bamford’s
guidelines.
In my own classroom, the results of
Free Voluntary Reading have been
remarkable enough that each year I have
expanded the program and dedicated more
classroom time to extended reading across
all levels of Latin. In fact, many of the
traditional Latin bugbears have all but
vanished. For example, generally, my
students read quickly and confidently,
processing the Latin from left to right,
without recourse to ‘reading strategies’ or
‘hunting for the verb’. They do not baulk at
longer texts. They count their progress by
pages rather than lines. When the Latin
language is before them, they see neither a
puzzle nor a knot to be untangled; they
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89
legere discitur legendo: extensive reading in the Latin classroom
read expecting the Latin words to mean
something. While the usual problems of
student motivation and behaviour persist,
each year my classes shift gradually closer
to that ideal which I envisioned when I was
just beginning as a Latin teacher: students
reading the Latin language with confidence
and skill. In fact, a further benefit of
extensive reading has recently emerged:
more and more students are progressing
into the advanced levels. Due to student
demand, this past year I have had to add a
fourth year of Latin study (and soon may
add a fifth). A great need still exists for
more accessible texts on a greater variety
of subjects; specifically, more interesting
texts are needed with unique word counts
under 180 words. According to Waring, a
‘fundamental mistake’ of language
programs is to view extensive reading as
somehow secondary or optional. In fact,
he goes so far as to state:
‘Extensive reading (or listening) is
the only way in which learners can
get access to language at their own
comfort level, read something they
want to read, at the pace they feel
comfortable with, which will allow
them to meet the language enough
times to pick up a sense of how the
language fits together and to
consolidate what they know. It is
impossible for teachers to teach a
“sense” of language. We do not have
time, and it is not our job. It is the
learners’ job to get that sense for
themselves. This depth of
knowledge of language must, and
can only, be acquired through
constant massive exposure. It is a
massive task that requires massive
amounts of reading and listening on
top of our normal course book
work’ (Waring, 2009).
Since I incorporated extensive
reading practices (including FVR) into
my Latin classroom, I have experienced
the joy of teaching students who have a
deep, implicit knowledge of the language.
They have a real Latin ‘sense’, and
reading Latin is no longer a chore, or a
puzzle soluble only by the linguistic or
academic elites. Yet the work is not done;
rather it has only begun. Some of my
fourth-year students have read nearly all
the books on the shelf and ask for more.
My classroom FVR library eagerly awaits
new volumes. The trickle of texts must
become a flood.
Andrew Olimpi,
aolimpi@hebronlions.org.
Andrew has taught Latin for ten
years at Hebron Christian Academy, in
Dacula, GA. He holds a Master’s
Degree in Latin from the University of
Georgia, and attends the University of
Florida in pursuit of a PhD in Latin and
Roman Studies. He is author of the
Comprehensible Classics series of Latin
novellas, aimed at novice and
intermediate readers of Latin. To date,
the series comprises seven volumes.
References
Bailey, J. (2014). “Driving with Dido: How I
Came To Read Latin Extensively.” Available
online: http://indwellinglanguage.com/
reading-latin-extensively/
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The
Psychology of Optimal Experience. New
York: Harper & Row.
Day, R. and Bamford, J. (2002). “Top Ten
Principles for Teaching Extensive Reading.”
Reading in a Foreign Language. Vol. 14, No. 2.
Day, R. and Bamford, J. (1998). Extensive
Reading in the Second Language Classroom.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Grabe, W. (2009). Reading in a Second Language:
Moving from Theory to Practice. New York,
Cambridge University Press.
Hamilton, R. (1992). Reading Latin. The
Classical Journal, V74-1ol. 87, No. 2, pp. 165-74.
Krashen, S. (2003). Explorations in Language
Acquisition and Use. Portsmouth, NH,
Heinemann.
Krashen, S. (2005). The Power of Reading: Insights
from Research. Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann.
Krashen, S. and Terrell T. (1983). The Natural
Approach: Language Acquisition in the Classroom.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Alemany Press.
Nation, I. (2013). Learning Vocabulary in Another
Language. New York, Cambridge University
Press.
Palmer, H. (1964). The Principles of Language
Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
VanPatten, B. (ed.) (2014). Theories of Second
Language Acquisition. New York, Routledge.
VanPatten, Bill. (2017). While We’re on the Topic.
Alexandria, ACTFL.
VanPatten, Bill. (2010). “The Two Faces of
SLA: Mental Representation and Skill.:
International Journal of English Studies 10
(1), pp. 1-18.
Waring, R. (2009). “The Inescapable Case for
Extensive Reading.” In Extensive Reading in
English Language Teaching. (ed.) Cirocki,
A. Munich: LINCOM Europa.
Wegenhart, T. (2015). Better Reading Through
Science: Using Research-Based Models to
Help Students Read Latin Better. Jour nal of
Classics Teaching. 31.
1Here I do want to make one point clear: by
pointing out that traditional methods do little to
foster extensive reading practices, I am not
condemning Latin instruction that teaches
students about the language or claiming that
one instructional methodology is superior to
others. Extensive reading is not a methodology;
it is simply an activity that fosters implicit
knowledge of a language (acquisition) and
therefore helps students develop a sense of the
language, which cannot be taught directly.
Different programs may have different goals.
My goal is to use insights from cognitive science
and SLA studies to shed light on a perennial
issue in classical language studies: why students
with a great deal of knowledge about a language
have such trouble reading that language; that is,
extensively. I believe that studying the properties,
grammar, and structures of language can be a
fascinating and important pursuit, one that
throughout history has occupied some of the
world’s greatest minds. It is less universally
successful at building reading proficiency. Any
language program whose goals include fluent
and confident reading can enjoy the benefits of
an extensive reading program.
2I have classified each novella by unique word
count (not counting inflected forms for the
same vocabulary item), arranged into 5 levels.
I have decided the cap word count at 300
unique words would mean average students in
the upper levels would struggle to read
novellas with a denser vocabulary load than
that. I have also included other information
about texts, including ‘marginal gloss density’
(how many Latin words are glossed in the
text), lexical density (the ratio of unique words
to total words), and cognate density (how
many clear (English) cognates are used).
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