TEACHING READING

By Me and C/P
2013
Slides 1 6
Got more, but they need extensive editing

UNCHARTED TERRITORY

Speaking and listening come first. But

learning to read is, without question, the
top priority in elementary education.
Boyer, 1995, p.69

General considerations concerning the teaching of reading

The main objectives teachers have in mind when attempting to teach their students reading
are to teach them to read fluently and clearly a variety of texts for a variety of purposes, to assess
strengths and weaknesses in reading, to make them aware that reading is an active process in which the
reader interacts with the text to construct meaning, relating himself or herself to his/her experience.
Research has demonstrated that readers do not simply understand the meaning that is in a text, but
they, especially expert readers, reconstruct meaning with a text. Reading is like a transaction in which
the reader brings purposes and life experiences to cope with the text. The meeting of the reader and
the text results in the meaning that is comprehension. Comprehension is closely connected with the
readers background experiences, purposes, feelings and needs.
Instruction in reading strategies is an integral part of the use of reading activities in the
language classroom. Teachers can help their students become effective readers by teaching them how
to use strategies before, during and after reading.
Authentic texts are meant to develop the students skills in reading and speaking by
connecting prior experiences to the reading. The Common European Framework of Languages stresses
the importance of authentic texts which contain interesting topics related to the students everyday life.
Students understanding of written texts should go beyond being able to choose items of factual
information; they should be able to distinguish between main idea and hidden points, between the
main idea of a text and specific detail; they are required to remake text structure and deduce meaning
and lexical reference and to locate information in certain sections of the text.

Stages of reading development

EMERGENT
Print has meaning, some directionality, recognizes some high-frequency
words, relies on pictures for meaning, relies on patterns, some initial sounds

EARLY
Recognizes high-frequency words, pictures confirm meaning, uses syntax
for meaning, starts to self-monitor, can retell, uses patterns to read new
words

TRANSITIONAL
Greater sight word vocabulary, uses all three cueing systems (MSV),
multiple strategies for difficult words, summarizes, longer texts (early chapter
books)

FLUENT
High sight word vocabulary, consistently self-monitors, long texts with deep
meaning, interprets, notes authors craft, reads for a variety of purposes

How to promote Reading Strategies?

Before Reading: Plan for the reading task
Decide in advance what to read for
Decide if more linguistic or background knowledge is needed
Determine whether to enter the text from the top down ( overall meaning) or from the bottom up
(focus on the words and phrases)
During and After Reading: Monitor comprehension
Verify predictions and check for inaccurate guesses
Decide what is and is not important to understand

Reread to check comprehension

After Reading: Evaluate comprehension and strategy use

Evaluate comprehension in a particular task or area
Evaluate overall progress in reading and in particular types of reading tasks
Decide if the strategies used were appropriate for the purpose and for the task
Modify strategies if necessary

STRATEGIES FOR READING COMPREHENSION

Identify the purpose in reading

efficient reading consists of clearly identifying the purpose in reading something
Use graphemes and patterns to aid in bottom-up decoding (especially for beginning level learners)
Student face difficulties to encounter in learning to read is making the correspondences between
spoken and written English
Use efficient silent reading techniques for relatively rapid comprehension (for intermediate to advance
levels)
Help students increase efficiency by teaching a few silent reading rules
Skim the text for main ideas
Skimming consists of quickly running ones eyes across a whole text for its gist
Scan the text for specific information
Purpose of scanning is to extract specific information without reading through the whole text
Use semantic mapping or clustering
helps the reader to provide some order to the chaos
Guess when you arent certain
key to successful guessing is to make it reasonably accurate
Analyze vocabulary
Distinguished between literal and implied meanings
The application of sophisticated top-down processing skills
Capitalize on discourse markers to process relationship
Clear comprehension of markers can greatly enhance learners reading efficiency