A teacher asks her learners of class VIII to read a novel by an Indian author…

Reading strategies in language teaching are broadly classified as extensive reading and intensive reading. Extensive reading means learners read longer texts, such as complete novels, stories, or books, independently and at their own pace, mainly for general comprehension, enjoyment, and to build overall reading fluency and a personal response to the text. Intensive reading, by contrast, means the close, teacher-guided study of a short passage to analyse specific vocabulary, grammar, or other language features in detail.

In this scenario, the class VIII learners read an entire novel by an Indian author on their own and then write an essay expressing their own views on it. This matches extensive reading: the learners engage with a full-length, self-paced text for overall understanding and personal response, rather than analysing a short excerpt line by line for specific language points.

• Intensive reading: close, guided analysis of a short passage to study specific language features, not an independent reading of a whole novel.

• Reading for information: reading a text to locate and extract particular facts or data, not forming and expressing a personal opinion on a full novel.

• Scanning: quickly running the eyes over a text to find one specific word or detail, not a complete reading of an extended text.

Because the activity involves reading a full novel independently for general comprehension and personal response, it is an example of extensive reading.