The Principles of Teaching Reading
How to teach reading skills depends on which objectives the teacher aims at developing in his/her students and on how lesson plans are structured. To this effect, teachers must make decisions about the objectives of their reading comprehension lesson.
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For example, the following objectives guide the teacher in teaching reading skills.
Pre-reading activities are an essential part of the reading lesson because of the following:
The following are a few examples of while reading activities:
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For example, the following objectives guide the teacher in teaching reading skills.
- Reading for gist?
- Reading for specific information?
- Reading for detailed comprehension?
- Developing speed reading?
- Training learners on specific reading strategies?
- A combination of the above goals?
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How to teach reading relies also on the way the lesson is structured. Any reading lesson plan should include three stages:
- Pre-reading stage
- While the reading stage
- Post-reading stage
- Pre-reading stage
Pre-reading activities are an essential part of the reading lesson because of the following:
- They help students be more prepared for what they are about to read
- These activities help learners anticipate the topic of the reading.
- Formulating expectations about the content of the text help learners prepare themselves for the kind of language, vocabulary, and even grammar that might be used in the text.
- These activities create the need for reading the text to know more about a topic.
- By creating the need to learn more about the topic, these activities increase students’ motivation.
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The teacher must activate students knowledge about the topic of the text they are about to read using the following activities:
- Brainstorming
- Discussions
- Pictures
- Pictionary
- Predicting
- KWL chart (Know, Want to Know, Learned)KWL chart is an excellent reading strategy to guide learners through a text. KWL stands for Know, Want to know, Learned. The aim is to elicit learners’ prior knowledge of the topic of the text and set a purpose for the reading activity.
- Cloud of words
- Videos are an excellent tool to create a context for the reading activity and to bridge the gap between listening, writing, speaking, and reading skills.
- While reading activitiesWhile reading activities are activities that help students focus on text features and its comprehension.
The following are a few examples of while reading activities:
- Skimming the text to check predictions is a while-reading activity that is an extension of some pre-reading activities. Skimming can be defined as reading a text quickly to get a general idea of the passage. Students do not have to read everything.
- Scanning refers to reading to find specific information such as a name, a date, or a number. This is a technique used when one is interested in finding specific information quickly.
- Comprehension questions
- Economical questions
- Commands
- Yes/ No questions
- True/ false statements
- Multiple-choice questions
- Sentence completion
- Vocabulary and grammar work
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Reading is a great opportunity for vocabulary and grammar practice which contribute to a better understanding of the text.
- Post-reading activities
Post-reading activities help learners summarize their learning, get a deeper understanding, and organize their thoughts and ideas. Here are examples of these activities.
- What I learned: Some elements of the KWL chart mentioned above, namely the L (Learned) column, have to be completed after reading the text.
- Discussion
- Summarizing
- Retelling the story would help learners to talk about the content of the passage. It is an opportunity for the teacher to integrate the speaking skill within the reading activity.
- Think-pair-share
- Drawing
- Search quest
- Videos
- Presentations
Students may be asked to prepare a presentation about the text. They may use the internet to find documents related to the topic. These documents can be in the form of pictures, movies, songs, poems, etc.
- Vocabulary work
- Peer testing
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