Reading is a fundamental skill that plays a key role both in education and in daily life. Research has shown that extensive reading, where students choose their own reading material, significantly improves reading skills, vocabulary acquisition and comprehension. Graded readers, especially written books with controlled vocabulary and grammar, are often used to support extensive reading to help accommodate different language levels of readers. Like many other countries, reading literacy is a matter of concern in Slovenia, which prompted us to think about how to encourage students to read. One of the programmes used by schools to combat this problem is the EPI English Reading Badge. Although it uses graded readers and is based on the principles of extensive reading, it is necessary to examine how teachers approach the implementation of the EPI English Reading Badge and to identify strategies to improve extensive reading practices in Slovenian schools. The study involved 146 English teachers from 1st to 5th grade of primary school who are implementing or implemented the EPI English Reading Badge in the past. We found out that English Reading Badge books are most often read together at school, and that marks or certificates are most often used as motivation for reading. These two results contradict the principles of extensive reading outlined by Bamford and Day (2002). They argue that in extensive reading, reading is a motivation in itself and the reader does not need external incentives, while it is also important that students read as much as possible and that reading is individual and silent, which is often not the case in the classroom (Bamford and Day, 2002). The analysis of the results of the questionnaire also showed that teachers in the upper grades spend more hours preparing for the EPI Reading Badge and reading books than those in the lower grades. This makes sense, as in the higher grades more books are discussed and their reading skills are at a higher level than in the first two grades, when reading in a foreign language is not yet included in the curriculum as an objective. We also found that in grades 1, 2, 3 and 5 there is a correlation between the presence of a reading corner with English books and the number of English books students read separately from their EPI Reading Badge preparation. The master's thesis will contribute to our understanding of the development of reading in English at the classroom level.
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