How to Teach Reading Skills

OUTLINE
 Theoretical background
 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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
- Some www.myenglishpages.com
"[Reading is] the action or
skill of reading written or
printed material silently or
aloud.“
Dictionary definition
- What is
reading?

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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.)
- What is
reading?

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Newspaper
articles
Emails Letters
Text
messages
Labels on
bottles
Books
Online
materials
Leaflets
Fliers Maps ….
- What is
reading?

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
We read
to get general
information
to get specific
information
for pleasure
- What is
reading?

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Reading
Intensive Extensive
- What is
reading?

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
T. chooses a text
T. asks the students to read it aloud
T. asks the students to answer
comprehension questions
Class correction
- Teaching vs
testing reading

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Testing
comprehension
is NOT
teaching
reading
comprehension
- Teaching vs
testing reading

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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
- Teaching vs
testing reading

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
- Skills vs
strategies

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Skills
Unconscious ability / proficiency
The target
Automaticity
Reading skills operate without the
reader’s deliberate control or
conscious awareness.
Strategies
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.
- Skills vs
strategies

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
“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)
- Skills vs
strategies

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Skimming Scanning
Using
background/prior
knowledge
Making
predictions
Asking questions
Inferring
meaning from
context
Making
connections
Using graphic
organizers
Recognizing
sequences
- Skills vs
strategies

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Is the reader a ‘tabula rasa’?
- Schema theory

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Schema theory tries to explain
how readers utilize prior
knowledge to understand and
get new information from the
text (Rumelhart, 1980).
- Schema theory

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Cognitive
processing
Top-down
Bottom-up
Interactive
model
- Cognitive
processing

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
From a distance, it’s just a wall! Closer, one can see the bricks!
- Cognitive
processing

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
using both top-down and bottom-up skills.
Focus is on both
what is on the written
page
and what is in the
reader’s mind
- Cognitive
processing

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Teaching reading
comprehension
The objectives
of the lesson
Structure of
the lesson
- Lesson plan

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Stages
Pre-reading
While reading
Post reading
- Lesson plan

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Brainstorming Discussion Pictures
Pictionary Predicting KWL Chart
Word cloud Videos
- Stages

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Skimming Scanning
Comprehension
questions
Graphic
organizers
Cohesion tasks
Vocabulary
tasks
Grammar tasks
- Stages

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
Post reading activities help learners :
get deeper
understanding
organize their
thoughts and
ideas
summarize
their learning
- Stages

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
What I
learned
Discussion Summarizing
Retelling the
story
Think-Pair-
Share
Drawing Search quest Videos
Presentation Peer testing
- Stages

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
The readers’
mind
The text
The readers’
mind
- Stages

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
SQ3R
Standard
reading exercise
reciprocal
teaching
Concept-
oriented reading
instruction
- Some reading
procedures

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
 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

- What is
reading?
- Teaching vs
testing
reading
- Skills vs
strategies
- Schema
theory
- Cognitive
processing
- Basic
principles
- Lesson plan
- Objectives
- Stages
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

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 2000. Retrieved from
http://www.sabes.org/sites/sabes.org/files/resources/fn102.pdf on August, 18 2017.
 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. 1989. Summary writing: a short cut to success. English Teaching
Forum 27, 1: 43–45.
 Guthrie, J.R. 2003. 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. 1986. 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. 573-603). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
 Stanley, S. (2007). An Analysis of Rx for Discovery Reading RTM for Elementary Students Below
Average in Reading. Retrieved from
http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1070&context=doctoral, 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, 32-71.

How to Teach Reading Skills

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to How to Teach Reading Skills

Similar to How to Teach Reading Skills (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

How to Teach Reading Skills