The Potential of Series Books: How Narrow Reading Leads to Advanced L2 Proficiency

Abstract

Nobody disagrees that reading is good for students’ language development. The more they read texts that they can understand, the more confident and adept they become. However, it can be quite a struggle to get students started on their reading journey. We suggest that this is partly due to a lack of access to comprehensible and compelling reading materials. We argue that book series, which contain highly familiar language, easy-to-follow story lines and relatable characters, can potentially be used to get students hooked on reading and to keep them reading.