Ling-hsia Chen

National Taiwan University

Emphasis: + reading skills development—to read

efficientlyObjectives: + To enable the students to become

increasingly self-reliant+ Being able to read quickly and

efficiently

+ Read fast: You can take in more text, finish assignments faster and increase your wealth of knowledge.

+ Read efficiently: You can have better comprehension of the text, and higher retention level.

We read for a reason:+ Pleasure+ Knowledge+ Information+ Curiosity

+ Textbook (Slow)English, history, math, sciences(memorization, overall mastery, tested)

+ Journalistic (Medium)News papers, Magazines (overall understanding, familiarity)

+ Other Writing (Fast)Fiction, personal histories, narratives (basic understanding)

+ To teach basic reading comprehension skills+ To teach real-life reading skills such as

reading for gist and reading for information+ To develop flexible reading skills, varied

according to purpose

+ To develop the students’ knowledge of vocabulary or idiom

+ To develop critical reading skills+ To reinforce (or present) certain

grammatical features+ To act as a stimulus for oral or written work

later on

+ Plain sense reading: the ability to “read the lines” (recalling the facts)

+ Deductive reading: the ability to “read between the lines” (interpreting the facts)

+ Projective reading: the ability to “read beyond the lines” (responding to the reading)

+ Presenting a text+ Developing the reading lesson+ Follow-up

(Difficulty level: somewhat above)

Presenting a text+ Introduces the text by employing

pre-reading activities to encourage students to think about the topic and to make predictions about what they will read.

+ Presents essential new vocabulary+ Gives points to search for in the text

+ Arouse the students’ interest+ Draw their attention to their own

previous knowledge and experience+ Pre-teach any important words or

concepts+ Give a reason for reading

+ Use a picture+ Use the other senses where relevant

(“What do you think these noises are?” )

+ Ask pre-reading questions to make the reading task more purposeful

+ Set a problem—“Look at this picture. Who are these people? What do you think they are doing? Read the text and find out.”

+ A listening exercise

+ Let students read the text silently, then check answers to guiding questions

+ Ask questions on the text to check comprehension, and explain any new words

+ Encourage a discussion of answers

+ Do not need to present all the new vocabulary beforehand

+ Active and effective readingexpectation, purpose of the text, possible outcome, clues in title, past experiences

+ Guessing vocabulary from context

+ Text summarization main ideas, supporting ideas, details+ Noting the first sentence of each

paragraph+ Noting discourse signposts: however, in

addition, moreover…

+ Developing into writing+ Expansion+ Reinforce

+ Presentation: new words and structures+ Practice: Students practice words and

structures in a controlled way.+ Production: Students use language learned to

express themselves more freely.+ Reading: read a text and answer questions+ Listening: listen to a text or dialogue(These stages are not in a fixed order.)

Plan A1. Pre-teach key vocabulary as necessary.2. Get students to read the first part of the

text and answer gist-type questions to ensure they understand the main points.

3. Detailed questioning, paragraph by paragraph.

4. Discuss their answers.

5. Repeat for second half. (New vocabulary is treated incidentally.)

6. Students answer questions in the book orally to respond to the text.

7. Students write the answers. The teacher collects them in for marking.

Plan B1. Steps 1-5 as above.2. Discussion groups: the students gent into

group of 4 or 5, and discuss their answers to questions in the book to respond to the text.

3. Role-play: get students to write down the questions they would like to ask as related to the text.

4. A purposeful writing practice such as a summary of the text.

+ True/False+ Multiple choice+ Free response questions

+ The use of artificial language-learning texts

+ Detailed understanding of the text almost word by word.

+ Reading aloud rather than reading silently.

+ Reading word by word.+ Reading slowly.+ Relying on the teacher too much.

+ Goal: autonomous acquirers+ comprehensive input delivered in a low

anxiety situation+ Good for reading comprehension,

vocabulary, grammar, and writing.+ Reading for pleasure

+ Solve two problems:+ making the transition from the

elementary level to authentic language use

+ from conversational language ability to academic language ability

A. Fixation: focus your eyes on a certain point and use your peripheral vision to read the words on either side of it.

+ All day 。 I work for lousy 。 pay I hate 。 my job

+ He asked 。 me for a toy 。 Soldierand a 。 pop gun

B. Clustering (the learned ability to see words in group rather than as individual words)

+ Kathy left her address book on the top of the coffee maker.

+ After she noticed it was missing, she retraced her steps.

+ Her path took her, a vice president, to the mailroom She called the police and reported they were all stealing.

+ Holding her phone, she gripped the receiver with claw-like-hands.

+ The police told her she couldn’t prove anything.

+ It was a bad day at the office for Kathy to switch to decaf.

+ Know what you are reading: types of reading

+ Pre-read the questions: fact (local) questions and theme (global) questions

+ Go after every fact question. Scan the passage looking for stop signs (words that quickly tell you where the answer is)

+ Keep in mind the type of theme questions you’re going to need to answer

+ The main point of the passage+ The reasons leading to the conclusion+ The first paragraph and the first sentence

of each subsequent paragraph.

+ Turn signs and transactionsWords like although, however, but and in spite of or any word or phrase that indicates a change of opinion

+ Look for thesis+ The rest paragraphs: support the thesis,

provide an example, attack the thesis, provide a different opinion

The End