Wide Reading

Wide Reading is when different texts are chosen for fluency practice. It is sometimes referred to as Continuous Reading.

As with Repeated Reading, it involves students reading from the same text for a specified period of time. However, instead of repeatedly reading the same passage, with Wide Reading or Continuous Reading students take it in turns to either read different pasages on the same topic or they can take it in turns to read sections from a longer passage. It is essentially fluency practice but without the repetition.

Wide Reading is considered a more natural way of reading and this can be a motivating factor for students. Exposure to more texts through Wide Reading may also expose students to a wider variety of vocabulary, syntax and content, all of which support overall reading skills.

While not as widely researched as Repeated Reading to date, studies examining the effects of Wide Reading on a student’s fluency are comparable to those achieved through Repeated Reading. Both approaches resulted in gains in prosody and word recognition, but students who read widely made greater gains in general comprehension. Some of these studies can be read here, here and here.