Designing Effective Reading Activities

Designing Effective Reading Activities Jennifer Bixby Joe McVeigh

Selecting appropriate reading materials

Intensive and extensive reading

Vocabulary Development
Using a dictionary
Recognizing word forms
Identifying affixes and roots
Understanding collocations
Guessing meaning from context

Checking on the vocabulary level
Use a vocabulary profiler such as this one at the English Centre at the University of Hong Kong
http://ec.hku.hk/vocabulary/profile.htm

Vocabulary Profiler Results
Frequency Percentage
1 - 1000 words 703 92.1%
1001 - 2000 words 42 5.5%
AWL words 5 0.6%
Off-list words 13 1.7%

Vocabulary Profiler Results
1 - 1000: a about accept addition after agree agreement allow also always an and are as at bad be because bills both broke brothers build business businesses but buy by car cared carried change child children college color could couldn counting course day describe didn difficult dollars done each easy enjoy enjoyed enough escape even every everything expected fact families family. . .
1001 - 2000: afford arguments baby clothes customer customers ducks during dusting exactly fun hated holidays hungry ice lesson lessons lot lots lucky nice parents proud rabbits restaurant salary shelves shop sweeping worried
AWL: adult appreciate communicate eventually jobs
Off-list: budget chutney dusty feeding london menu pakistan shy talents teenager untrained woodworking yelling

General guidelines and principles for activities

Teaching vs. testing

Bottom up processing
Starting from sounds and letters to make meaning
Identifying words and structures
Focus on vocabulary, grammar, organization

Top down processing
Comprehension resides in the reader
Reader uses background knowledge and makes predictions
Teacher focus is on meaning-generating activities (Anderson 2008)

Top down or bottom up?
Schema building to activate background knowledge
Pre-teaching new vocabulary words
Help students comprehend discourse structures
Underline a grammar structure or verb tense
Skip over vocabulary words you don’t know
Write the number of a paragraph where you find the answer

Comprehension vs. strategy development

Strategies
Skim for ideas; scan for specific info
Find the main idea
Locate topic sentences
Adjust reading rate relative to purpose
Read and interpret tables, charts, maps…
Make inferences about content
Differentiate between fact and opinion

What’s on the menu?

Activity and Response Types
Completing a table
Sorting or grouping
Finding information in a reading
Answering questions
Writing a reflection
Multiple choice
Fill in the blank
True-False
Matching
Sequencing
Completing a graphic organizer

What makes an effective activity?

Motivating and engaging – sack race

Pump slide

Pre-reading activities
Schema building
Previewing
Predicting
Skimming
Identifying genre
Learning key vocabulary

Schema building
This reading is about the invention of the telephone. What do you know about the topic? List anything you know about the invention of the telephone. What do you want to know about the invention of the telephone? Write questions. After you read, you will fill in the chart with what you learned.
What I know…
My questions:
I learned…

Previewing
Preview the reading. Answer these questions.
How many paragraphs are in the reading? How long will it take you to read?
How many sections are there? What are the titles?
Look at the photographs and read the captions. What new word is explained?

Predicting
The author of the next reading has a negative opinion about reality TV shows. What issues do you think the author will discuss in the reading?

Identifying genre
Look at the magazine article. How is the format different from the newspaper article on page 17? What other kinds of differences are there?

Learning key vocabulary
Read the sentence. Choose the best definition for the bold word.
1. Company signs come in a variety of colors.
a. different kinds
b. small choice
c. unusual order

Activities while reading
Keeping questions in mind
Taking notes
Filling in a graphic organizer
Monitoring comprehension
Developing fluency

Keeping questions in mind
As you read, keep these questions in mind.
What were three steps in the design process?
What was the most difficult problem for the architects?

Underlining
As you read, use a pencil and lightly underline important information. Only underline two points in each paragraph. Don’t underline complete sentences.

Filling in a graphic organizer
As you read, fill in the T-chart.
Disadvantages of online classes Advantages of online classes

Monitoring comprehension
As you finish reading each section, answer the question.
Section 1: Who conducts the survey for the most livable city?
Section 2: Which city was the most livable city in 2009? Why?
Section 3: What three factors make it a great city to live in?

Reading fluency
Timed readings
Word recognition exercises
Capacity building

Post-reading activities
Comprehension
Critical analysis and evaluation
Summarizing or paraphrasing
Task-based output
Reflection and integrated activities
Photo:

Comprehension
Answer these questions. Re-read the story if you need to.
Why was the narrator afraid of the old man?
What indications are there that the narrator is mad?

Critical analysis and evaluation
In which lines of the reading does the author give factual information?
In which lines does the author give her opinion.
How do you know?

Summarizing or paraphrasing
Write a paragraph in which you summarize the reading.
Write one sentence for each paragraph.
Be sure to use your own words. Do not quote directly from the text.

Task-based output
Go back to the section describing how to make a paper airplane.
Take a piece of paper and follow the instructions.
Show your airplane to your classmates.
Did everyone’s come out the same way?

Reflection and integrated activities
Do you agree with the author that technology is bad for human relationships?
Write a paragraph giving your opinion. Use quotations from the text to help focus your argument.

Putting it all together

Putting it all together
Directions:
Read the text at the end of the handout.
With a partner or in a small group, select two activities for either the pre-, during, or post- reading portion of the lesson.
What activities would you choose? How would you design each activity? What would the students need to do to complete these tasks? How long would each task take to complete?

Photo Credits
All photos from flickr used under a Creative Commons Attribution license
Snowy street “striatic”
Shopper in aisle “Elsie esq”
Rabbit reading email Toms Baugis
Amazed child with book Pierre Vignau
Shelf of books Alan Levine
Soccer girls “Randy, son of Robert”
B& W book and feet “striatic”
Punk girl reading “txd”
Vocabulary list “Autumn Bliss”
Blueprints Todd Ehlers
Test “sergis blog”
Dinosaur classroom “worldislandinfo.com”
Bottom up Judith Green
Top down Marya “emdot”

Photo credits
All photos from flickr used under a Creative Commons Attribution license
Disintegrating sign Peter Morgan
Strategy Joe McVeigh
Aisles of choices Lyza Danger
Clear water swimmers Lali Masriera
Pole vaulter “latvian”
Sack race Ian Chalmers
Gears “Ralphbijkers”
Yellow chain Jurek Durczak
Pump “Tinyfroglet”
Framed house Stephen Brotschul
Hand with highlighter Steph McGlenchy
B & W classroom Chuck Phillips, U. of Arizona CESL
Puzzle “Antoanetta”
Question mark Ethan Lofton
Blue bear Jeff Turner
Flower and sky Joanne Quirante-Escober

Materials Writers Interest Section
Come to the open meeting 5-7pm CC 602
Visit the booth in the exhibit area
Check your program book on p. 214 for more sessions
Join the MWIS e-list through TESOL

Come to our other presentations
Pathways to Successful Co-authoring
Friday, 7-7:45 AM CC 503
Daphne Mackey & Jennifer Bixby
The World of Freelance ESL Editing
Saturday, 5-5:45 CC 506
Dorothy Zemach & Jennifer Bixby
Exploring College Slang
Friday, 11-11:45 CC 504
Joe McVeigh & Ann Wintergerst
Current Trends in ESL/EFL Publishing
Saturday, 3-4:45 CC 304
Joe McVeigh, Louisa Hellegers, PietroAlongi, Sherrise Roehr, Laura Pearson

Thank you Download the PowerPoint slides www.joemcveigh.org/resources

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Designing Effective Reading Activities

by Joe_McVeigh on Mar 27, 2009

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