EFL Extensive Reading, ICT, and New Literacies by Su-Su Hung

Running head: EFL EXTENSIVE READING

EFL Extensive Reading, ICT, and New Literacies

Su-Su Hung

Washington State University

Abstract

When implementing extensive reading using graded readers with different classes of adolescents studying English as a foreign language (EFL) in Taiwan, I received positive feedback but also observed the repeated existence of a small proportion of students who simply could not be engaged in the program. The experience has propelled me to investigate related research, and the results not only identify efficient implementation guidelines and proper materials for a successful extensive reading program but also confirm the efficacy of extensive reading in developing the English competence of EFL learners and fostering a positive attitude towards pleasure reading. Furthermore, sociocultural perspectives of literacy underscore the need for developing new literacies in this era of rapidly evolving Information and Computer Technology (ICT). The realization initiates exploration into the increasingly important role of ICT in the development of new literacies. The results of investigation posit its indispensable role and promising benefits to EFL learners, which incline me to propose ways to incorporate ICT into extensive reading. Hopefully, the fusion will result in extensive reading programs that can develop not only English linguistic competence but also new literacies.

EFL Extensive Reading, ICT, and New Literacies

Introduction

I have been interested in the effects of extensive reading because Krashen (1982) advocates that it is a great source of comprehensible input. When I taught English as a foreign language (EFL) in Taiwan, I applied extensive reading in the intermediate level English reading course for three successive years to altogether five classes of students. Although I did not conduct empirical studies to obtain scientific findings regarding the effects of extensive reading, informal collection of data had supported me with substantial positive feedback and thus encouraged me to implement it year after year to different classes of students. Interestingly, there were almost always two small proportions of extreme cases, usually five to ten percent of a class of around 50 students. On one extreme were the students who had read much more than the requirement and thus earned a score over 100. One student had even accumulated over 200 points of extensive reading score. On the other extreme were those who had read too few books to earn the minimum passing score of 60.

However, my logical explanation concerning the extreme cases of both my earnest and inert readers had been restricted to their high and low interest in reading in English until learning from Lee (2007) and Moje and Lewis (2007), who open up a sociocultural window to literacy for me. The view afforded by sociocultural perspectives of literacy has directed me to ponder the role that multimodal texts, such as Web pages and videos, might play in youngsters’ literacy development and also their influence in youngsters’ reception of traditional linear printed texts. Consequently, I cannot help wondering if my past inert extensive reading participants were learners whose thirst for literacy could not be quenched by printed books.

In this paper, I will first depict what a traditional EFL extensive reading program is by sharing the implementation guidelines and proper materials informed by related literature. Next, I will summarize several empirical study findings that posit extensive reading to be efficient in developing EFL literacy. With my vision broadened by sociocultural perspectives of literacy, I will then redefine literacy to encompass the facets that have gradually emerged with ubiquitous Information and Computer Technology (ICT). Acknowledging the change in literacy, I will discuss the role of ICT in the development of new literacies and propose possible methods to incorporate ICT into extensive reading so that it will contribute to fostering new literacies in EFL learners of the 21^st century.

Extensive Reading

Krashen’s (1982) advocacy of providing learners with comprehensible input via extensive reading has been supported by research findings (Asraf and Ahmad, 2003; Bell, 2001; Mason and Krashen, 1997; Lao and Krashen, 2000; Rodrigo, Greenberg, Burke, Hall, Berry, Brinck, Joseph, and Oby, 2007; Tanaka, 2007). These studies shed light on basic implementation guidelines and proper reading materials, the combination of which illustrates what extensive reading is. In addition, they posit the potential of extensive reading in improving EFL learners’ English competence.

Implementation Guidelines

For example, Asraf and Ahmad’s (2003) and Rodrigo’s et al. (2007) studies explicitly provide basic implementation guidelines for extensive reading. Although stated in different wording, both programs stress guidance, encouragement, the freedom to choose texts at learners’ independent reading levels, and a relaxing classroom atmosphere where the extensive reading proceeds regularly. In fact, these researchers utilize the commonly cited principles of implementing extensive reading—the top ten principles sketched out by Day and Bamford (2002). These principles include (1) easy reading materials, (2) a variety of topics, (3) freedom of choice, (4) reading as much as possible, (5) reading for pleasure, information, and general understanding, (6) reading for the reward of reading, (7) fast reading speed, (8) individual and silent reading, (9) teacher’s orientation and guidance, and (10) teacher being a role model. Moreover, Pilgreen (2000), after reviewing a number of successful extensive reading programs, highlights conducting undemanding follow-up activities as one essential factor for an extensive reading program to succeed. It is indeed true that all the successful extensive reading programs I have reviewed contain follow-up activities, for instance, writing book reports and giving oral presentations (Bell, 2001), writing short summaries and keeping a personal reading log (Mason & Krashen, 1997), and discussing the reading and writing two short essays (Lao & Krashen, 2000).

Proper Reading Materials

The basic implementation guidelines foreground the importance of providing learners with interesting reading materials that they can comfortably comprehend independently so that they read fast and enjoy reading. Most of the reviewed research studies (i.e., Asraf and Ahmad, 2003; Bell, 2001; Mason and Krashen, 1997; Tanaka, 2007) used graded readers, which are simplified stories written with systematic control over lexicon and syntax to result in progressive difficulty and complexity throughout different levels of readers. Nevertheless, authentic novels were used successfully in other studies (i.e., Lao and Krashen, 2000; Rodrigo et al., 2007). This logically suggests that it is not just reading a lot that counts. Reading proper materials is also important, and both simplified and authentic materials seem to be appropriate for extensive reading if they meet the relevant implementation guidelines.

As to possible reasons why both simplified and authentic texts should be proper extensive reading materials, Crossley, Louwerse, McCarthy, and McNamara’s (2007) study provides some justifications. They used Coh-Metrix, a program that computes readability of texts, to examine several linguistic aspects of authentic and simplified texts. The results indicate that authentic and simplified texts have their respective advantages and disadvantages for English learning. On one hand, simplified texts facilitate English learning because they contain more coreferential cohesion, common connectives, and frequent and familiar words. On the other hand, they are not beneficial to English learners because they have less diversity in parts of speech, causality, and complex logical operators. Insufficient use of the aforementioned results in unnatural language and thus does not facilitate comprehension. In brief, the findings lead to the conclusion that though English learners need to learn with simplified English texts, they should benefit from the exposure to the authentic texts that match their language proficiency. The findings also rationalize the use of graded readers and authentic novels in different successful extensive reading studies I have reviewed.

Effects of Extensive Reading

Several empirical studies indicate that extensive reading is effective in upgrading reading comprehension, accelerating EFL learners’ reading speed, increasing acquisition of vocabulary, improving writing in English, and fostering positive viewpoints of pleasure reading in English. First of all, Tanaka (2007) explored the effect of extensive reading on roughly 113 students in their first year of a public high school in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. The control group was the other half of the same year group in the same school. The extensive reading materials were 38 short passages whose topics accorded with the students’ interests. The percentage of unknown words in each passage was carefully controlled not to exceed 5%. The instructor also introduced graded readers and encouraged experimental participants to read them. Altogether, only 18 students read graded readers. The reading comprehension test results favored only those 18 students. The other participants, who read the 38 short passages but not any graded readers, also improved in reading comprehension, though not significantly better than the control group. As for reading speed, the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group no matter whether they had read graded readers or not.

Second, a similar demonstration of improvement in reading comprehension after reading graded readers was found by Bell (2001). Bell subjected one group of elementary level EFL learners in Sana'a, Yemen to an extensive reading program of graded readers and another group of the same level to an intensive reading program in which they read short passages and did tasks aimed at helping them to learn the vocabulary, grammar, and rhetoric patterns woven in the passages. After about a year, he used a modified cloze test and a comprehension test of multiple choice and true/false questions to measure increases in comprehension as well as reading speed. Students who had read graded readers posted significantly higher gains in not only comprehension but also reading speed than those who had done intensive reading. In other words, in addition to confirming Tanaka’s (2007) finding that reading graded readers could have a positive effect on English reading comprehension, Bell’s finding pointed to its favorable effect on reading speed.

Third, Lao and Krashen (2000), like Bell (2001), also found that extensive reading accelerated reading speed besides increasing vocabulary and interest in pleasure reading. They conducted extensive reading with freshmen in a Hong Kong university. Six experimental classes were assigned five authentic novels and chose the sixth one to read, while two control groups had speaking, writing, listening, and reading in the traditional English class. The outcome favored the experimental students. They exhibited an increase in reading speed and vocabulary acquisition over a semester (14 weeks). The escalation of reading speed was equivalent to an increase from 235 to 327 words per minute. As to the growth in vocabulary, when it was translated into vocabulary size, the result was an increase from 17,000 words to 20,000 words. These students also thought more positively of pleasure reading in English than those in the control groups. Their findings are worthy of attention mainly owing to the different choice of reading materials. Unlike the other studies in which graded readers were used, the participants read authentic novels and achieved improvement in reading speed, vocabulary, and interest in pleasure reading.

Mason and Krashen (1997) performed three successive extensive reading experiments with various groups of college students in Japan, and the outcomes bear similarities with most of the aforementioned studies. Participants in the experimental groups chose what they liked to read from a bank of graded readers, while the control groups received traditional instructions. The findings indicate that extensive reading can increase EFL learners’ interest in reading in English, which is comparable with Lao and Krashen’s (2000) finding, and performance in English as measured by pre- and post cloze tests, and a reading comprehension post test, which are revealed by both Tanaka’s (2007) and Bell’s (2001) studies. Moreover, extensive reading participants improved significantly in writing in English.

The reviewed studies convey the notion that as long as an extensive reading program is conducted by following the implementation guidelines well, EFL learners are likely to benefit from it. Among the guidelines are the principles of providing learners with reading materials that they can comprehend with ease and are interested in reading. On condition that a text fulfills the criteria, either graded readers or authentic novels should be appropriate materials because they offer different advantages to EFL learning.

New Literacies in Extensive Reading

What is missing in the reviewed research articles is attention to the changes in literacy in the 21^st century. As pointed out by quite a few researchers (e.g., Al-Othman, 2003; Evans, 2005; Fecho and Meacham, 2007; Lankshear & Knobel, 2006; Smolin & Lawless, 2003; Warschauer & Ware, 2008), young people of this century have frequent contacts with Information and Computer Technology (ICT). They use cell phones and iPhones. They send e-mail and text messages. They take advantage of the search and communication functions of the World Wide Web. All of the examples above indicate that students today interact with discursive texts that are different from traditional linear printed texts. Moreover, their interactions with discursive texts via ICT have changed the nature of traditional literacy. The fact thus underscores the essentiality of including the opportunities for them to nurture new literacies in an extensive reading program, the lack of which might have explained why some of my inert students just could not be motivated to read books at all.

New Literacies and ICT

To understand the relationship between new literacies and Information and Computer Technology (ICT), it would be helpful to first adopt the expanded definition Fecho and Meacham (2007) ascribe to reading and then ponder over the definition of new literacies shared by Lankshear and Knobel (2006). Fecho and Meachan deem reading in the 21^st century “as the ability to make meaning of that which can be read. As such, gestures, moods, sounds, art, weather conditions, and the like can be read, in that we can interpret meanings from them” (p. 167). This expanded definition of reading is encompassed in the conception of new literacies elaborated by Lankshear and Knobel. They first establish the concept that new does not have to be technological (p. 26). Rather, newness includes “participation,” “distributed expertise,” “collective intelligence,” “collaboration,” “dispersion,” and “sharing” (p. 60). They further define literacies as “socially recognized ways of generating, communicating and negotiating meaningful content through the medium of encoded texts within contexts of participation in Discourses (or as members of Discourses)” (p. 64). The definition subjects the nature of literacies to changes with time, for “socially recognized ways” and “medium of encoded texts” evolve through time. Apparently, what has been evolving quickly with time in this century is technologies. Technologies have, in turn, facilitated the manifestation of the characteristics of newness proposed by Lankshear and Knobel. Therefore, although what is new does not have to be technological, ICT certainly plays an essential role in new literacies today.

Affirming the importance of ICT in the development of literacy in the 21^st century, Smolin and Lawless (2003) illustrate four kinds of ICT literacy: technological literacy, visual literacy, information literacy, and intertextuality. They, quoting from U.S. Department of Education (1997), define technological literacy as “the ability to use computers and other technology to improve learning, productivity and performance” (p. 571). As for visual literacy, they use the definition from the International Visual Literacy Association (1998) and state that it is “the ability to understand and produce visual messages” (p. 571). They then identify information literacy as “the ability to find, evaluate, analyze, and synthesize information” (p. 571). Smolin and Lawless’s explanation of intertextuality presents it as drawing connections among the present multimodal text on a topic that students are exploring with relevant prior multimodal texts to achieve an understanding that does not arise from a vacuum (p. 572). These assorted literacies that ICT is capable of supporting substantiate the role of ICT in the development of new literacies.

Like Smolin and Lawless (2003), Luke (2003) also perceives the impacts of ICT on literacy. The perception impels Luke to implicitly stress incorporating the development of new literacies into academic curricula. Advocating “new hybrid methodologies and theories” (p. 402) in research, Luke explains that modern texts, which refer to such multimodal texts available via new media as hypertexts, games, and text messaging, “have muted into complex, hybrid semiotic systems that have made new demands on reading and writing, viewing, social exchange, and communication” (p. 401). Such new demands on literacy certainly imply their legitimate position in academic learning.

Some scholars explicitly advocate incorporating ICT into content area learning for several reasons. First, embracing the notion of facilitating learning with students’ funds of knowledge, Marsh (2005) urges including media in early education because children as young as those in the nursery schools already have experience with computer games and mobile phones. Second, Kress (2003) explains a fundamental difference between printed texts and images—telling and showing (p. 152). Printed texts tell ideas, while images show them. They are both texts but require different pathways to comprehension, which should be taught explicitly. Accepting this idea, Bearne (2005) concludes that because children, having interactions with multimodal texts, might think multidimensionally, teaching instructions must involve multimodality. Fourth, Caskey (2008) specifically identifies integrating electronic literacies into academic instruction for struggling adolescent readers because these are likely to be what they can and like to read and thus reading them will contribute to building up confidence. Although adolescent EFL learners are not necessarily struggling readers, their English reading competence is normally much lower than that of English native speakers. In other words, linguistically they resemble struggling adolescent English native speakers. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that introducing them to the kinds of electronic literacies they are familiar and comfortable with will increase chances of experiencing successful comprehension.

Other scholars’ notions concerning changes in modern literacies suggest the irreversibility of this ICT trend and consequently the need to prepare children today for future literacies. Leu and Kinser (2000) have detected the necessity to merge literacy instruction with ICT because of three sociocultural factors. The first factor is global economic competition, which renders it crucial for employees to make effective use of information and communication. This includes accessing information quickly, evaluating it appropriately, and using it to solve problems efficiently. Undoubtedly, our present students, who are future employees, must be equipped with such literacy competences. The second element is government policies. Awareness of global economic competition has propelled governments worldwide to put emphasis on upgrading their citizens’ levels of literacy, which inevitably includes ICT literacy. Finally, technologies themselves are evolving rapidly. What was uncommon five years ago, for example, the use of Internet and e-mail, is ubiquitous today. The same is true for the meaning of literacy, which depends on the contexts it is situated in, and the contexts nowadays are closely intertwined with rapidly changing technologies. These sociocultural factors make it indispensable to fuse literacy with ICT. Warschauer and Ware (2008), after elaborating on the radical alternation that ICT has caused to literacy, equate ICT access and literacy to “the new print literacy of the 21^st century” (p. 228). The metaphor further compares those who cannot use ICT effectively to the people who could not read in the 20^th century and, therefore, posits the unalterable trend of ICT literacy.

In brief, traditional literacy has expanded to new literacies due to fast evolving ICT and its pervasive status in the modern world. Sociocultural factors associated with globalization, government policies, and the speedy advancement of technological science mandate the undeniable need for ICT literacy in the 21^st century. Therefore, an extensive reading program that is devoted to fostering EFL literacy should investigate ways of incorporating ICT literacy.

Weaving ICT with Extensive Reading

Although not aiming at investigating the bond between extensive reading and new literacies involving ICT, Al-Othman’s (2003) study indirectly encourages incorporating ICT in extensive reading. The reason is that the findings bear connection with Lao and Krashen’s (2000) finding that extensive reading improves reading speed. Al-Othman implemented two tests, an Online Speed Reading Test and a simulated TOEFL Reading Subtest, to 25 post-graduate students enrolled in an ESL program in Kuwait after they took a background questionnaire survey. The survey results identified 12 of them as being familiar with using the computer while the others were not. Examining the association between the two test results revealed a strong positive correlation (r = 0.92) between reading speed and performance on the Reading Comprehension subtest of Computer-Based Test (CBT) of TOEFL, and those who demonstrated high reading speed were those who were familiar with using the computer. If using the computer often is compared to reading printed texts much, the study results suggest that extensive ICT reading is likely to increase reading speed, and a higher speed of reading on computer screens can have positive effects on computer-based reading comprehension tests.

While the implication of incorporating ICT in extensive reading is discerned from Al-Othman’s (2003) article, Pino-Silva’s (2006) study directly urges integrating ICT in extensive reading. Pino-Silva subjected his participants to a Web-based extensive reading program that had evolved from a paper-based extensive reading program he started more than 10 years ago. Participants read Internet articles issued by journals such as Discover, Scientific American, and Newsweek. The follow-up activity was filling in a worksheet and then posting it on the online Yahoo Group set up for this purpose. The participants’ responses to an open-ended questionnaire indicate that they felt they had learned new vocabulary and appreciated the flexibility of choosing what and when to read and the fact that the Internet offers access to hundreds of new and interesting magazine articles. They also liked being able to have frequent contacts with the instructor because of the Internet. Pino-Silva, therefore, concludes that extensive reading on the Internet is a pedagogical approach that is worth developing.

ICT Extensive Reading

The legitimacy of incorporating multimodal ICT texts in an EFL extensive reading program being established, the next concern is what is available for EFL learners. Smolin and Lawless (2003), in the process of illustrating various literacies supported by ICT, which are technological literacy, visual literacy, information literacy, and intertextuality, deliver the notion that teachers are not supposed to simply give some examples and then instruct students to surf the Internet. Instead, they should pre-select what is suitable for the ages of their students and exclude irrelevant and inappropriate sources to maximize students’ successful autonomous interactions with ICT. The Web sites Coiro (2003) describes in her article to illustrate how Web-based texts, being nonlinear, interactive, and multimodal, are different from traditional printed texts may serve as starting points for finding appropriate sources for particular learners. My exploration of several Web sites exemplified by Coiro has led to the discovery of one PBS Web site and the identification of two shared by Coiro as promising extensive reading sites for EFL adolescent learners. They are summarized below.

PBS Kids Go (http://pbskids.org/go). PBS Kids Go provides various activities such as watching film clips, making cards to e-mail to someone, and playing assorted interactive games. Targeted at children of English as a native language, the linguistic levels should be comfortable for EFL learners of intermediate English competence and appropriately challenging to those of lower levels, and the knowledge required for successful interactions to carry out all the tasks should be common sense to EFL adolescent learners. Although instructions for playing the games are provided, a skillful game player can figure it out without reading them. This should at least motivate struggling EFL learners who are familiar with video and computer games to reinforce their ICT literacy on an all English interface and, hopefully, lead to their attempt to read and understand further.

UNICEF Voices of Youth (http://www.unicef.org/voy/index.php). This site belongs to the United Nations Children’s Funds. Its areas of focus include HIV/AIDS and children, child survival and development, child protection, basic education and gender equality, and policy advocacy and partnerships. There are video clips produced by children, a discussion board where children from different parts of the world share their responses to some topics and receive feedback from peers who have access to the World Wide Web, articles to read, and radio stories by young people from around the world. All the features guarantee chances to practice comprehending multimodal texts. Designed for children to participate in human rights issues concerning them, the English level should be appropriate to EFL learners of intermediate proficiency and comfortable to those at the advanced level. Besides providing opportunities to practice with multimodal literacy extensively, this Web site has the function of broadening readers’ understandings of the social contexts in which reading comprehension takes place (Coiro, 2003, p. 462). Instead of being limited to their familiar social contexts, EFL young learners will know about the lives and issues surrounding other young people in different parts of the world.

CNN Learning Resources (http://literacynet.org/cnnsf). Current news articles are the main texts. Aimed at improving reading comprehension, each article is available in three versions: complete story, abridged story, and story outline. They are always accompanied by an audio reading of the entire article and sometimes a film clip related to the story, both of which provide opportunities to those with strong audio and visual competence to achieve comprehension and also for others to practice listening and visual comprehension. At least one hyperlink to a related Web source is provided to encourage further exploration and reading. As the target users are adults, instead of providing users with intriguing interactive games, the activities are practice with vocabulary, sequencing events, drawing conclusions, and writing individual responses to prompt questions related to the news story. EFL learners of advanced English proficiency should find the content manageable, and it should be challenging to those of intermediate competence.

These Web sites are merely three possibilities out of a plethora. Further exploration will yield more fruitful and appropriate results. As to the suggested learning levels, they are my judgment based on past experience of teaching EFL learners in Taiwan. Although the estimation is grounded in substantial experience, its accuracy awaits verification.

ICT Follow-Up Activities

As informed by the implementation guidelines of successful extensive reading reviewed in the first half of this article, undemanding follow-up activities are one favorable component of extensive reading. If multimodal ICT texts are included in an EFL extensive reading program, the next concern is pertinent follow-up activities that facilitate the development of new literacies. At this point, it should be beneficial to keep in mind words of caution from Coiro (2003). Coiro points out that ICT interactive features can offer so many choices that users are distracted. Consequently, they do not concentrate on one feature for enough time to gain adequate comprehension. These words of caution posit the crucial significance of teachers’ preparation and guidance, which conforms with the ninth of the top ten principles of implementing extensive reading sketched out by Day and Bamford (2002)—teacher’s orientation and guidance.

To design efficacious follow-up activities for ICT extensive reading, teachers can derive inspiration from four sources. The first source is the follow-up activities used in the reviewed extensive reading of printed texts, mostly discussions and writing book reports, summaries, or reading logs. Next is Day and Ainley’s (2008) implementation of literature circles with 22 eleven- to thirteen-year-old middle-school students. The description of their observation and collected data presents literature circles as an activity that encourages students to share their own ideas, opinions, and personal experiences in response to the story they have read. Moreover, a literature circle appears to possess the trait of allowing students to activate their own agency, identity and power because it is completely directed by students themselves in small groups, while a teacher’s major role is assisting and ensuring collaboration among group members. Third, according to Moje and Lewis (2007), for learning to take place, one’s subjectivity and identities, whether they conflict with those existing in the learning contexts or not, must be recognized and accepted. This should not be regarded as risking jeopardizing teachers’ authority if the fourth source, Brown’s (2008) advocacy of taking a sociocultural perspective of expertise, is taken into consideration. From this perspective, all reasonable ideas, regardless of their generators, are contributions to “collaborative meaning making” (Brown, p. 122). In addition, collaboration and the sharing, participation, and collective intelligence associated with it are included in the characteristics that Lankshear and Knobel (2006) attribute to new literacies. In sum, the ideas shared by these scholars direct the design of ICT follow-up activities to be those that provide cyberspace for students to both formally and casually share ideas, collaborate with and learn from one another, and foster autonomy.

Bearing the inspiration depicted above in mind, I suggest designing and setting up online literature circles to complement an extensive reading program that incorporates ICT and fosters new literacies. With the help of the templates Smolin and Lawless (2003) share in their article, a teacher should be able to set up a Web site using Teacherweb (http://teacherweb.com). The template contains the function of supplying links to other Web sites, and this is where a teacher can provide links to Internet sites for extensive reading. In addition, its blog function makes it convenient to set up literature circles among those who play the same game, visit the same Web site, or read the same online article or printed book to share their ideas, opinions, and personal experiences concerning what they have done on line or read. Since students communicate on a blog mainly by writing, such literature circles give them purposes and chances to write in English. The homework feature makes it possible for a teacher to understand whether a student interacts with online resources or reads printed stories regularly by requiring students to submit indication of their work, for example, a worksheet designed to keep students focused on certain tasks and prevent them, especially those participating in ICT reading, from going astray. Finally, the e-mail function facilitates individual contact between a teacher and a student whenever it is preferable.

Conclusion

Research on EFL extensive reading of printed texts provides efficient implementation guidelines. Further examination into proper materials for extensive reading highlights different advantages in using simplified texts, for example, graded readers, and authentic materials. Since their respective characteristics appear to compensate each other, it seems logical to include both in an extensive reading program. Research also posits extensive reading as an effective approach to increasing reading speed and vocabulary, improving reading comprehension and writing in English, and fostering a positive attitude towards pleasure reading. Considering the pedagogy for extensive reading in modern social contexts where ICT, whose texts are authentic, is ubiquitous, we need to ponder deeply over the concept shared by Bearne (2005) that children who have been born into a world of computers and the World Wide Web think differently. This acknowledgement dictates the need to expand the definition of literacy to the new literacies depicted by Lankshear and Knobel (2006). Moreover, the indispensable role of ICT in new literacies entails incorporating them in an extensive reading program so that it will contribute to preparing EFL learners for the actual needs of new era.

My limited scale of research on EFL extensive reading, new literacies, and ICT has uncovered only one study (Pino-Silva, 2006) that incorporated ICT in extensive reading. Apparently, although the role of reading traditional printed texts extensively in EFL has been discussed and studied for decades, little has been done to link it with developing new literacies by incorporating ICT. This definitely suggests the demand for future research. Hopefully, future research findings will generate specific guidelines that guarantee the efficacy of extensive reading in EFL pedagogy and in developing new literacies to provide future EFL learners with a chance to acquire English more accurately and efficiently than their present and past counterparts and obtain the new literacies that will enable them to exceed their predecessors.

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