From Reading to Understanding: Promoting Intensive Reading and Literary Awareness Through Graded Readers in EFL Context

Abstract

This study investigates the use of graded readers to promote intensive reading and literary understanding in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Grounded in the integration of Intensive Reading, Text-Based Instruction, and the Reader-Response Approach, the study employs a qualitative classroom-based descriptive design to examine how a single graded literary text can function as a tool for close reading, textual analysis, and introductory literary engagement. Data were collected through multiple classroom-based sources, including students' written chapter summaries, vocabulary journals, discussion responses, and a reflective questionnaire, which together provided a rich account of students' reading processes and learning outcomes. The findings reveal that graded readers facilitate close reading by enabling students to identify explicit information, understand plot progression, and develop vocabulary through focused textual engagement. Beyond literal comprehension, students demonstrated the ability to construct meaning by interpreting narrative elements such as character experiences, setting, and themes. Reflective and reader-response activities further encouraged students to connect the text with personal and cultural experiences while remaining grounded in textual evidence. These results suggest that graded readers, when integrated into a structured intensive reading framework, can support holistic literary understanding by bridging linguistic development and interpretative skills. The study contributes to EFL reading pedagogy by demonstrating that simplified literary texts retain sufficient depth to foster meaningful interpretation and critical reflection among early undergraduate learners, and highlights the potential of multi-method reading cycles as replicable instructional models in EFL literary classrooms.