POST-READING STRATEGIES

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PRE-READING STRATEGIES

Vocabulary introduction, prediction, knowledge inventory, and content prompting are major components of laying a foundation for comprehension. Following are some ideas for building reading comprehension through pre-reading activities:

READING STRATEGIES

Organization of content, summarization, rereading, and supporting prior predictions are important for the absorption of content material. Following are some ideas for helping students make sense of their reading:

POST-READING STRATEGIES

Skills often used to review reading include validating/refuting predictions, reflecting, comparing/contrasting, inferring, and summarizing. Following are activities to help students reflect on their reading:

What are the stages in a reading skills lesson?

There is no one way of doing a reading skills lesson - it depends on such factors as the aim, the text type, the level of the students, etc. The following are guidelines

1 Arouse interest and help prediction

Encourage the students to think about and discuss what they are going to read. Or create a 'need to know' by telling them how the reading fits in with a later activity they are going to do.

Don't worry about grammar 'mistakes' during these lead-in activities - the aim here is not to focus on grammatical accuracy but rather to interest and motivate the students to read.

Use such prompts as realia, visuals, references to your or the students' experiences, and questions to arouse the students' interest, to activate any knowledge they have about the topic and to help them predict what they are going to read.

Use any clues afforded by the text layout and format. Is it a magazine article, a letter, a theatre programme, etc? Are there any photographs or pictures accompanying the text that can help the students predict what the text is about?

2 Teach any key words

Consider whether there are any key words which you want to teach before the students read the text. As in a listening text the context makes the task of understanding individual words and expressions easier. However, unlike a listening text, the students can see the words so it is not as difficult for them to identify proper names or to take the time to puzzle out the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary.

First reading

1 Set a task to assist overall understanding

This can be in the form of two or three gist questions, or a task.

Don't make the completion of the task dependent on the students reading in too much detail.

Give advice about the type of strategies the students might employ.

2 The students read the text

You may want to give a time limit - this may discourage students from reading for detail when they should be skimming. On the other hand you may want to give them as much time as they feel they need.

3 Feedback

Ask the students to discuss their answers and opinions in pairs or groups before you elicit them.

Second reading

1 Set a task to focus on more detailed understanding

Whether you are using material from published materials or devising your own activities, try to vary the tasks - including tasks which require the students to 'read between the lines' as well as answer questions which call for factual answers.

2 The students read the text for the second time

Again, give them some idea of how long they have to do this and how they should set about the task.

3 Feedback

Again, encourage the students to work together before eliciting their responses.

Follow-up

You will probably want to encourage a personal response to the text from your students.

In this way reading can be naturally integrated with speaking practice.

It may be appropriate for you to read, or to play a recording of all or part of the text so the students read and listen simultaneously. By doing so the sounds and spelling of the language are linked. If the resources are available students often enjoy doing this as a self-access activity. Or you could use part of the text as a dictation activity, perhaps as a revision activity in a later lesson.

As with a listening text, you may want to go on to use a reading text as a context for the introduction or practice of specific language; a point of grammar or pronunciation, a functional or vocabulary focus.

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