DEVELOPING READING SKILLS

Hana Moraová

Outline

What is reading? What do students need to develop? Extensive reading Reading skills Vocabulary development Reading fluency

What is reading?

Reading is a conscious and unconscious thinking process. The reader applies many strategies to reconstruct the meaning that the author is assumed to have intended. The reader does this by comparing information in the text to his or her background knowledge and prior experience.

All reading is culture conditioned, constructed by the reader. The teacher must never forget the different cultural background when using English texts.

In order to read well in English students need to do the following:

1. Develop a schema of the reading process that includes the idea that reading is more than translating—reading is thinking. 2. Talk about their reading, and explain how they make sense of a text. 3.Read extensively for pleasure in English, and discuss their reading with someone who can model the literate behaviors expected in an English-language context. 4. Break the habit of reading every word by reading faster. 5. Learn to vary their reading rate to suit their purpose in reading. 6. Employ top-down processes effectively by learning to make connections between what they already know and what they are reading. 7. Learn reading and thinking skills that fluent readers of English employ unconsciously to strengthen both top-down and bottom-up processing abilities. 8. Enhance bottom-up processing by acquiring the most useful vocabulary and by learning strategies for guessing meaning in context.9. Master the basic 2,000 words that constitute approximately 80 percent of texts in English.10. Acquire specific reading comprehension skills they can apply strategically

Students need

Substantial amounts of extensive reading for pleasure, with opportunities for talking about their books

Focused, interactive lessons on specific reading skills, with opportunities for students to explain their thinking, and direct instruction on applying the skills strategically to a variety of texts.

Training and practice in fluency development (skimming, scanning, previewing) and reading rate improvement.

Vocabulary activities that include direct instruction in high-frequency words, multiple opportunities for exposure to and manipulation of the target words, and plenty of extensive reading.

Basic principles of extensive reading

The reading material is easy texts must be well within the learners'

reading competence in the foreign language

reading comfort zone (for beginners no more than one or two unknown words, for intermediate about five unknown words in the text, i.e. all but advanced learners probably require texts written or adapted with the linguistic and knowledge constraints of language learners in mind)

but  real-world reading, real-world texts?

Principle 2

A variety of reading material on a wide range of topics must be available texts made available should ideally be as varied as

the learners who read them and the purposes for which they want to read. Books, magazines, newspapers, fiction, non-fiction, texts that inform, texts that entertain, general, specialized, light, serious

Varied reading material not only encourages reading, it also encourages a flexible approach to reading (e.g., entertainment; information; passing the time) and, consequently, in different ways (e.g., skimming; scanning; more careful reading)

Principle 3 and 4

Learners read as much as possible. a book a week is probably the minimum

amount of reading necessary to achieve the benefits of extensive reading and to establish a reading habit. This is a realistic target for learners of all proficiency levels, as books written for beginners and low-intermediate learners are very short

Learners choose what they want to read  freedom of choice means that learners can

select texts as they do in their own language

Principle 5

The purpose of reading is usually related to pleasure, information and general understanding learners are encouraged to read for the

same kinds of reasons and in the same ways as the general population of first-language readers

Reading not for comprehension, not for academic purposes but for pleasure, personal experience

Principle 6

Reading is its own reward is not usually followed by comprehension questions follow-up activities possible

to find out what the student understood and experienced from the reading

to monitor students' attitudes toward reading to keep track of what and how much students read to make reading a shared experience to link reading to other aspects of the curriculum

students may be asked to do such things as write about their favorite characters, write about the best or worst book they have read, or do a dramatic reading of an exciting part of a novel

Principle 7

Reading speed is usually faster rather than slower incentive to reading fluency works against the vicious circle of the

weak reader: Reads slowly; Doesn't enjoy reading; Doesn't read much; Doesn't understand; Reads slowly

The virtuous circle of the good reader: Reads faster; Reads more; Understands better; Enjoys reading; Reads faster. . .

discourage students from using dictionaries, encourage them to keep reading

Principle 8

Reading is individual and silent reading is a personal interaction with the

text, and an experience that they have responsibility for (vs. traditional use of text in lessons: vehicles for teaching language or reading strategies or translated or read aloud)

Principle 9

Teachers orient and guide their students students choosing what to read is an essential part of the

approach. reassure students that a general, less than 100%,

understanding of what they read is appropriate for most reading purposes.

emphasise that there will be no test after reading but say you will be interested in the student's own personal experience of what was read -- for example, was it enjoyable or interesting, and why?

Introduce students to the library of reading materials and how it is divided into difficulty levels

keep track of what and how much each student reads, and their students' reactions to what was read

Principle 10

The teacher is a role model of a reader Students do not just (or even) learn the

subject matter we teach them; they learn their teachers. Teacher attitude, more than technical expertise, is what they will recall when they leave us

Selling reading to students, setting good example, read the texts they read

Reading skills

1. Automatic decoding. Being able to recognize a word at a glance.2. Previewing and predicting. Giving the text a quick once-over to be able to guess what is to come. 3. Specifying purpose. Knowing why a text is being read.4. Identifying genre. Knowing the nature of the text in order to predict the form and content.5. Questioning. Asking questions in an inner dialog with the author.6. Scanning. Looking through a text very rapidly for specific information.7. Recognizing topics. Finding out what the text is about.8. Classification of ideas into main topics and details. Categorizing words and ideas on the basis of their relationships; distinguishing general and specific.9. Locating topic sentences. Identifying the general statement in a paragraph.10. Stating the main idea (or thesis) of a sentence, paragraph or passage. Knowing what the author’s point is about the topic.11. Recognizing patterns of relationships. Identifying the relationships between ideas; the overall structure of the text

Reading skills

12. Identifying and using words that signal the patterns of relationships between ideas. Being able to see connections between ideas by the use of words such as first, then, later.13. Inferring the main idea, using patterns and other clues.14. Recognizing and using pronouns, referents, and other lexical equivalents as clues to cohesion.15. Guessing the meaning of unknown words from the context. Using such clues as knowledge of word parts, syntax, and relationship patterns.16. Skimming. Quickly getting the gist or overview of a passage or book.17. Paraphrasing. Re-stating texts in the reader’s own words in order to monitor one’s own comprehension.18. Summarizing. Shortening material by retaining and re-stating main ideas and leaving out details

Reading skills

19. Drawing conclusions. Putting together information from parts of the text and inducing new or additional ideas.20. Drawing inferences and using evidence. Using evidence in the text to know things that are unstated.21. Visualizing. Picturing, or actually drawing a picture or diagram, of what is described in the text.22. Reading critically. Judging the accuracy of a passage with respect to what the reader already knows; distinguishing fact from opinion.23. Reading faster. Reading fast enough to allow the brain to process the input as ideas rather than single words.24. Adjusting reading rate according to materials and purpose. Being able to choose the speed and strategies needed for the level of comprehension desired by the reader

Teaching reading skills

1. Focus on one skill at a time.2. Explain the purpose of working on this skill, and convince the students of its importance in reading effectively.3. Work on an example of using the skill with the whole class. Explain your thinking aloud as you do the exercise.4. Assign students to work in pairs on an exercise where they practice using the same skill. Require them to explain their thinking to each other as they work.5. Discuss students’ answers with the whole class. Ask them to explain how they got their answers. Encourage polite disagreement, and require explanations of any differences in their answers.6. In the same class, and also in the next few classes, assign individuals to work on more exercises that focus on the same skill with increasing complexity. Instruct students to work in pairs whenever feasible.7. Ask individual students to complete an exercise using the skill to check their own ability and confidence in using it.8. In future lessons, lead the students to apply the skill, as well as previously mastered skills, to a variety of texts.

Vocabulary development

In classroom situations, not during extensive reading, ask students e.g. to find 3 unknown words, elicit, write them on the whiteboard

Prepare definitions, ask students to match them to words Pre-teaching needed vocabulary Students on their own may

Choose new words they want to learn. Use a dictionary. Keep a vocabulary notebook—with sentences, syllable break-downs,

and definitions. Make and use word study cards. Review their word study cards—alone, with a partner, and in class Use Web pages to find out more about words and collocation from

concordances. Should vocabulary be taught in families or anything students

come across?

Reading fluency

Reading fast with good comprehension and adjusting the reading rate to suit the purpose for reading (silent reading)

Should constitute about 25 percent of instructional time

Principles Practice with timed reading passages followed by

comprehension questions. Lessons in such skills as scanning and skimming that

help students learn how to move their eyes quickly and purposefully over a text.

Opportunities for large quantities of extensive reading.

Thank you for your attention!