How to Teach Reading Skills From Theory to practice BY Mr. RHALMI Mohammed

OUTLINE Theoretical background In the classroom: how to teach reading? What is reading? What is meant by teaching reading skills? Skills vs strategies Schema theory Cognitive processing Types of reading In the classroom: how to teach reading? Principles of teaching reading Lesson plan Objectives and structure Stages of the lesson plan Activities Some reading procedures Summary Workshop

- What is reading? Concept defining "[Reading is] the action or skill of reading written or printed material silently or aloud.“ Dictionary definition

- What is reading? Concept Defining Reading is a process of constructing meaning from written texts. It is a complex skill requiring the coordination of interrelated sources of information” (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985, p. 6. Cited in Stanley, 2007.)

List what you have recently read! - What is reading? List what you have recently read! Newspaper articles Emails Letters Text messages Labels on bottles Books Online materials Leaflets Fliers Maps ….

Purpose of reading (Williams, 1984) - What is reading? Purpose of reading (Williams, 1984) We read to get general information to get specific information for pleasure

- What is reading? Types of reading Reading Intensive Extensive

TEACHING READING (theory)

Typical Reading procedure - Teaching vs testing reading T. chooses a text T. asks the students to read it aloud T. asks the students to answer comprehension questions Class correction

Teaching vs testing reading Testing comprehension is NOT teaching reading comprehension

Testing Reading or teaching reading? - Teaching vs testing reading Instead of focusing on testing SS comprehension, we should first and foremost teach them the skills and strategies they need to tackle different types of texts

Skills and strategies (the tools) - Skills vs strategies

Unconscious ability / proficiency Skills vs strategies - Skills vs strategies Skills Strategies Unconscious ability / proficiency The target Automaticity Reading skills operate without the reader’s deliberate control or conscious awareness. Conscious plan The journey Tactics Awareness helps the reader select an intended path, the means to the goal, and the processes used to achieve the goal.

Skills vs strategies - Skills vs strategies “Reading strategies are deliberate, goal-directed attempts to control and modify the reader’s efforts to decode text, understand words, and construct meanings of text. Reading skills are automatic actions that result in decoding and comprehension with speed, efficiency, and fluency and usually occur without awareness of the components or control involved.” Afflerbach et Al (2008)

strategies Skimming Scanning Using background/prior knowledge - Skills vs strategies Skimming Scanning Using background/prior knowledge Making predictions Asking questions Inferring meaning from context Making connections Using graphic organizers Recognizing sequences

Schema theory

Is the reader a ‘tabula rasa’? Schema theory Is the reader a ‘tabula rasa’? - Schema theory

Schema theory Schema theory tries to explain how readers utilize prior knowledge to understand and get new information from the text (Rumelhart, 1980). - Schema theory

COGNITIVE PROCESSING Cognitive processing Top-down Bottom-up Interactive model - Cognitive processing

Top-down vs Bottom-up processing From a distance, it’s just a wall! Closer, one can see the bricks! - Cognitive processing

Reader-based (i.e. readers as they interact with the text) Top-down model Reader-based (i.e. readers as they interact with the text) Focus is on what readers bring to the process by activating background knowledge and making predictions. Focus is on sampling the information of the text and contrasting it with the reader’s world knowledge to make sense of it. Meaning-oriented (i.e. overall meaning takes priority over individual words) - Cognitive processing

Bottom-up model Text-based Focus is on vocabulary, grammar and organization Starts from letters, morphemes, words… Reader depends on text variables: vocabulary, grammar, text content… - Cognitive processing

The interactive model - Cognitive processing Focus is on both what is on the written page and what is in the reader’s mind using both top-down and bottom-up skills. - Cognitive processing

Text as object Text as process Reader is active Reader is a recipient No interaction between text and reader Reader is active Interaction between reader and text - Types of reading Writer Reader Writer Reader

In the classroom

Basic principles Principles of teaching reading Reading is purposeful Teachers should choose appropriate texts Vocabulary knowledge facilitates comprehension Opt for activities that focus on skill integration Explicitly teach reading strategies Text type knowledge is important Devise a well-structured lesson plan - Principles

Teaching Reading Lesson Plan Teaching reading comprehension The objectives of the lesson Structure of the lesson - Lesson plan

Reading comprehension objectives Reading for gist? Reading for specific information? Reading for detailed comprehension? Developing speed reading? Training learners on specific reading strategies? Inferring meaning from context? A combination of the above goals? … - Objectives

How to teach reading (the stages) Pre-reading While reading Post reading - Lesson plan

Pre-reading activities Prepare students for the reading task (vocabulary, grammar,…) Help learners anticipate the topic of the reading. Create the need to know more about a topic. Increase students' motivation. - Stages

Pre-Reading activities Brainstorming Discussion Pictures Pictionary Predicting KWL Chart Word cloud Videos - Stages

While reading activities connect students prior knowledge with the content of the reading guide students towards a better understanding help them gain new knowledge train them to deal with similar texts in the future.. - Stages

While Reading activities Skimming Scanning Comprehension questions Graphic organizers Cohesion tasks Vocabulary tasks Grammar tasks - Stages

Post reading activities Post reading activities help learners : get deeper understanding organize their thoughts and ideas summarize their learning - Stages

Post reading activities What I learned Discussion Summarizing Retelling the story Think-Pair-Share Drawing Search quest Videos Presentation Peer testing - Stages

The reading process The readers’ mind The text - Stages

Some reading procedures

Some Reading procedures SQ3R Standard reading exercise reciprocal teaching Concept-oriented reading instruction - Some reading procedures

SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review) The SQ3R method is a step-by-step strategy for effective reading Students survey the assigned reading by first skimming through it. Learners are encouraged to formulate questions Students read the text and try to answer the questions they generated previously. Students are encouraged to recite the information from memory. Students should review their questions, and see if they can answer them all easily. - Some reading procedures

Standard reading exercise Standard reading exercise consists of teaching learners a series of questions that can be used with any text. (Nation, 2009, p. 37). The questions are meant to train the learners to the most important reading skills, such as: predicting, finding the main idea of each paragraph, identifying  the writer’s purpose, thinking critically about the content of the text, etc. - Some reading procedures

Reciprocal teaching Palincsar and Brown (1986, cited in Nation, 2009) designed a procedure which they coined “reciprocal teaching”. In this procedure, the teacher trains the learners to use four main strategies, which could be applied to any text: The students predict the content of the paragraph before reading it; They make questions focusing on the main idea of the paragraph; They summarize what has just been read; They seek clarification on difficult points in the paragraph. - Some reading procedures

Concept-oriented reading instruction (CORI) Nation (2009) describes concept-oriented reading instruction (CORI) as an integrated strategy approach to reading comprehension (Guthrie, 2003). This involves training learners to use a set of strategies through the sequence of modelling, scaffolding, and guided practice. These strategies include: activating background knowledge, questioning, searching for information, summarizing, organizing graphically, and structuring stories. - Some reading procedures

Summary Reading is a purposeful task. Choose appropriate texts Classroom procedure should reflect the purposeful, task-based, interactive nature of real reading. Testing comprehension is NOT teaching reading comprehension Teachers should identify the strategies, skills, and objectives of the efficient reader during the process of real reading, and then help the learner to acquire them. Readers contribute meaning to a text; consequently, teachers must include tasks which require readers to combine what is in their heads with what is in the text. Identify clear objectives for reading Develop reading lessons in three parts: pre, while, and post reading stages. Encourage students to read extensively. - Summary

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Workshop Groups of 5 teachers are assigned 5 texts They work together to prepare a lesson plan that includes: Level + Objectives Pre-reading activities While reading activities Post reading activities - Workshop

References Abraham, P. (2000) Skilled Reading: Top-Down, Bottom-Up, Field Notes, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Fall 2000)Publisher: SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 2000. Retrieved from http://www.sabes.org/sites/sabes.org/files/resources/fn102.pdf on August, 18 2017. Anderson, R. C., Hiebert, E. H., Scott, J. A., & Wilkinson, I. A. G. (1985). Becoming a nation of readers: The report of the commission on reading. Washington, D. C.:National Institute of Education. Chambers, F. and Brigham, A. 1989. Summary writing: a short cut to success. English Teaching Forum 27, 1: 43–45. Guthrie, J.R. 2003. Concept-oriented reading instruction. In A. Sweet and C. Snow (eds) Rethinking reading comprehension. New York: Guilford Press: 115–140. Palincsar, A.S. and Brown, A.L. 1986. Interactive teaching to promote independent learning from text. Reading Teacher 20: 771–776. Rumelhart, D.E. (1977). Toward an interactive model of reading. In: S. Dornic (ed.), Attention and performance VI, (pp. 573-603). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Stanley, S. (2007). An Analysis of Rx for Discovery Reading RTM for Elementary Students Below Average in Reading. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1070&context=doctoral, on September 14, 2017. Stanovich, K.E. (1980). Toward an interactive-compensatory model of individual differences in the development of reading fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 16, 32-71.