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

2. 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

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

4. - 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.)

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

6. 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

7. - What is reading?
Types of reading
Reading
Intensive
Extensive

8. TEACHING READING (theory)

9. 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

10. Teaching vs testing reading
Testing comprehension
is NOT
teaching reading comprehension

11. 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

12. Skills and strategies (the tools)
- Skills vs strategies

13. 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.

14. 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)

15. 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

16. Schema theory

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

18. 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

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

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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. In the classroom

26. 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

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

28. 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

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

30. 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

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

32. 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

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

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

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

36. The reading process
The readers’ mind
The text
- Stages

37. Some reading procedures

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

39. 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

40. 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

41. 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

42. 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

43. 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

44.
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45. 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

46. 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 Retrieved from on August,
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 Summary writing: a short cut to success. English Teaching Forum 27, 1: 43–45.
Guthrie, J.R 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 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 ). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Stanley, S. (2007). An Analysis of Rx for Discovery Reading RTM for Elementary Students Below Average in Reading. Retrieved from 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,