Intensive reading involves learners reading in detail with specific learning aims and tasks.

A group of students sitting at a table doing reading tasks

It can be compared with extensive reading, which involves learners reading texts for enjoyment and to develop general reading skills.

Example
The learners read a short text and put events from it into chronological order.

In the classroom
Intensive reading activities include skimming a text for specific information to answer true or false statements or filling gaps in a summary, scanning a text to match headings to paragraphs, and scanning jumbled paragraphs and then reading them carefully to put them into the correct order.

Further links:

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/theories-reading-2

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/using-texts-constructively-what-are-texts

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