Journal Articles: Strategies For Teaching Reading to ESL Students Megan Haver EDU 989A Spring 2009

Why Teachers Should Use Timed Reading in ESL Classes By Jeremy Browning Summary: Incorporating timed reading practice into reading instruction improves a student’s reading rate/reading production, comprehension, grades, and motivation. Students learn to read in broad phrases instead of word for word, use context clues, and move from bottom-up reading to top-down reading. Conscious Automaticity is built as a result of a holistic approach to reading, and vocabulary is internalized because of its recurrence and frequency. The ESL student will benefit from this strategy because it will help to level the ‘playing field’ when these students enter college and the working world. The higher their reading rate, the more prepared they will be for success. I chose this article because I am always looking for strategies to incorporate into my reading instruction. This article particularly caught my attention because my lowest reading group, out of my four this year, all happen to be ESL level 2 students. Though they’ve made tremendous progress this year with comprehension, their rate of oral reading still needs to improve. As they get older, academic demands will become exponentially great. This article was a good starting point for me, but I would like to research this practice further. I am interested in how to specifically teach ‘reading in broad phrases’, because they are still reading word for word for the most part. Though, from this article I’m thinking broad phrase reading may be a result of this practice, and not necessarily something to teach. I plan to look more into Timed Reading and maybe incorporate it into my reading instruction, starting with this one ESL reading group.

Helping ESL Students Become Better Readers: Schema Theory Applications and Limitations By Nigel Stott Summary: Schema Theory is when students use background knowledge to make connections to text to aid in comprehension. This prior knowledge is often based on culture specific information and experiences. The two main forms are Content Schemata – background knowledge of the world, and Formal Schemata – background knowledge of rhetorical structure. The article contends that ESL students need pre-reading strategies to build context and vocabulary for the text they’re about to read, because their prior knowledge may be absent or culturally different than that upon which the text is based. While reading this article, I kept thinking to myself that the practices discussed are just good teaching practices. I also thought to myself that this seemed very common sense – that ESL students need vocabulary exposure/discussion prior to reading a new text, as well as to be given the context of the text. I use these strategies, already, with my native speakers and ESL students. There is one statement from the article that really stood out to me: “Until students read in quantity, they will not become fluent readers”. This is something that I will keep in mind more when teaching reading to my ESL students. So often I am focused on helping them decode words and understand text, that I leave them little time to read independently. The two ESL reading groups I have meet with me for twenty minutes, the ESL teacher for twenty minutes, then they play spelling games, reading games, or other literacy games and rarely read independently. I need to allow for more independent silent reading.

Evaluating Sustained Silent Reading in Reading Classes By Ping-Ha Chow and Chi-Ting Chou Summary: Based on a study done in Hong Kong, the article found that Sustained Silent Reading improves reading skills, vocabulary acquisition, a better reading habit, and made students develop a positive attitude toward reading. The article finds that the SSR program is most effective when it is run for six months or more, and when students choose their own reading material. Students reported enjoying the quiet time, poor readers enjoyed not having the stress of making mistakes, better readers liked that they didn’t have to prove what good readers they were, and all students liked having a choice in reading material. For success, the teacher also models SSR while the students are doing it, and also brings in samples of books he/she is or has read, and simply often discusses a love of reading. As part of my reading block, I’d like to incorporate this reading practice. I feel so bound by my schedule of thirty minutes for whole group, and four twenty minute guided reading groups, that this seems almost impossible to implement. As part of MCPS’ reading block, the students are expected to read independently for twenty minutes each day. However, due to the structure of groups and centers/stations, the students aren’t doing this at the same time and I am not modeling for them. Our schedule is so packed that this may be difficult but I’d like to try it at least once a week. There are a couple of sentences from the article that I enjoyed: 1) “…no student, able or remedial, should be chided for reading an easy book.” and 2) “Creating a quiet, relaxing, non-evaluative classroom environment is also a key element for successful SSR”. For the first sentence, I felt validated in my practice of letting students choose books that are too easy for them sometimes because I feel it builds confidence. As for the second sentence it stood out to me because of the non-evaluative part – all we ever do now is evaluate and it’s nice for the students to feel relaxed. The thing that I did not like about this article is that while it was ESL related, I wish it would have focused more on the ESL student.