• Brown (1989) explains that extensive reading is carried out "to achieve a general understanding of a text."
• Long and Richards (1971, p.216) identify extensive reading as "occurring when students read large amounts of high interest material, usually out of class, concentrating on meaning, "reading for gist" and skipping unknown words."
• The aims of extensive reading are to build reader confidence and enjoyment.
• Extensive reading is always done for the comprehension of main ideas, not for specific details.