ようこそ！ Welcome to the Seventh World Congress on Extensive Reading.. In this brief opening ceremony, delegates will be treated to a traditional festival-like performance by the Hokusei Gakuen University Yosakoi Club. Please join us for this exciting start to our biggest ER World Congress yet!

A considerable body of empirical research supports the belief that extensive reading is an effective way for second language learners to develop greater reading fluency. However, recent research indicates that extensive reading alone is not the most effective way to promote greater fluency. In this presentation I first review theories of fluency development proposed by cognitive psychologists and synthesize the key ideas in those studies. This synthesis produces a short list of desirable characteristics of fluency-enhancing reading tasks. I then consider how well extensive reading and other types of reading activities have those desirable characteristics, in what ways these activities appear to be lacking, and how their potential weaknesses can be addressed. This analysis shows that although extensive reading is an indispensable part of a fluency-based reading course, fluency development can be enhanced by using supplementary reading tasks.

It is often recommended that learners not use a dictionary when doing Extensive Reading and instead rely on surrounding context to infer meaning of unknown words. The current research project, supported by a Japanese federal grant, is investigating how access to an integrated dictionary during ER correlates with learners’ ability to accurately guess meaning. Roughly 120 first-year English majors read 200-300,000 words using the ER application Xreading, which offers optional access to glossary definitions. At the beginning and end of the year, students report the reading strategies they use and take a test to gauge their ability to accurately guess meaning from context. This presentation will report results from the first three years of the research project. Results thus far do not indicate overall significant differences between control groups and those allowed dictionary access. Later stages of this research will include further replication and the addition of guessing from context training.

This presentation will highlight the impact of incorporating book-reading activities into the classroom to encourage Japanese elementary school students to learn English. Since the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) officially launched English education at elementary schools in 2020, approximately 70% of students have expressed interest in studying English. However, reading activities remained underutilized in classrooms (MEXT, 2024). To address this, the presenter collaborated with schoolteachers to integrate storybook-based reading activities into lessons, fostering students’ familiarity with English texts. The study involved two classroom teachers and 37 sixth-grade students at a public elementary school in Japan. Activities included weekly teacher-led storytelling using a big book, collaborative reading among students, and independent reading of mini books as homework. Results showed that students improved their receptive test scores and increased their motivation to learn English. This session will provide participants with practical techniques and strategies for effectively integrating reading activities into English instruction.

Some children can read at a high level but beginner readers may struggle performing cognitive tasks such as reading. Therefore, teachers have to learn many reading strategies, teaching methods that can be used to help develop their English language and reading skills. This study aims to improve beginner students' English reading skills by integrating extensive reading practices. For 6 years, students' reading comprehension improved by reading the original text and doing regular exercises after completing the reading task. By using these steps 1. Read with understanding, not speed; 2.Read for 5-10 minutes every day; 3. Use flashcards like CVC, CVCC; 4. Choose interesting books; 99% out of the 200 students in 5 groups at the 8th grade level learned to read well in English, and the remaining 1% needed additional support.

Extensive Reading (ER) is widely recognized for enhancing language acquisition, but its impact on creative writing and discourse agency remains underexplored. This study investigates how ER shapes storytelling, discourse patterns, and identity construction in an EFL Creative Writing course. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, it examines how ER influences students’ narrative structures, lexical choices, and gender representations in short stories. Students read ER texts before writing their own narratives, allowing for an analysis of intertextuality, discourse adaptation, and creative agency. Data is being collected from 6th- and 8th-semester university students, who began writing in February 2025. Preliminary findings suggest diverse discourse adaptation strategies, including intertextual borrowing, narrative transformation, and shifts in identity representation. The study explores how ER shapes students’ portrayals of social identities, including gendered discourse. Findings will provide insights into how ER fosters textual creativity, discourse awareness, and critical engagement, offering strategies for writing curricula integration.

Research is lacking regarding implementing ER activities across an entire Japanese degree programme, including the feasibility of including ER from the students’ first semester of language study. This presentation will discuss how ER is being incorporated into six Japanese language courses, including from the first semester course, and what can be learnt from this trial. Major considerations included whether reading would be required or voluntary, what materials to use and how they would be provided to students, how much students would be expected to read, how to collect data, and how to determine whether they were indeed reading. We are collecting data regarding learner perceptions of attitude and language improvements resulting from doing ER, suggestions of the amount of reading that can be expected of students, as well as data regarding the pace at which they can increase their reading levels when engaged in ER over several years.