TEACHING READING

I. INTRODUCTION
Reading is one of the four language skills. It is a receptive skill which involves
responding to texts, rather than producing it. Very simply, we can say that reading involves
making sense of text. To do this, we need to understand the language of text at word level,
sentence level and whole-text level. We also need to connect the message of the text to our
knowledge of the world. In short, reading means “reading and understanding”.
II. WHAT DO PEOPLE READ AND WHY DO THEY READ?
1. What do we read?
There are two different kinds of reading - extensive and intensive reading.
The term extensive reading refers to reading which students do often (but not
exclusively) away from the classroom. They may read novels, web pages, newspapers,
magazines or any other reference material. Where possible, extensive reading should involve
reading for pleasure – what Richard Day calls joyful reading. This is enhanced if students have
a chance to choose what they want to read, if they are encouraged to read by the teacher, and if
some opportunity is given for them to share their reading experiences. Although not all students
are equally keen on this kind of reading, we can say with certainty that the ones who read most
progress fastest.
The term intensive reading, on the other hand, refers to the detailed focus on the
construction of reading texts which takes place usually (but not always) in classrooms. Teachers
may ask students to look at extracts from magazines, poems, Internet websites, novels,
newspapers, plays and a wide range of other text genres (that is, styles or types of text, see page
113). The exact choice of genres and topics may be determined by the specific purposes that
students are studying for (such as business, science or nursing). In such cases, we may well want
to concentrate on texts within their specialities. But if, as is often the case, they are a mixed
group with differing interests and careers, a more varied diet is appropriate, as the reading
sequences in this chapter will demonstrate.
Intensive reading is usually accompanied by study activities. We may ask students to
work out what kind of text they are reading, tease out details of meaning, look at particular uses
of grammar and vocabulary, and then use the information in the text to move on to other
learning activities. We will also encourage them to reflect on different reading skills.
2. Why do we read?
There are many reasons why getting students to read English texts is an important part of
the teacher’s job.
In the first place, many students want to be able to read texts in English either for their
careers, for study purposes or simply for pleasure. Anything we can do to make it easier for
them to do these things must be a good idea.
Reading is useful for language acquisition. Provided that students more or less
understand what they read, the more they read, the better they get at it. Reading also has a
positive effect on students’ vocabulary knowledge, on their spelling and on their writing.
Reading texts also provide good models for English writing. At different times we can
encourage students to focus on vocabulary, grammar or punctuation. We can also use reading
material to demonstrate the way we construct sentences, paragraphs and whole texts. Students
then have good models for their own writing.
Lastly, good reading texts can introduce interesting topics, stimulate discussion, excite
imaginative responses and provide the springboard for well-rounded, fascinating lessons.
III. WAYS OF READING:
Students need to be able to do a number of things with a reading text.
1. Scanning: reading the text for particular bits of information they are searching for (e.g. a
telephone number, television programs at a certain time or a name or other detail in an article).
They do not have to read every word and line; on the contrary, such an approach would stop
them scanning successfully.
2. Skimming: casting the eyes over the surface of the text to get a general idea of what it is
about (eg. looking at a film review to see what the film is about and what the reviewer thought
about it, or looking quickly at a report to get a feel for the topic and what its conclusions are). If
students try to gather all the details at this stage, they will get bogged down and may not be able
to identify the general idea because they are concentrating too hard on specifics.
Whether readers scan or skim depends on what kind of text they are reading and what they want
or need to get out of it. They may scan a computer ‘Help’ window to find the one piece of
information they need to get them out of a difficulty, and they may skim a newspaper article to
pick up a general idea of what’s been happening in the world.
3. Reading for detailed comprehension, whether this entails looking for detailed information
or picking out particular examples of language use, should be seen by students as something
very different from the skills mentioned above.
Many students are perfectly capable of doing all these things in other languages, of course,
though some may not read much at all in their daily lives. For both types of student, we should
do our best to offer a mixture of materials and activities so that they can practice using these
various skills with English text.

Some other ways of reading

1. In real life: Reasons for reading influence how we read, which reading sub-skill we use.
 If you read for the general idea (the gist) → skimming or reading for gist
 If you read a text for specific information or details in it → scanning
 If you read something and get meaning out of every single word → reading for detail.
 If you read long texts such as a story or a novel that involves global understanding →
extensive reading
 If you read and look for all the words in a short extract related to a particular topic to help
students to be aware of how language is used → intensive reading.
2. In class: There are 3 posssible ways of reading a text in class:
 The teacher reads aloud while the students follow in their books.
 Students read aloud in turn.
 Students all read silently to themselves, at their own speed.

IV. STAGES OF A READING LESSON

A. Pre-reading
1. Introducing the text (Lead-in or Warm-up)
Purpose: to help students in their reading by giving them some idea what to expect and to
increase their interest and so make them want to read the text
There are several techniques to introduce the text:
- Eliciting things (Asking students Qs related to the theme + using pictures + their personal
experience)
- Brainstorming ideas (Ss think of ideas/words related to the theme given)
- Predicting content from title/part of a story given.
- T/F sentences (Ss guess whether the sentences given are correct, basing on background
knowledge)
- Holding a discussion → advanced level + time allowed
2. Presenting new vocabulary:
We do not need to present all the new words in a text before students read it. They can
guess the meaning of many words from the context. An important part of reading is being able
to guess the meaning of unknown words, and we can help students to develop their reading
skills by giving them practice in this. Guessing helps to focus attention on new words, makes
them want to know their meaning. Only the words which would make it difficult to understand
the text need to be presented beforehand; other words can be dealt with after reading.
3. Giving guiding questions:
Before students read the text, the teacher can give one or two guiding questions on the
main ideas of the text for students to think about as they read.
Purposes:
- to give students a reason to read by giving them sth to look for as they read the text
- to lead/guide students towards main points of the text (the gist).
B. While-reading
This is the time to develop students’ comprehension and help them to learn the new language.
1. Task types for while-reading :
 Question- Answer: this can be done in pairs or in groups or homework.
 Completing a table
 True/False exercise
 Multiple choice
 Gap-filling exercise
 Eliciting personal response
2. More techniques for checking comprehension:
 Answering comprehension questions
 Saying whether the sentences are true-false or not mentioned
 Arranging jumbled sentences into a paragraph
 Completing the sentences
 Summarising
 Completing a table/chart/diagram
 Matching questions to answers
 Matching jumbled sentence halves
 Finding word/phrase/sentence which tells you that...
 Cloze passage (for intermediate level upwards)
3. Asking questions:
3.1. Question types:
 YES/NO questions: to check comprehension, easier for ss, not require ss to produce
new language.
 OR questions: reply with a word or phrase.
 WH-/INFORMATION Qs: Ss should give short answers.
3.2. Eliciting a personal response
There are three possible ways of eliciting a personal response from students:
  By asking students to match what they read against their own experiences
 By asking students to imagine themselves in a situation related to the text but beyond
their own experience.
 By asking students to express feelings or emotion.
These questions go beyond the text; they require students to respond to the text and to contribute
something personal that comes from their own experience or expresses their own feelings. An
important part of reading in real life is comparing what we read with our own experience; for
example it is interesting to read about another country because we can compare it with our own
or we can imagine ourselves being there. On the other hand, comprehension questions only
focus on the text itself and provide no chance for students to express themselves.
C. Post- reading/Follow up
At this stage, the reading text can be used as a basis for language practice & developing other
skills
Some common activities:
 Speaking: discussion, role-play, interview, retelling the story in your own words
 Writing: gap-filling, reproducing the text in your own words, writing a summary of the
text.
 Language practice (Pronunciation/vocabulary/grammar)

V. READING PRINCIPLES:
Principle 1: Encourage students to read as often and as much as possible.
The more students read, the better at reading they become. Everything we do should encourage
them to read extensively as well as - if not more than - intensively. It is a good idea to discuss
this principle with students.
Principle 2: Students need to be engaged with what they are reading.
Outside normal lesson time, when students are reading extensively, they should be involved in
joyful reading - that is, we should try to help them get as much pleasure from it as possible. But
during lessons, too, we will do our best to ensure that they are engaged with the topic of a
reading text and the activities they are asked to do while dealing with it.
Principle 3: Encourage students to respond to the content of a text (and explore their feelings
about it), not just concentrate on its construction.
Of course, it is important for students to study reading texts in class in order to find out such
things as the way they use language, the number of paragraphs they contain and how many
times they use relative clauses. But the meaning, the message of the text, is just as important as
this. As a result, we must give students a chance to respond to that message in some way. It is
especially important that they should be allowed to show their feelings about the topic - thus
provoking personal engagement with it and the language. With extensive reading this is even
more important. Reading for pleasure is - and should be - different from reading for study.
Principle 4: Prediction is a major factor in reading.
When we read texts in our own language, we frequently have a good idea of the content before
we actually start reading. Book covers give us a clue about what is in the book; photographs and
headlines hint at what articles are about; we can identify reports as reports from their appearance
before we read a single word. The moment we get these clues – the book cover, the headline, the
web-page banner - our brain starts predicting what we are going to read. Expectations are set up
and the active process of reading is ready to begin. In class, teachers should give students ‘hints’
so that they also have a chance to predict what is coming. In the case of extensive reading -
when students are choosing what to read for pleasure - we should encourage them to look at
covers and back cover copy to help them select what to read and then to help them ‘get into’ a
book.
Principle 5: Match the task to the topic when using intensive reading texts.
Once a decision has been taken about what reading text the students are going to read (based on
their level, the topic of the text and its linguistic and activation potential), we need to choose
good reading tasks - the right kind of questions, appropriate activities before during and after
reading, and useful study exploitation, etc. The most useful and interesting text can be
undermined by boring and inappropriate tasks; the most commonplace passage can be made
really exciting with imaginative and challenging activities, especially if the level of challenge
(i.e. how easy it is for students to complete a task) is exactly right for the class.
Principle 6: Good teachers exploit reading texts to the full.
Any reading text is full of sentences, words, ideas, descriptions, etc. It doesn’t make sense, in
class, just to get students to read it and then drop it and move on to something else. Good
teachers integrate the reading text into interesting lesson sequences, using the topic for
discussion and further tasks, using the language for study and then activation (or, of course,
activation and then study) and using a range of activities to bring the text to life. Where students
have been doing extensive reading, we should use whatever opportunities present themselves to
provoke useful feedback.
VI. MORE READING SUGGESTIONS
1. Jigsaw reading: students read a short text which sets up a problem and then, in three groups,
they read three different texts, all of which are about the same thing (different aspects of
behavior such as anger, or different reports on a problem, or different parts of a story or strange
event). When they have read their texts, they come together in groups where each student has
read a different text, and they try to work out the whole story, or describe the whole situation.
JoAnn Miller’s UFO webquest employs jigsaw reading on a large scale, but it is still a highly
motivating technique, despite - or perhaps because of - the time it takes. Above all, this kind of
jigsaw technique gives students a reason for reading - and then sharing what they have found
out.
2. Reading puzzles: apart from jigsaw reading, there are many other kinds of puzzle which
involve students in motivating reading tasks. For example, we can give them texts which have
been chopped up so that each paragraph is on a different piece of paper. Students have to
reassemble the text (see poetry below).
We can give students a series of emails between two people which are out of sequence. The
students have to work out the order of the emails. We can mix up two stories and students have
to prise them apart.
3. Using newspapers: there is almost no limit to the kinds of activity which can be done with
newspapers (or their online equivalents). We can do all kinds of matching exercises, such as
ones where students have to match articles with their headlines or with relevant pictures. At
higher levels, we can have students read three accounts of the same incident and ask them to
find the differences between them. We can use newspaper articles as a stimulus for speaking or
writing (students can write letters in reply to what they read).
We can ask students to read small ads (advertisements) for holidays, partners, things for sale,
etc, in order to make a choice about which holiday, person or thing they would choose. Later,
they can use their choices to role-play descriptions, contact the service providers or say what
happened when they made their choice.
We can get students to read the letters page from a newspaper and try to imagine what the
writers look like, and what kinds of lives they have. They can reply to the letters.
4. Following instructions: students read instructions for a simple operation (using a public
phonebox, etc.) and have to put the instructions in the correct order. They might also match
instructions about, for example, unpacking a printer or inserting a new ink cartridge with the
little pictures that normally accompany such instructions in manuals. We can also get students to
read instructions in order to follow them.
Recipes are a particular kind of instruction genre, but can be used in much the same way as the
examples above - e.g. students read a recipe and match the instructions with pictures. We can
then get them to cook the food!
5. Poetry: in groups, students are each given a line from a poem. They can’t show the line to the
other members of the group, though they can read it out loud. They have to reassemble the
poem by putting the lines in order. A poem I have used like this with some success - at upper-
intermediate levels - is ‘Fire and Ice’ by Robert Frost:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
We can get students to read different poems and then, without actually showing their poem to
anyone else, they have to go round the class finding similarities and differences between their
poem and other people’s.
Another way of using poems with the whole class is to show the students a poem line by line (on
an overhead projector or a computer screen) with words blanked out. The first time they see
these blanks, they have to make a wild guess at what the words could be. When they see the
lines for the second time, the first letter is included. When they see the poem for the third time,
the first two letters are included, and so on. This is a great activity for getting students to really
search in their minds for contextualized lexis.
6. Play extracts: students read an extract from a play or film and, after ensuring that they
understand it and analysing its construction, they have to work on acting it out. This means
thinking about how lines are said, concentrating on stress, intonation, speed, etc.
We can use many different text genres for this kind of activity since reading aloud - a speaking
skill - is only successful when students have really studied a text, worked out what it means, and
thought about how to make sense of it when it is spoken.
7. Predicting from words and pictures: students are given a number of words from a text.
Working in groups, they have to predict what kind of a text they are going to read - or what
story the text tells. They then read the text to see if their original predictions were correct. We
don’t have to give them individual words, of course.
We can give them whole phrases and get them to try to make a story using them.
For example, the phrases ‘knock on the door’, ‘Go away!’, ‘They find a man the next morning’,
‘He is dead’, ‘James is in the lighthouse’ will help students to predict (perhaps wrongly, of
course!) some kind of story about a lighthouse keeper, some sort of threat and a dead person.
(They then read a ghost story with these phrases in it.) We can also give students pictures to
predict from, or slightly bigger fragments from the text.
8. Different responses: there are many things students can do with a reading text apart from
answering comprehension questions with sentences, saying whether something is true or false or
finding particular words in the text. For example, when a text is full of facts and figures, we can
get students to put the information into graphs, tables or diagrams. We can also ask them to
describe the people in the text (where no physical description is given). This will encourage
them to visualise what they are reading. We can let students read stories, but leave off the
ending for them to guess.
Alternatively, they can read stories in stages, stopping every now and then to predict what will
happen next. At higher levels, we can get students to infer the writer’s attitude from a text.
We can also get the students involved in genre analysis - where they look at the construction of
a number of different examples of, say, magazine advertisements in order to work out how they
are typically constructed.