DEVELOPING READING SKILLS

Generally speaking, we read for two main reasons: pleasure and the need for
information. We read because we want to get something from the text – a message –
facts, enjoyment, ideas, or feelings. For our pupils, reading in English is also a means of
improving language itself. Some of the language read will stick in their mind as part of the
process of language acquisition. Reading also provides models for writing, opportunities
to practise and develop the reading skill, and to gain cultural insights and understanding.
Reading is also essential in the teaching of literature.
In discussing reading, we will consider the text, one’s reasons for reading, reading
styles, and what the reader brings to the process of reading.
The aim of this unit is to help you build awareness and understanding of current
theories of reading and an ability to translate these theories into practical applications for
the classroom.
By the end of the lecture, you will be able to:
 use recent information about reading that relates to classroom instruction
 set up a variety of classroom reading tasks
 integrate reading activities with the development of one or more other skills
 identify the various sub-skills involved in the reading process
 select and apply appropriate classroom activities to develop the reading
sub-skills
 apply in your classroom ideas, suggestions, examples of reading
techniques that are consistent with theoretical principles
 assess reading techniques, comparing and contrasting them with other
activities that have been found to be successful, practical and relevant.

The Text

There is a variety of text types. These can be grouped into categories, known as
genres, such as:
 functional or immediate reference information texts
 enjoyment and correspondence
 literary texts
 journalistic literature and topical information texts
 leisurely and incidental information texts
 professional, specialised or technical texts
 miscellaneous, etc.

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 Could you group the following texts according to the genres
mentioned above? Use the table provided below.
personal letter, literary studies, magazine articles, reports, editorials,
recipes, car repair manual, operating instructions, brochures,
cartoons in newspaper, picture captions, textbooks, novels, tales,
essays, diaries, biographies, rhymes, postcards, notes,
telegrammes, stop press, advertisements, headlines, television
listings, comic strips, cartoons, guidebooks; dictionaries, catalogues,
telephone directories, directions, puzzles, timetables, maps, legends
(of maps, pictures), posters, signs (e.g. road signs), business letters.
Genre Text Types
Functional or
immediate
reference
information texts
Literary texts
Professional,
specialised or
technical texts
Enjoyment and
correspondence
Leisurely or
incidental
information texts
Journalistic
literature and
topical information
texts
Miscellaneous
Although you should encourage your pupils to read and get familiar with as many
different types of texts as possible, not all of them can be used in any classroom. Your
decisions about what texts to use will depend on who your pupils are and what they need
reading for. A balance has to be struck between the types of reading texts and the pupils’
capabilities and interests.

Authenticity of Text and Task

There has been a lot of discussion about the texts that are suitable in the
classroom. The greatest controversy has centred on the authenticity of texts. Authentic
texts are written by and for fluent native speakers, while inauthentic texts are specially
designed for learners. In a really authentic text, nothing of the original is changed, either in
terms of structure and vocabulary or presentation and layout. Recent textbook materials
try to preserve as many of the initial features of an authentic text as possible so that the
pupils can anticipate meaning by using non-linguistic clues.
Some teachers believe authentic texts cannot be used with beginner pupils.
Actually, there is some authentic material that even beginners can understand to some
degree, such as menus, timetables, signs, and simple instructions. Getting your pupils
accustomed to reading authentic texts from the beginning does not necessarily mean a
more difficult task for them. However, the use of authentic texts with beginner pupils may
be frustrating and that is why more accessible, simplified texts are often used instead.
Simplifying a text may mean either replacing difficult words or structures by those
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already familiar to the pupils, rewriting it in order to make its organisation more explicit, or
giving a simplified version of the contents.
The difficulty of a reading activity depends as much on the text itself as on the task
set for the pupils. That is why, your selection of the activity is as important as the selection
of the text.
The reading tasks must be realistic in terms of both language use and pupils’
abilities. They should also be flexible and varied. Some may consist in questions of various
types. Other texts may lend themselves to non-linguistic activities (e.g. tracing a route on a
map, or matching drawings and paragraphs). Anyway, you should encourage your pupils
to use different reading strategies (e.g. ‘Now skim this text quickly and get the main idea’;
‘You’ll have to study this text carefully to look for…’). However, it is also important to
remember that many texts are to be read for pleasure and that some activities might spoil
this pleasure.

Here is a short paragraph made up of well-formed, temporally

accurate and meaningful sentences. Do you think this text is
authentic? Why (not)?
I don’t know what to do for my holiday. It will start at the
beginning of October. I saved enough money for a really nice trip.
Last year I went to the Black Sea coast. It will be too late to go to the
mountains. I worked hard all year. I really need a break.

Text Structure
A text is not a random collection of sentences. A text that communicates
successfully has unity: the sentences and paragraphs that make it up are related in a
meaningful way to each other. In order to comprehend the message of the text, the pupils
have to be aware of these relationships and of certain features of text structure.

 Cohesion
Cohesion refers to the way a text holds together by particular linguistic means.
These include pro-forms (e.g. pronouns, a few verbs like have, will, do) connectors,
reference, substitution, ellipsis and vocabulary. It is essential for the pupils to understand
how a text is made up, the web of relationships that is built among the ideas. If the pupils
fail to understand this, they may also fail to understand the structure, the communicative
value of the text, and its function.
In the classroom, questions involving cohesion can serve as a comprehension-
checking device, for they enable you to see if the correct interpretation has been made.

Could you identify some of the cohesion markers in the

following extract from Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods?

“Consider this: Half of all the offices and malls standing in

America today have been built since 1980. Half of them. Eighty
percent of all the housing stock in the country dates from 1945. Of all
the motel rooms in America, 230,000 have been built in the last
fifeen years. Just up the road from Gatlinburg is the town of Pigeon
Forge, which twenty years ago was a sleepy hamlet – nay, which
aspired to be a sleepy hamlet – famous only as the hometown of
Dolly Parton. Then the estimable Ms. Parton built an amusement
park called Dollywood. Now Pigeon Forge has 200 outlet shops
stretched along three miles of highway. It is bigger and uglier than
Gatlinburg and has better parking, and so of course gets more
visitors.”

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  Connectors:

 Reference:

 Ellipsis:

 Vocabulary:

 Coherence
Coherence refers to the way in which sentences and groups of sentences in a text
make sense in relationship to each other. Sometimes the writer indicates the relationship
between sentences by the use of connectors, such as: but, moreover, and yet, in contrast,
etc. Some other times the pupils will have to infer the writer’s purpose and the relationship
between the sentences.
Some texts achieve coherence through other means, too. In telling a story, for
example, or giving a report, the writer usually proceeds by telling what happened next. In
descriptive passages, coherence may be achieved by the writer describing different
aspects of the same object, person or scene.

The sentences below are both cohesive, but one has a problem
of coherence. Which is incoherent? How can you explain the
problem?
a. Yesterday I got up late and had to leave in a hurry.
b. Yesterday I got up late and it will have to fly away.

 Sequences
The sequence of sentences and paragraphs indicates relationships between ideas
and information. For instance, “They were watching television when we got home”
suggests that ‘we got home’ is more important than ‘they were watching television’. “When
we got home they were watching television” suggests that ‘they were watching television
is more important’.
 Grammar
Grammar also has a text function. If someone says “I was driving very fast. I had
overslept, you see”, we probably understand that ‘I had overslept’ is an explanation for ‘I
was driving very fast’. This is partly because of the sequence, partly because of ‘you see’,
but also because we expect the past perfect to be used to provide explanations.

Reading Styles
A crucial factor in reading is purpose. This determines the way we read. In real life
we may want to glance quickly through a sports article to see who won, or to go quickly
through a telephone directory to find someone’s telephone number. On the other hand, a
legal document requires much closer attention, perhaps several readings, because we
need to grasp the information in detail. We read different texts with different purposes and
at different speeds. In some cases we read silently while in others aloud.

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  Reading aloud and silent reading
Reading is normally a silent activity and it should be encouraged as such in the
classroom. You can sometimes read aloud fragments, especially for beginners, but the
pupils should be asked to read aloud as rarely as possible. Reading aloud may have some
value as a means of testing pronunciation, but it does not help comprehension. Also,
excessive practice in reading aloud tends to prevent the pupils from developing efficient
silent reading strategies. Moreover, reading aloud is a highly specialised skill and very few
pupils will need this.
Other kinds of reading found in the classroom include silent reading and following
the text in the book while the teacher or individual pupils read aloud. Silent reading should
be encouraged in most cases, though you may sometimes need to read parts of a text
aloud.
 Intensive reading
Intensive reading is reading (relatively) short texts to extract specific information.
For instance, we read poetry or legal documents intensively, focusing on the words used.
In the classroom, intensive reading is usually an accuracy activity. It is a way of
focusing the pupils’ attention on language rather than content. This kind of reading can
contribute immensely to improve the pupils’ language competence. However, intensive
reading does not always contribute to the development of reading skills.
 Extensive reading
Extensive reading consists of reading (longer) texts, usually for one’s own
pleasure. The emphasis is on the information content of the text. Extensive reading is a
fluency activity involving global understanding, in which the pupils do not check every
unknown word or structure.
There is one major condition for the success of an extensive reading activity: the
text must be enjoyable. The main criteria for choosing extensive reading materials are
length, appeal, variety and easiness.
The length of the text must not be intimidating. Beginners, especially, need short
texts that they can finish quickly, to avoid boredom or discouragement. The texts must be
appealing: they must look attractive, be well-printed (bigger print for elementary pupils)
and have (coloured) illustrations.
There must be a variety of texts to suit the pupils’ needs in terms of content,
language and intellectual development. The level of the extensive reading material must
be easier than that of the textbook used in the classroom. Otherwise, the pupils will not
read for pleasure or fluently.

Which kinds of texts are suitable for intensive reading, which for
extensive reading and which for either strategy?

The only way to become a good reader is by reading. If the average educated
native speaker can recognise about 50,000 words of the mother tongue in print, this is not
an objective that the foreign English student can reach without a great deal of reading.
An extensive reading programme can be the most effective way of improving both
vocabulary and reading skills in general. The more reading your pupils will do, the more
skilful they become at reading.
 Skimming and scanning
Skimming and scanning are necessary for fast and efficient reading.
Skimming involves reading for an overall understanding of the text. The reader is
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quickly running one’s eyes through a text to get its essence, its general idea or gist.
Reading a few sentences, recognising a few words and expressions, a few main point(s)
and the function(s) may be enough. However, skimming involves some interpretation. For
instance, a reader may skim the review of a book to see if the reviewer thinks it is good or
bad.
Practice in skimming will show your pupils how much they can find out simply by
looking at the prominent elements of a text, by catching a few words or by reading
fragments. To train your pupils in skimming, you can remove a few sentences from a text,
or even whole paragraphs – making sure those parts contain only supporting details – and
ask our pupils to supply the missing parts.
Scanning is quickly going through a text to find particular information. Readers
look quickly through the text to find words that answer their specific questions. For
example, we may scan the TV times in search of a certain film, to see on what channel it is
on and when it is scheduled.
Scanning is a visual skill more than an interpretive one. When you practice
scanning in the classroom, make sure that you give your pupils clear instructions as to
what they need to find out. For example, if you ask them to scan advertisements for ideas
on where to spend a holiday, they would need to find out about accommodation, prices,
meals, contact names and addresses, etc.
Pupils will need practice in both skimming and scanning, as it is usual to make use
of both when reading a text.

Each of the following descriptions refers to one kind of reading.

Write down the name of the kind of reading in the space provided:
a) You read a poem and enjoy paying close attention to the
poet’s use of language. You do …………………… reading.
b) You need bibliography for a research assignment and
you look quickly through the books and articles that you find in the
library to see whether they contain information you need. You do
…………………… reading.
c) You are on holiday and you read an adventure story.
There is no pressure on you to finish the book quickly. You do
…………………… reading.
d) While waiting for an appointment with your dentist, you
pick up a magazine and discover an article that interests you. You do
not have time to read the article in detail but you try to extract as
much information from it as you can. You do ………………... reading.
(after M. Parrott)

Intensive, extensive, scan and skim reading do not exclude one another. We often
skim through a text to see what it is about before deciding whether it is worth scanning for
specific information. In real life, our reading purposes constantly vary and we need various
approaches to cope with our needs. That is why your pupils need practice in different ways
of reading. Their choice of reading style will depend on the nature of the text and the
purpose they have in reading it.
It is important to give your pupils practice in different reading styles. This is
achieved not by telling them to skim, scan or read intensively but by setting tasks that
encourage these styles. It is the task which provides the pupils with a purpose and enables
them to practice and develop a style. Classroom activities should ensure practice in all
reading styles so that your pupils do not use the same strategy for all texts.

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 The Aims of a Reading Programme
Do pupils read in the classroom for the same reasons as people do in the real
world? Away from the classroom, we may read
 to obtain information for some purpose or because we are curious about some
topic
 to obtain instructions on how to perform some task for our work or daily life
 to keep in touch with our friends by correspondence
 to know where and when something will take place or what is available
 to know what is happening or has happened (as reported in newspapers,
magazines, reports)
 for enjoyment or excitement.

Before you continue reading, try to answer these questions:

Do any of the reasons above match your classroom reading
aims?
Do your pupils need to do all these things in English?

In some reading classes, the only function the pupils can see seems to be “English
has to be learnt” or reading techniques have to be learnt. In such cases, the pupils’
motivation is low. If your pupils see no other purpose in reading other than that you make
them do it, then reading lessons will be unsuccessful.
Some classes can focus primarily on the development of reading skills, while
others can include reading skills as part of integrative practice. Classroom reading
activities are suggested by:
 The needs, interests and abilities of the pupils. You will need to emphasise
the kind of activities your pupils will encounter in English. You must ask your pupils and
yourselves what kinds of texts they read in Romanian and if the strategies and skills that
they already possess in Romanian can be transferred to English reading tasks.
 The aims of the particular lesson. The reading activities should be
harmonised with the aims and the other work that is practised during the lesson.
 The purpose for reading a certain text. Class activities should help your
pupils to become active decision makers and risk takers. They should become
independent readers who set their own goals and strategies for reading.
 The specific characteristics of the reading text. You often have to
determine what kind of reading the text invites and develop activities and contexts that
parallel the most realistic and appropriate approaches to a given text.
 Individual pupil needs. Individual pupils may require explicit instruction in
different aspects of reading: skimming, scanning, understanding organisational clues,
accessing prior knowledge, making hypotheses, etc.

Before reading on, make a list of the reading objectives you

have set for your pupils so far. Then compare them with the
objectives discussed below and think which of these you could use in
the future.

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 First you must decide what your pupils need to get out of their reading, select
motivating texts and set clear tasks. Some times the pupils have no particular interest in
reading a text because the text is not motivating. Moreover, if the task is not very clear, it
may distract the pupils’ attention from the text or spoil their enjoyment.
Your purpose in teaching reading is to train your pupils to read fluently, without
help, and for their own enjoyment. Your role is to facilitate this process by selecting texts
suited to your pupils’ goals and interests and practising appropriate techniques. Your aims
for the reading classes should include the promotion of the sub-skills of:
1.reading texts with comprehension
2.using various reading styles
3.learning (both content and language) through reading
4.reading critically
Your aims will vary with the pupils’ age, interests, skills and knowledge, and the
time allotted to reading in your syllabus.
Your pupils should be able to identify the purpose and the function of a text, its
main topic and the way the topic is developed through different paragraphs. In spite of the
language problems that may arise from time to time, they should also be able to interpret
individual sentences, using techniques for dealing with unfamiliar vocabulary. Remember,
however, that not all texts need to be read for full comprehension.
Your pupils should be able to skim, scan, and read intensively and extensively,
according to their purpose. In order to develop flexible individual reading styles, you
should provide practice in a variety of text types. Many recent textbooks offer such a
variety of text types and further variety can be provided by using supplementary materials.
A common reason for reading in the classroom is to learn English. A reading text is
often used as a vehicle for presenting and practising grammatical structures and lexical
items. This is perfectly acceptable as long as both you and the pupils are aware that it is
not a reading lesson. Texts for this type of activity tend to be selected because they
provide lots of examples of a particular structure. The problem is that texts are often
artificially created round a structure, resulting in unnatural language.
While reading, your pupils will meet a great deal of new language and new
content. The pupils should be able to pick out the relevant information, evaluate arguments
and evidence, and distinguish between main points and details.
Lessons should address specifically the problems your pupils have. The following
could reasonably be lesson aims for reading lessons:
 to increase pupils’ awareness of how a clear purpose can make reading more
effective
 to present strategies for dealing with individual unfamiliar words
 to increase pupils’ awareness of different reading styles
 to provide practice in intensive reading or in scan reading
 to present various aspects of British culture enabling them to make useful
predictions.
The areas of language knowledge which have an effect on pupils’ ability to read
effectively are usually addressed in separate lessons. The following could well be such
lesson aims:
 to introduce and provide practice in collocations (e.g. nice and easy, out and
about, peace and quiet).
 to provide practice in ‘mixed conditionals’ focusing attention on the meaning of
each clause.
 to present contrast conjunctions (e.g. though, however, although)
 to present a way of dealing with unfamiliar words by breaking them down into
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 parts
 to provide practice in recognising foregrounded information by looking at clause
orders in sentences
If you prefer you can state your aims in a more learner-centred way:

 to help the pupils increase their understanding of how they can make correct
inferences using background knowledge
 to help pupils use their extensive background knowledge to make correct
inferences, etc.
 to enable them to consolidate their understanding of the function of
conjunctions (e.g. however, although, though) and of their place in the
sentence.

Reader and Text: an Interactive Relation

Traditionally, reading was seen as a ‘passive’ skill and the reader as the ‘recipient’
of information; the text was seen as an object. This viewpoint has been replaced by a ‘text
as process’ one, by acknowledging the close interaction between the reader and the text.
Reading is now seen as a complex information-processing skill. Recent
approaches to reading emphasise the interactive relation of reader and text in which
meaning is created. In pedagogic terms, reading means reading and understanding.
Reading is seen as an active, purposeful process, related to problem solving. It constantly
involves the reader in guessing, hypothesising, predicting, checking and asking oneself
questions. The reader is an active participant in the reading process, co-ordinating a
number of sub-skills and strategies to facilitate comprehension.

6.4.1 Sub-Skills Involved in Reading

Due to its complexity, reading is often analysed into a set of component sub-skills
(both lower and higher level), and knowledge areas:
 Recognition
 Knowledge of the language
 Knowledge of formal text structure
 Content and background knowledge
 Cognitive processing
 Metacognitive knowledge and skills monitoring
The lower sub-skills involve rapid, precise and unconscious processing, such as
allowing readers to recognise words and grammatical forms rapidly and automatically. The
higher skills enable them to comprehend, synthesise, interpret, and evaluate the text.
 Recognition sub-skills
These consist of the abilities of recognising the sounds and the script of a
language, deducing the meaning and use of unfamiliar words, understanding information
both explicitly stated and implicit.
Your pupils must be able to recognise the English script, the combinations of
letters in the spelling of words, and able to recognise words. They should not waste time
working out each word or group of words, even if they may not know all of the words in the
text they are reading.
 Knowledge of the language

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 This means understanding conceptual meaning, the relations within the sentence,
the communicative function of sentences, the relations between the parts of a text, and
cohesion devices.
Your pupils will need strategies for dealing with unknown words. Reaching for the
dictionary is not always a good idea. Explain to your pupils they will meet three kinds of
unknown words: key words, words which can be ignored and words that can be guessed.
The words that are not significant for a general understanding of the text can be
ignored. Key words, however, need to be understood; you either pre-teach them, or
recommend the use of a dictionary. In the third category there are words whose meanings
can be inferred from the context, and your pupils should be given practice in doing this.
They can be convinced of the value of guessing from context if you provide simple texts in
which nonsense words are used. Consider the following sentences:
a. When their car broke down, the whole family had to strack home – a
distance of two hundred metres in the rain.
b. After their walk the children were so zlopped that they needed a hot bath
and then they went straight to plenk.
c. The following gart they woke up feeling all right.

Can you guess what English words the above nonsensical

words replaced?

It is quite easy to guess the meanings of the nonsense words in these sentences,
and for general understanding it does not really matter whether gart is “morning” or “day”.
Discovering the meaning of unfamiliar items making use of contextual clues (syntactic,
logical and cultural) is called inferring. When you use a new text, you do not always need
to explain the difficult words and structures beforehand. You can encourage your pupils to
guess the meaning of unknown items, based on word-formation or context. Efficient
readers generally read in groups of words, without looking at everything in a given piece of
writing, and going for the overall meaning of a text.
 Knowledge of text structure
This involves knowledge of how a text is organised, of the rhetorical structures and
conventions, of specific logical patterns.
Your pupils must know the language of the text they are reading: the content
words and what they mean, though perhaps not all of them. Also, they must know the
syntax and the effect of structural words, of word form, and of word order. A competent
reader of English is aware that a sentence like “She shouldn’t have been there at that
time” cannot stand alone and must refer to a situation already mentioned in an earlier part
of the text. The identity of ‘she’ must already be known and the place and time signalled by
‘there’ and ‘at that time’ must have been specified already. Exercises in which pupils are
asked to search for and underline or circle cohesive pairs in a text are recommended.
It is also important to train your pupils to look first at the basic sentence pattern
(subject + verb) and then at the other elements and their contribution to sentence
meaning. To practise this, you can ask them to divide passages into sense groups and
analyse the important elements.
Another important ability is that of recognising and interpreting discourse markers,
such as then, next, after this, which show the sequence in which events occur. Other
markers, such as for example, all in all, as already noted, indicate that the writer is
exemplifying, summing up or referring to a point made previously. However and moreover,
signal that the writer is making an adjustment to a previous statement or adding further
evidence. You need to teach your pupils to recognise the various devices used to link
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sentences and ideas. You may offer them exercises in recognising the function of
connectors, finding equivalents, completing texts with the missing link-words, transforming
disconnected sentences into text by joining sentences and adding connectors.
Understanding the meaning of individual sentences is important, but insufficient.
Your pupils should be able to recognise the purpose of the text as a whole, to see how it is
organised, and to understand the relationship between sentences. They should be able to
follow the writer and see how the sentences and the paragraphs are related to each other,
and make sense of the text.
 Content and background knowledge
This involves prior knowledge of content, background or culture. All readers bring
their ‘knowledge of the world’ to a text: life experience, familiarity with a particular topic and
with different text types, but also knowledge of a particular culture or way of life.
Whether knowledge of the world will help your pupils to understand the text will
depend on the nature of the text and their knowledge. The cultural background of your
pupils, if different from that of the writer, may cause additional difficulties in understanding
a text. If you want your pupils to be able to read a text effectively, you have to provide such
knowledge or enable them to access it in some way before the reading. However, you do
not need to prepare your pupils for everything that they will encounter in the text. Very
often reading also means learning.

Look at this short newspaper note from The Observer, 25

March, 2001.
Blair rejects Marbles plea
Tony Blair yesterday rejected long-standing demands by
Greece for the return of the sculptures removed from the Parthenon
200 years ago. In an interview with the Athens daily ‘To Vima’ he said
the Elgin Marbles ‘belong to the British Museum … which does not
intend to return any part of the collection to its country of origin’.
Greece had hoped to have the pieces returned by 2004, when it will
host the Olympics.
What kind of knowledge is necessary to understand this?

You also need to encourage higher level interpretation sub-skills, as reading

involves the formulation of constant guesses or predictions that are either rejected or
confirmed later. The reading activities should cultivate the pupils’ ability to recognise the
purpose of the text as a whole, text organisation, and to think ahead, hypothesise and
predict text development.
 Cognitive processing sub-skills
This involves hypothesising, the drawing of inferences, and the resolution of
ambiguities and uncertainties; prediction, evaluation of information, and synthesis.
Predicting is guessing based on grammatical, structural, logical and cultural clues.
Predictions are crucial in anticipation and skimming. You can train your pupils in predicting
by giving them unfinished passages to complete or by stopping after each sentence and
asking them to say what is likely to come next (e.g. ‘What do you think will happen next?’,
‘What do you think the next words will be?’ or ‘What do you think the next sentence will be
about?’) To help them, you can give three possible continuations and ask them to choose
the one they think is most likely to follow. Another idea is to remove all punctuation from a
text and ask the pupils to put it back.

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 Try your hand at devising prediction questions related to a
paragraph in a textbook material. Ask one question after the title and
then one question per clause, if possible. Ask as many questions as
you can. Here is a short text:
The Statue of Liberty
In the water around New York City is a very small island called
Liberty Island. On Liberty Island there is a very special statue called
the Statue of Liberty. It is one of the most famous sights in the world.
(fragment from Folse, Keith, 1993, Intermediate Reading Practices, Ann
Arbor, p. 164)

Anticipating is inherent in the process of reading, which is a permanent ‘dialogue’

between the reader and the text. The readers usually start reading a text prepared to find
answers to their expectations. These expectations are as important as what they actually
draw from the text.
To give your pupils an incentive for reading, before starting reading a text, you can
ask them to look for answers to specific questions. You can also make them ask questions
themselves. You can use key words, the title, and the accompanying pictures to talk about
various ways in which the text may develop, e.g. ‘Look at the pictures and guess what the
text is about’.
 Metacognitive knowledge and skills monitoring
This is knowledge about cognition and language, recognising text structure and
organisation, using a dictionary, taking notes, and so on. Skills monitoring involves
previewing, recognising problems with information presented in the text, adjusting
strategies.
Previewing involves the use of the table of contents, the appendix, the preface,
and the headings in order to find the information needed. It is used in skimming, scanning
and as a study skill.
Pupils need to be made aware that there is not just one way of reading as they do
not always recognise this. Their instincts are to read every reading text thoroughly and try
to understand every word. This will not improve their reading ability, because this is not the
way people read in real life.
Your first task is to persuade your pupils that there are different ways of reading for
different purposes and that they need to practise different reading techniques.

What type of processing, lower or higher level, is involved in the

following reading tasks:
1. Choose the most suitable heading from the list A - I for
each part 1 - 7 of the text.
2. What does it in line 12 refer to?
3. Seven sentences have been removed from the article.
Choose from the sentences (A - H) the one which fits each gap.
4. Read the text and take down notes under the following
headings….
5. Choose from the list (A - H) the sentence that best
summarises each part (1 - 6) of the article.
6. Choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits
best according to the text:
What was the dance like?
A formal C informal
B boring D confusing
Anca Cehan 12
 1. 4.

2. 5.

3. 6.

Models of Reading: Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processes

The top-down model recommends that readers should start with the global
understanding and move towards details rather than the other way round. This means that
you need to offer your pupils relatively little practice in intensive reading and a lot of
practice in anticipating the content of texts, guessing, increasing reading speed, and
practice in skimming.
Thus, when constructing or using comprehension exercises on a given text, it is
preferable to start with the overall meaning of a text, its function(s) and aim rather than
working on specific details or vocabulary. The activities that help the pupils in gaining or
accessing background knowledge also facilitate top-down processing. Among these there
are pre-reading discussions, reading within a topic area, extensive reading, and sustained
silent reading. All these involve the pupils in reading large amounts of text for general
comprehension.
 Procedures for developing top down reading skills
If you want to apply a top-down reading approach, you can choose from among
several procedures:
 present typical text patterns (e.g. a typical essay paragraph pattern is “Topic -
Restriction – Illustration”; a typical advertisement pattern is “Problem – Solution –
Evaluation”)
 while pupils read topic sentence or introduction, help them to predict what
might come next
 ask pupils to use white correction fluid to cancel unfamiliar words - this may
help them to work out the approximate meaning from context.
 help pupils to predict next utterance, word or phrase by referring them to
discourse markers: not only... helps predict but also.., and another thing helps
predict additional information, opinions, etc. or referring them to grammar markers:
e.g. ‘When I got home I discovered...’ helps predict the past perfect.

However, the importance of lower-level processes should not be underestimated,

as fluency of reading is especially important. Less proficient readers often have difficulty in
recognising the English words rapidly and accurately and spend their time attending to the
graphic form. Knowledge of syntax and vocabulary is also critical.
It seems that below a certain language proficiency threshold in English, it is
unrealistic to expect your pupils to be able to transfer and use effectively the reading
comprehension processes they use in Romanian. Language plays a critical role in reading
abilities, and reading is fundamentally a balanced language and thinking process.

 Procedures for developing bottom-up reading skills

These procedures fall into two main categories: a) helping pupils to cope with
unfamiliar vocabulary and b) helping them develop text analysis skills.
a) developing vocabulary decoding skills
 teach suffixes and prefixes and ask your pupils to work out the meanings of
unfamiliar words with such suffixes and prefixes
 help your pupils recognise words ‘families’ by getting them to complete word
grids:
Anca Cehan 13
 noun adjective verb
description descriptive describe
suggestive
persuade
 present compound words and ways of guessing their meanings from
components (e.g. bus ride, hairband, lipstick, etc.)

b) developing recognition of text features

 present grammatical ‘reference’ words and show how they refer backwards
and forwards to other words and phrases in the text (e.g. personal pronouns,
demonstratives)
 do the same with typical lexical reference words. for example, you can put a
circle around a lexical reference word and show, with an arrow, what it refers to
 present linking words (e.g. if, so, because, though, etc.)
 ask your pupils to put together a text whose paragraphs have been
scrambled, discussing why they have made their decisions.
You should engage your pupils in activities that combine top-down and bottom-up
strategies in reading. In practice this means discussing the topic of a text before asking
your pupils to read it, arousing expectations, and eliciting connections between references
in the text and situations known to the pupils.
Fluency in reading requires skill in both top-down and bottom-up processing.
Fluent readers employ lower and higher level reading subskills simultaneously. They
possess a large receptive vocabulary and knowledge of syntactic and rhetorical structure.
They interact with the text to create meaning. They approach it with prior knowledge (of
what the text is, of what they expect it to mean, of how it is to be read) and cognitive skills,
combined in developing predictions about its content and development. While reading,
fluent readers may re-read fragments of the text rapidly to confirm or reject these
predictions. If the predictions are confirmed, they continue reading with an increasing store
of information on the topic. If the predictions are not confirmed, the readers return and re-
read more carefully.

Reader Response

To make your pupils active in the reading process, you will have to ask for a
response from them. Their response can be either linguistic or non-linguistic
 Linguistic responses
Linguistic responses can come in the form of answers to comprehension
questions. These can take a variety of forms: yes/no, true or false, multiple choice, grids or
charts to be completed, and open-ended questions. Answering comprehension questions
orally round the class is a very common technique used for developing reading
comprehension. A variety of different question forms will enable your pupils to use their
different skills in appropriate ways.
An alternative way of using questions is to ask the pupils to think up and ask the
questions themselves. Their questions will show their current understanding of the text,
their current perception of what is difficult and important in it. This understanding will
change and develop as they continue reading.
Asking questions may be not always a very successful activity for large classes.
As (usually) only one pupil answers a question, the rest of the class does not need to pay
attention. Thus, it may be difficult for you to see whether your pupils have really
understood a text. To maximise the pupils’ participation, you can devide the class into
groups and give each group a different fragment to read. In their groups the pupils discuss
Anca Cehan 14
their interpretations and then compose the questions they want another group to answer.
The questions do not need to have only one answer. When they have completed their
discussion and agreed on the questions, the pupils pass the fragment and their questions
to another group to answer. Thus they try out possible solutions to the problems they
identify in the text. They can call you in when they need you. Such an activity requires
repeated readings of the text and stresses the process of understanding. Also, listening,
speaking, and writing are naturally integrated in such class interaction.
 Non-linguistic responses
Many activities that do not involve verbal responses can also prove your pupils’
understanding of the text:
 comparing text and image by matching passages of the text and diagrams;
 rendering the information into the form of a diagram;
 performing an action, finding a solution, making a decision using the
information from the text.

What other things can your pupils do with the information from a
text to prove their understanding of it?




 Procedures for encouraging response to a reading text

1. Give your pupils a set of comments (What rubbish! That's interesting, I didn’t
know that, etc.). The pupils have to write the comments in the margin while
they are reading.
2. Give them a set of headings which they must apply to appropriate paragraphs.
3. Give them a set of sentences which they must fit into the text at appropriate
places.
4. Ask them to invent their own paragraph headings and their own sentences for
insertion.
5. Get them to role-play author and reader: give the ‘reader’ a set of questions;
the ‘author’ has to re-read the text and try to reply. (e.g. When you wrote... ...,
did you mean… or… ?)

Reading in English vs. Reading in Romanian

There are both similarities and differences between reading in a foreign language
and reading in the mother tongue. The differences concern the acquisition of the
respective foreign language, the training background, language processing and social
context. For instance, most foreign pupils who study English, begin reading in English with
different knowledge from native readers. Before they begin reading in school, English
children already have a large vocabulary store (5,000 to 7,000 words) and a good intuitive
sense of the grammar. The typical Romanian children who learn to read in English have
not yet learnt a lot of vocabulary, nor have they acquired a complete sense of the grammar
of English.
This explains why your pupils encounter many difficulties caused by language
processing differences. Transfer effects, as in the case of ‘false friends’ (e.g. library,
terrible, sensible, etc) can influence vocabulary recognition. Orthographic differences,
unfamiliar syntactic structures, word order, and other structural differences between
English and Romanian mislead your pupils, particularly beginners. Your pupils’ incomplete
Anca Cehan 15
knowledge of the language may cause serious difficulty with some texts. In fact, a
fundamental difference between the native readers and the foreign readers is that the
former use the language to help them read, whereas the latter use reading to learn the
language.

What are, in your opinion, the advantages of your pupils over

the native readers of English as far as learning reading is
concerned?

The Three-Phase Approach to Reading Activities

R. White suggests three stages and a general procedure for a reading lesson: he
recommends the use of pre-, while- and post-reading activities. The procedure relies on
the pupils’ knowledge of language and knowledge of the world and uses this as a basis for
involvement, motivation, and progress. It also leads to the integration of language skills.
Pre-reading activities are meant to introduce and arouse interest in the topic, to
motivate the pupils by giving them a reason for reading and to provide some language
preparation for the text. In real life, we usually have a purpose in reading: something we
want to find out, to check or clarify. We also have a purpose in reading when we read
stories for pleasure: we want to find out how the story develops, ‘what happens next’.
Moreover, we always have some idea of what we are going to read about and as we read
we address the writer questions in our mind. Based on these, we may be able to make a
number of predictions or guesses. Headlines, chapter headings or book titles often make
us think about the text before we begin to read.
In the classroom, it is important to give the pupils some reason for reading or
problems they want to find the answer to. These may consist in questions for them to think
about as they read. (The answers will be discussed afterwards.) These questions are
called guiding / signpost questions: e.g. “What would you like to know about…? Write
down at least five questions, which you hope the text will answer” or “You are going to
read a text about…. Here are some words and phrases from the text. Can you guess how
they are used in the text?”
Another type of pre-reading activity may be true / false questions: the pupils are
given sentences that refer to the text, and they guess whether they are true or false.
Alternatively, they are given a summary of the text with gaps; their task is to guess what
words should go in the gaps. They may also be given the topic of the text and may be
asked to write a list of things they know and things they do not know about the topic. If the
text puts forward an opinion, the pupils discuss the topic beforehand and give their own
point of view.
Although you are not supposed to teach every word or structure in the text that
you think your pupils are not familiar with, you should ensure that your pupils would be
able to do the text tasks without being hindered by language difficulties. On the other
hand, language preparation can be carried out by the pupils themselves.
The use of visuals, such as photographs, maps, diagrams, the drawing up of lists,
and the setting or answering of questions (oral or written) may all be part of pre-reading.
While-reading activities usually start from a general understanding of the text, and
then move to smaller units: paragraphs, sentences and words. The larger units provide a
context for the smaller ones. The activities aim at helping the pupils understand the writer’s
purpose, text structure and content.
The traditional comprehension questions, placed either at the end, at the
Anca Cehan 16
beginning or inserted at various points within the text, are a typical example of a while-
reading activity. Completing diagrams or maps, making lists, taking notes are other types
of while-reading work.
Post-reading activities enable the pupils to consolidate and reflect upon their
reading and to relate it to their own knowledge, interests, or views. Post-reading activities
may deal with reactions to the text and to the while-reading work. The pupils may be asked
to say whether they liked the text and the activities or not, or whether they found them
useful or not. Other post-reading activities are:
 writing an outline of a paragraph or longer text;
 drawing a list of main ideas from the text and then working individually or in
pairs to locate supporting details;
 matching, in pair or group work, a column with main ideas from a passage with
a column of details;
 underlining generalisations and supporting details or creating topic sentences
for portions of the text;
 determining the function of each sentence in a paragraph or longer text
(stating a generalisation, supporting it, catching and holding the reader’s
attention, etc.);
 choosing a main idea (or best title) for a passage from among several choices,
or creating one on their own;
 doing a jigsaw reading in which the pupils are given different parts of a text,
and working together to create a logical sequence. Each pupil is given a
sentence or a passage from a text and they have to look for significant details
that will give them clues to the development of the whole text. Using these text
indicators (referring either back to something mentioned before or announcing
something to come), each pupil has to interact with the others until they find
out where their passage belongs in the text.
Exploring the relationship of ideas in a text can be carried out at almost any
proficiency level. Beginners can develop semantic maps that are entirely schematic,
containing basic words or no writing, with pictures. Here is an example of such a semantic
map, drawn around the concept of house:

paper grass tree

work desk garden play

vegetable

eat table chair flower

bed

HOUSE

wall kitchen

roof room bathroom

door bedroom

chimney sitting-room

Tasks addressed to more advanced pupils are more sophisticated. They are
usually based on complex thinking and engage the pupils with the language in different
Anca Cehan 17
ways. Both texts and tasks approximate more closely to the kind of texts and tasks that the
pupils tackle in Romanian. The tasks involve longer, multi-stage, integrative activities,
entailing extended speaking, listening and writing. Some pieces of writing demand a
personal response such as interpretation, application to other contexts, criticism or
evaluation.

In which of the three phases, pre-reading, while-reading or

post-reading, would you use the following activities:

1. Do-it-yourself questions: the pupils compose and answer

their own questions.
………………………………
2. Responding: the text is a letter or a provocative article; the
pupils discuss how they would respond, or write an answer.
………………………………
3. Signpost questions: a general question is given before
reading, asking the pupils to find out information central to the
understanding of the text.
………………………………
4. Continue: if the text is a story; the pupils are asked to
suggest what might happen next.
………………………………
5. Provide a title: the pupils suggest a title or an alternative
title.
………………………………
6. Summarise: the pupils summarise the content in a sentence
or two (in English or Romanian).
………………………………….
7. Preface: if the text is a story; the pupils are asked to
suggest what might have happened before.
………………………………
8. Mistakes in the text: the text has, towards the end,
occasional mistakes (such as wrong words or omissions). The pupils
are told in advance how many mistakes to look for.
………………………………
9. Comparison: there are two texts on a similar topic; the
pupils note points of similarity or difference of content.
………………………………
10. Gapped text: towards the end of the text, 4-5 gaps are left
that can only be filled in if the text has been understood.
………………………………
11. Re-presentation of content: the text gives information or
tells a story; the pupils re-present its content through a drawing that
illustrates the text, colouring, marking a map, lists of events or items
described in the text, a diagram – grid or flowchart – indicating
relationships between items, characters or events.
………………………………
(after Penny Ur, 1996, A Course in Language Teaching, Practice and Theory, CUP)

The three-phase approach should not be carried out mechanically on every

occasion. Sometimes you may wish to get your pupils to work on the text directly. At other
times post-reading activities may not be suitable.

Anca Cehan 18
 Summary

As a foreign language skill, reading is very important; in fact, one may argue that it
is the most important, especially for those pupils who may never actually have to speak
English. However, in the regular classroom reading should not be separated from the other
skills, since in real life there are few cases when reading is not linked to these.
The unit offers a classification of reading texts and refers to the importance of
some text characteristics for efficient reading. A number of reading styles are described,
while the idea that the purpose of reading determines the reading style chosen is
underlined. Formulations of aims for reading activities and types of reading activities that
cultivate various reading sub-skills are also suggested.

Key Concepts

 text authenticity
 cohesion
 coherence
 intensive reading
 extensive reading
 skim reading
 scan reading
 top-down processes
 bottom-up processes
 reader response

Further Reading

1. Grellet, Françoise, 1981, Developing Reading Skills, CUP

2. Nuttall, Christine, 1982, Teaching Reading Skills in Foreign Language,
Heinemann
3. Silberstein, Sandra, 1993, Techniques and Resources in Teaching Reading,
OUP

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