TEACHING READING “Effective reading is essential for success in acquiring a second language. After all, reading is the basis of instruction in all aspects of language learning: using textbooks for language courses, writing, revising, developing vocabulary, acquiring grammar, editing, and using computer-assisted language learning programs. Reading instruction, therefore, is an essential component of every second-language curriculum. Understanding some important facts about reading, literacy, and teaching methods is essential for providing effective instruction in reading.” By Beatrice S. Mikulecky, Ed.D.
Kimberly Anahí Pineda Salazar
Pre activities: Skimming: In class, a short period of time (two minutes or so) for the learners to skim the first paragraph or page of the text, look at illustrations and subtitles, and identify the words in the text that explain the "who," "what," "where," and "when" of the text content—to identify core vocabulary words that will help them work through uncertainties.
Visual Aids: Pictures and other visual material can activate your prior knowledge. Use the Internet to search for pictures related to your title/topic to give you visual images of what you are about to read.
Vocabulary Previews: List all words in the assignment that may be important for students to understand. Arrange words to show the relationships to the learning task. Add words students probably already understand to connect relationships between what is known and the unknown. Share information with students. Verbally quiz them on the information before assigned reading begins.
Structural Organizers: Before reading an assignment, basic frameworks which are included in the text should be pointed out such as cause-effect or problem-solution. It can be beneficial to call attention to specific plans of paragraph or text organization such as signal words, main idea sentences, highlighted phrases, headings and subtitles. A review of skimming techniques might also be appropriate as these various areas are covered.
KWL: This strategy consists of three steps for students to use with expository text: What do I Know? What do I Want to learn? What did I Learn?
Predicting: Examine the cover illustration (if there is one) and read the title of new book. Ask child to predict what it might be about based on the cover picture, the title, or both. If the title and illustration are not helpful in giving the student a sense of what the story is about, you can provide a brief summary of the book. For example, when looking at a book with a picture of a cat on the front, you can say: "This story is about a cat that moves to a new house and has some adventures while trying to make new friends."
Activating Background Knowledge: Ask the student to tell you what he or she knows about the subject of the story or if he or she has had similar experiences, or heard or read a story like this or by same author. "You said you have a cat. Tell me what your cat does all day and who its friends are. What kind of friends do you think the cat in this book might find?" If the topic is totally unfamiliar, reconsider book choice, or take extra time to build the necessary background knowledge through some kind of concrete experiences. For example, if you choose a book about a farm and the student has never been to a farm you may want to begin by looking at pictures of farms and farm animals, and having a brief discussion about what kinds of things happen on farms: what animals live there, what things grow on farms, etc.
Conducting Picture Walk: With Emergent and Early readers conduct a "Picture Walk" through the book, or chapter, by covering the print, and encouraging or guiding the student in a discussion of what could be going on based on the pictures. If there is vocabulary that may not be familiar to child such as "cupboard" or "bonnet" point the words out and explain them in connection with the pictures and the context of the story. "You're right, in this picture the teeny tiny woman is putting on her hat, except in this book it's called a 'bonnet' (pointing to the word) which is another word for hat. She is putting on her teeny tiny bonnet. Do you think she is getting ready to go somewhere? “In your discussion of the pictures, be sure to use as much of the actual book language as possible, especially if there are repeated patterns or refrains. (The Teeny Tiny Woman, Barbara Seeling).
Noticing Structure of the text:
Where appropriate, point out or help the child notice the structure of the text and connect it with other similarly structured texts heard or read. "Yes, this is a fairy tale. We've read several fairy tales together. What do you know about fairy tales? What have you noticed that is the same about the three tales we read?"
Forming Purpose for Reading: Formulate and encourage the student to come up with two or three predictions or questions before reading. "This is a story about a boy who wants a dog, but his mother won't let him have one. What do you think he is going to do first? Why do you think that?" "You already know a lot about dinosaurs. What are some things you want to find out about them when you start reading this book?"
During activities: Marginal Notes Encourage students to use a system of marginal notes instead of a highlighter while they are reading a text. This will be a new activity for many students and will require a great deal of practice for students to feel comfortable with it. For example:
Role Playing Good Reading Habits Using a short passage, try role playing how experienced readers might actively engage themselves with a text. examples of what you might try: Talk about what images are forming in your mind as you read a portion of the text.
Inspirations Watch a film inspired by a story (e.g., Franny and Alexander is inspired by Hamlet) and compare/contrast
Picture this Bring in art related to book's time or themes. Compare, describe, and discuss.
Read aloud One student starts the reading and goes until they wish to pass. They call on whomever they wish and that person picks up and continues reading for as long as they wish
Epistle poem Write a poem in the form and voice of a letter: e.g., Phoebe to Holden from Catcher in the Rye.
Dear diary Keep a diary as if you were a character in the story. Write down events that happen during the story and reflect on how they affected the character and why.
Fictional friends Who of all the characters would you want for a friend? Why? What would you do or talk about together?
Author interview Write an interview or letter in which the character in a story asks the author a series of questions and reflects on how they feel about the way they were made.
Create a diorama Create a diorama of a particularly important scene such as the court room or E wells' house in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Post activities: Summary Writing Ask students to write a summary of the main points of a text or passage. Figuring out what to include in a summary is often a difficult task for students, so passing out a handout with the criteria for a good summary can serve as a reminder to students.
Writing outlines It is also a good way to organize and remember concepts. The emphasis here should be on how students see the relationships between ideas being presented. Don't worry if students don't use the correct Roman numerals or other markers. What is important is that they are able to distinguish the main ideas from the supporting details and organize the information in a logical format.
Creative Testing To evaluate how much of a text students understood, and to see how confident students are when answering questions about a text, you can try the following quiz method I saw used by a
colleague, Vicki Robinson, in a physics class at NTID. This method also encourages valuable small group discussion of concepts. Here's how it works: Students read an assigned number of pages for homework. (The number of pages assigned usually depends on the level of difficulty of the text.) They are told that they will be quizzed on the information the next day. When the students arrive for class the following day, they are each given a quiz and asked to complete it individually. The quiz involves a series of TRUE/FALSE (T/F) questions where the students are required to write three answers for each question.
Choral Montage This strategy can be used after key points in a text to explore different points of view about what has happened
Recasting the text Students rewrite a poem as a story, a short story as a poem or play. All rewrites should then be read and discussed so as to understand how the different genre works.
What if‌ Write about or discuss how the story would differ if the characters were something other than they are: a priest, another gender or race, a different age, or social class.
Oprah Book club Host a talk show: students play the host, author, and cast of characters. Allow questions from the audience.
Gender-bender Rewrite a scene and change the gender of the characters to show how they might act differently (e.g., Lord of Flies). You can also have a roundtable on gender differences
Roundtable Give students a chance to talk about what intrigues, bothers, and confuses them about the book.
Dear Author After reading a book the student(s) write the author via the publisher (who always forwards them).