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TEACHING READING
9 May, 2005
TEACHING
READING
To begin this session
an important question we wanted to ask was what do we read in our day to day
life, where, why and how?
The reason for this was
to raise our awareness of our own reading habits, in order to be able to do
this with our students too. One of the most helpful things students can do,
is to transfer skills they use in their mother tongue to similar situations
when learning or using English.
Finally, we discussed
some techniques and approaches teachers use when teaching Reading skills.
What do you
read day to day? Where, why and how?
For our ideas, check
the document DaytoDay Reading.
Some interesting
discussions developed from our ideas in the above brainstorm. For instance,
we touched on how people read and navigate websites and how it is very
different from reading normal texts. This has clear consequences if we are
going to use the computer and Internet in the classroom to teach reading.
Talking about
advertisements and billboards, in the USA it is illegal to use road signs in
advertisements. On the street, if an advert imitates the hexagon and colours
of the "Stop!" sign, the dangers arising from the possible
confusions, are clear.
Interestingly the use
of fonts can affect our reading ability. Whilst a variety of fonts can make a
text more interesting, some learners of Chinese find a unfamiliar font can
make a known word totally unrecognisable.
We also touched on
speed-reading and the technique of reading groups of words, by letting your
eyes jump, rather than go along a line word by word. This is very helpful to
learners for 2 reasons. One, the learner stops focusing on every word, which
slows them down. Two, they can get a feel for a sentence or paragraph,
whereas if they read at a word level they take much longer to get a feel for,
and understand, a text.
Another problem with
many readers, especially Chinese learners of English, is that they read
aloud, or even only to themselves, each word as they read it. This also slows
them down enormously and stops them seeing the big picture. Speed-reading can
avoid this.
Techniques for
teaching reading
This exercise is to
encourage key word scanning. In a text, cover or blank out the weak words
(prepositions, determiners, articles and so on). Then students have to read
and guess the meaning from the key words.
In a given text, draw a
faint, straight line down the middle of the page. Then ask students to read
down the line, not from left to right as they normally would. This encourages
them to read groups of words and allow the subconscious brain to "fill
in the blanks".
Use stories to practice
reading; everyone loves a story! Also, they encourage a sense of logical
progression in the mind of the reader.
Often it's best to let
students read stories for pleasure without the follow up "comprehension
questions". To much analysis can take the joy out of reading. If they
write stories, they should be encouraged to read each other's work. This is
great reading practice, is highly motivating and raises awareness of common
mistakes.
Also, stories can be
backed up with other input, such as images or sound. Using DVDs, pictures,
acting or radio stations, such as China Radio International, which often has
short stories, can help students understand and remember a story and improve
learning.
When reading students
also need giving some cultural and linguistic background. Texts, especially
stories and newspaper articles are culturally loaded. Often important points
will be missed if students aren't given some cultural background.
Some teachers place
high emphasis on vocabulary for learning and when reading. This is exemplary
of the relatively modern Lexical approach to language learning. This says the
fundamental building block of language is the word, word phrase and
collocation, not grammar. So teaching prefixes, suffixes and confusing words
can be invaluable for Chinese students to help them read better.
Teach your students
Latin (although you might have to learn it yourself first!) Awareness of word
derivatives and origins can be very useful for word awareness and remembering
and building vocabulary. People who use lots of Latin based words tend to be
regarded as very well educated and formal. This is a typical trait of Spanish
and Italian learners.
Some teachers add an
extra visual content to reading and learning vocabulary by connecting certain
words to symbols. For example "to" may be written with an arrow,
"among" with brackets in the middle "a(mon)g", and so on.
Closing thoughts.
One of the main
limitations on teaching Reading is students' focus on the exam they have to
do at school or university. For all the skills we teach them, such as
scanning and skimming, for all the activities we do, such as prediction from
title and jigsaw reading (cutting the text up and have Ss put it back
together by reading), if the student's main motivation is to pass an exam
that requires him/her to read and answer several multiple choice questions,
then many of our efforts will be in vain. Given the power exams have over
students, let's hope they will one day have a positive backwash effect and
encourage students to develop useful and practical skills they need in their
lives.
For more resources and hands on activities
for teaching reading, go to the following link:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/read.shtml
I tried the activities
on Reading aloud and found they worked a treat with Chinese students!
To find out more about speed-reading go to:
http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/methods.html
Want to test you reading speed? go here:
http://www.readingsoft.com/
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