Reading

What and why?

Similar to LISTENING, SPEAKING and WRITING, there are two main roles for reading in language learning. The first is as a goal of learning: 'the skill of reading'. The second is as a means of learning: as a way of developing the students' language proficiency and educational depth. Secondary-aged students need to develop the skill of reading in English. It is through reading that they will most likely come into contact with English, particularly if they go on to higher education or are employed in international work of some kind. But reading as a means of learning is also important. Reading can support their language learning by contextualising and extending vocabulary, creating mental images of correct spellings, providing models for writing, and developing a 'feel' for and MEMORY of English.

Current theories suggest that reading is a 'psycholinguistic guessing game' in which readers constantly try to predict what is coming next in a text. While reading, readers constantly draw on what they already know about the world and the topic of the text - that is, their 'schema', to help them bring meaning to the text. This 'top down' approach to reading (as it is known) suggests that meaning is not simply 'in' a text - it is built up by the reader.

Reading in a second language, however, may not so easily fit into this pattern because the necessary background information and familiarity with the language may be missing - that is, the reader might not have an appropriate schema available. Second language readers, for example, may stumble on cultural references (such as place names or social customs) which first language readers take for granted. They may also have greater difficulty in deciding what they can ignore. One reason why students sometimes fail to understand a text even when they know all the vocabulary is because they cannot link what they are reading to something they already know.

Practical ideas

• Texts can also be exploited in a number of different ways:
  • Many of the texts can be used to practise re-organisation of material. For example, texts which have facts and figures can be transformed into charts or graphs; texts which report an event can be transformed into a dialogue or ROLE PLAY; texts which narrate an event as news can be written as a story, letter, poem or song.
  • The texts can be used to develop note-taking skills. This helps students focus on the key points of the text and to understand better how a text may be structured.
  • For WRITING practice, you can ask students to expand a text - they can add more to the beginning, middle and end.
  • For VOCABULARY practice, ask students to find the words in a text which 'go together' in a lexical set. If they have a thesaurus they can then add more words and record them in their LANGUAGE RECORDS.
  • Many of the texts can be used to foster CRITICAL LANGUAGE AWARENESS.
  • You can use the texts as a resource for discourse analysis. For example, you can ask the students to link up with a coloured pen all the references to the subject of the text. You might also ask them to identify the main ideas and any examples of each idea.
  • You can use the texts as a starting-point for DISCUSSIONS.
• Before asking students to read a text, you can ask them to guess what they can from the illustrations, headings and diagrams. You can also use this as an opportunity to give the students any necessary background cultural knowledge to help them establish a schema for the text.
• Many of the reading texts are also recorded on the Class Cassettes so that students can listen to the texts before, while or after they read. You can use these recordings in a variety of ways:
  • You can play part of the recording before they read the text, but ask the students to close their eyes and try to visualise the words they hear.
  • You can play the recording and ask the students to listen and make notes as they listen or afterwards. You can then discuss their notes with them before they read and check their ideas.
  • You can play the recording while students read and ask them to underline or note down all the words which do not sound the same as they are spelt (e.g. fight, countries, daughters, meant, labour).
  • You can play the recording and ask different groups of students to listen for different things - for example, names of people and places, numbers and adjectives. They can then share their ideas to reconstruct the text before they read it.
  • You can record the text yourself but make some information different or leave some information out. Students can read and find the differences.
• Students may not read very much in their mother tongue, so you may need to start by encouraging reading generally. You can do this by asking, perhaps at the start of every lesson, what they have read since the last lesson. This can be anything - a newspaper headline, a story, an advert, in the mother tongue or in English. Gradually, you can suggest that they look for things to read in English which they can tell the class about. In this way, the students can begin to see reading as something of value to share.
• As far as possible, try to create opportunities for students to read a wide range of material of their choice in English. This may vary from a library of graded readers to magazine articles chosen from boxes, comics and magazines and reference books such as encyclopaedias and textbooks in English. (Some students, for example, might enjoy reading a Maths textbook in English.) Invite (rather than require) them to tell other students (perhaps in small groups) what they have read. They don't need to report back on everything they read. The PARCEL OF ENGLISH scheme is a good way of exchanging a range of English language texts.
• You can allow time for silent reading in class. Some students may like to read if they finish an exercise early.
• Encourage students to read other students' writing.
• Encourage the students to guess the meaning of words they don't understand. Also, stress that they don't need to understand every word in order to read something.
• Show the students how to use a dictionary so that they can read alone.
• One common technique is to ask students to read aloud. In CEWw, this technique is not recommended in the classroom. Reading aloud is, in fact, a separate skill from reading for comprehension. Students are unlikely to need this skill - unless they become newsreaders! In the classroom, students typically make more mistakes when they read aloud than they do normally (particularly in PRONUNCIATION). It also wastes time for the students who have to listen, and places the teacher in the role of having to correct the reader all the time. Also, since the emphasis is on production, the main skills involved in reading - guessing words, working out meaning, predicting - are not utilised. As an 'at home' activity, however, many students may enjoy reading aloud. It can also help them to develop an image of themselves as 'an English speaker'.