L2 English learners have been blessed with a wealth of research and resources to address various issues in reading comprehension and fluency development, but the same level of attention has not been paid to the issue of “laddering up” to independent reading in other languages. For Japanese, there is the additional barrier of kanji on top of the potential barriers to reading texts written for L1 speakers such as vocabulary, grammar and cultural knowledge. This presentation will discuss these issues as well as introducing some of the available tools and potential solutions that can assist learners to reach independent reading, such as the use of Aozora Bunko and the JLEX lexical analyser. In particular, it will focus on fostering learner reading outside of the classroom, given that the large volumes of text required to achieve independent reading are best done outside of class hours, with some in-class support.