Teaching Reading

Types of Written Language Non-fiction Fiction Letters Newspaper Cartoons Academic writing Advertisements Manuals

Characteristics of Written Language Permanence Processing Time Distance Orthography Complexity Vocabulary Formality

Microskills for Reading Comprehension 1.Discriminate among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic patterns of English. 2. Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory. 3. Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose. 4. Recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their significance.

5. Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g., tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns, rules and elliptical forms. 6. Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms. 7. Recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signalling the relationship between and among clauses. 8. Recognize the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance for interpretation.

9. Recognize the communicative functions of written texts, according to form and purpose. 10. Infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge. 11. From events, ideas, etc., described, infer links and connections between events, deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification.

12. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings. 13. Detect culturally specific references and interpret them in a context of the appropriate cultural schemata. 14. Develop and use a battery of reading strategies, such as scanning and skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of words from context, and activating schemata for the interpretation of texts.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension

Identify the purpose in reading Graphemic rules and patterns Silent reading techniques Skimming Scanning Semantic mapping or clustering Guessing Literal and implied meanings Vocabulary analysis Discourse markers

Identify the purpose in reading Graphemic rules and patterns Efficient reading consists of clearly identifying the purpose in reading something. Phonics approaches to reading can be useful for beginning level, children and non-literate adults.

Silent reading techniques You don’t need to ‘pronounce’ each word to yourself. Try to visually perceive more than one word at a time, preferably phrases. Unless a word is absolutely crucial to global understanding, skip over it and try to infer its meaning through its context.

Scanning Skimming It consists of quickly running one’s eyes across a whole text to get the gist. Scanning is to search for some particular piece or pieces of information in a text.

Semantic mapping or clustering Semantic maps can be a productive group work technique as students collectively induce order and hierarchy to a passage.

Guessing Guess the meaning of a word; Guess a grammatical relationship; Guess a discourse relationship; Infer implied meaning (‘between the lines’); Guess about a cultural reference and Guess content messages.

Literal and implied meanings Vocabulary analysis Recognizing grammatical and semantic contexts. The fact that not all language can be interpreted appropriately by attending to its literal, syntactic surface structure makes special demands on readers.

Capitalize on discourse markers to process relationships Bill walked into the frigid classroom and immediately noticed Bob, sitting by the open window. “Brrrr! He exclaimed, simultaneously eyeing Bob and the open windows.” “It’s sure cold in here, Bob.” “Bob glanced up from his book and growled, “Oh, all right, I’ll close the window.”

Types of Classroom Reading Performance Oral Reading With beginning and intermediate levels, oral reading can: (a) serve as an evaluative check on bottom-up processing skills, (b) double as a pronunciation check, (c) encourage students’ participation if you want to highlight a certain short segment of a reading passage.

Disadvantages of too much oral reading: (a) oral reading is not a very authentic language activity; (b) while one student is reading, others can easily loose attention (or be silently rehearsing the next paragraph); (c) it may have the awkward appearance of “student participation” when in reality it is mere recitation.

Silent Reading Silent reading may be subcategorized into intensive and extensive reading. Intensive - It is a classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic or semantic details of a passage. Extensive - It is carried out to achieve a general understanding of a text.

Principles for Designing Interactive Listening 1. In an interactive curriculum, make sure that you do not overlook the importance of specific instruction in reading skills. 2. Techniques should be intrinsically motivating. 3. Techniques should utilize authentic language and contexts.

4. Encourage the development of reading strategies. 5. Consider subdividing your techniques into pre-reading, during reading and after reading phases. a) Before you read b) While you read c) After you read

6. Build in some evaluative aspect to your techniques. a) Doing - the reader responds physically to a command b) Transferring - the reader summarizes orally what is read c) Choosing - the reader selects from alternatives posed orally or in writing d) Answering - the reader answers the questions about the message e) Condensing - the reader outlines or takes notes on a passage

f) Extending - the reader provides an ending to a story. g) Duplicating - the reader translates the message into the native language or copies it (beginning level, for very short passages only). h) Modeling - the reader puts together a toy, for instance, after reading directions for assembly. i) Conversing - the reader engages in a conversation that indicates appropriate processing of information.

“The Digital Generation and the Reading Experience” by Julia Starr Keddle – New Routes Magazine Hi! Wot shll we do 2nite? Shll we go 2 c a film? Do u no wots on? Wot r u the moment? Im sittin on a bus. I go 2 my guitar lesson on Fri. It 5PM. Y don’t u come 2 my house? C u l8er. Dan

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Cleber Sardinha (Orkut) Cristiane Fernanda