Determining the Crucial Characteristics of Extensive Reading Programs: The Impact of Extensive Reading on EFL Writing

Some scholars have hypothesized that writing style, the special language of writing, is acquired, or subconsciously absorbed, through reading (Krashen, 1984, 2004; Smith, 1988, 2004). The language of writing, it is argued, is too complex to be consciously learned, and there are compelling case histories of those who developed high levels of competence in the written language through reading alone, without instruction (see review in Krashen, 2004).