This document provides guidance on developing reading skills. It discusses different reading purposes and strategies. Learners are encouraged to choose strategies based on their reading goal and to not worry about unknown words initially. A five step process is outlined: 1) explore the text, 2) do a general read, 3) read for specifics, 4) confirm understanding, 5) clarify unknown words. Learners are reminded that their existing knowledge and choice of strategy can help them improve reading skills.

1. LEARNING TO LEARN
TRAINING PROGRAM
LEVEL 6
Reading

2. OBJECTIVES
To help you realize the place of
Reading in the process of learning a
language and the skills involved in it.
To make you aware of the different
strategies that may be used to
practice Reading.

3. Discuss the answers to the following
questions:
 What is easier for you understand
something or trying to communicate
something?
 Why do you think that is?
 How much do you read in your own
language?
 What kind of materials do you read and for
what reasons?

4. Think about this:
 People read for different reasons. We can
identify three of those purposes:
 Reading for survival
 Reading for learning
 Reading for pleasure
 Your reading purpose affects how you see
reading. The level of your reading skills also
affects how much you get out of reading.
 Analyse the diagram on the following slide and
think about your own reading skills and process.

5. On which of these four aspects do you think it would be easier for you to start
working to get into this circle of growth of reading skills?
Enjoys Reads faster
reading
Understands Reads more
better
Circle of growth (Nuttall, 1996: 127)

6. Activity
 Think about the following assumptions about
reading, which ones do you think are real?
a. We need to perceive and decode letters in order to read
words.
b. We need to understand all the words in order to
understand the meaning of a text.
c. The more symbols (letters or words) there are in a text,
the more it will take to read it.
d. We gather meaning from what we read.
e. Our understanding of a text comes from understanding
the words of which it is composed.

7. Can you read these three texts?
1. JLHPYAJMRWKMYOEZSXPETIBLA
2. SNEEZE FURY HORSE WHEN AGAIN
3. My brother is a real book worm.

8. Compare the assumptions to the reading
of the previous texts
a. We need to perceive and
decode letters in order to a. Did you understand text 1?
read words.
b. We need to understand all the b. Did you understand text 2?
words in order to understand
the meaning of a text. c. Which of the three texts took
c. The more symbols (letters or you longer to understand?
words) there are in a text, the
more it will take to read it. Did it have more symbols?
d. We gather meaning from what
we read. d. Did you understand text 3?
e. Our understanding of a text e. What is a book worm? Is my
comes from understanding
the words of which it is brother a real worm?
composed.

9. Discuss the following:
 Even if you think that you are not a good reader,
you bring a lot with you when you read
something:
 You bring your knowledge of the writing system.
 You bring your knowledge of the language, whether this
is limited or extensive. (content words, syntax, grammar)
 You bring your ability to interpret and to “follow” the
writer.
 You bring your knowledge of the world.
 You bring your reasons for reading and your reading
style.
 Allyou have to do is learn to use this to your
advantage.

10. Activity
 Look at the following reading strategies. Which ones do you think would
be effective for you?
 Mouthing the words.
 Looking for a topic sentence in paragraphs.
 Skimming (reading the text quickly just to understand the general idea of it).
 Trying to use the context to work out the meaning of unfamiliar words.
 Mentally translating everything.
 Mentally translating complex or confusing passages.
 Trying to identify implicit logical relationships between sentence and
sentence, and paragraph and paragraph. (For example making use of explicit
indicators like: “however” or “consequently”)
 Scanning (reading to look for something specific in the text).
 Trying to distinguish between major and subordinate ideas.
 Speculating about the content of the text using the headings, pictures and the
introductory sentences.
 Reading the whole text in detail to get all the specific information.
 Choosing to use a combination of strategies according to the nature of the
text and the purpose of the reading.
 Using a dictionary to find the meaning of all new words.

11. Think about this:
 When it comes to choosing strategies, the
best decision is usually to:
 Know as many strategies as possible.
 Try them all out with different texts and in
different situations.
 Notice when they work and why they work.
 Choose the most appropriate one for each
situation.
 Remember that the purpose for your
reading is a good starting point in
choosing the right strategy to use.

12. Activity
 Choose a text to practice your reading skills, the text can be just about anything
from a song, a poem, a letter, an extract from a book or magazine, something
from your own textbook, etc.
 Think about the reason why you are reading. Ask yourself:
 What do I need to know?
 What do I need to do?
 Depending on the answers to these previous questions you will need to read in
different ways, choosing different strategies.
 When you read a text you will probably not be able to understand every word you
see. That’s OK. You don’t need to. Read for the general meaning first.
 Don’t worry about words you don’t know. Many students look up every word in
their dictionaries, but here’s an idea:
 When you see a new word, just read on.
 When you see it a second time, try to guess the meaning.
 When you see it a third time and still don’t understand, then look it up in your
dictionary.
 Don’t give up, remember that all you need to do is find a way into the circle of
growth and you are in. Try the five steps for reading on the next slide.

13. Five steps for reading
1 2
EXPLORE READ FOR GENERAL
IDEA
5 4 3
READ FOR
READ, READ TO
SPECIFIC
CONFIRM CHECK
DETAILS

14. Five steps for reading
1. Explore the materials, visuals, headings, etc., that come together with
your reading activity. What can you see? What do you think the text is
going to be about? What do you already know about it? Etcetera.
2. Read the text once and try to get a general idea of what it is about,
try to confirm or correct whatever hypothesis you had made in step 1.
Don’t worry about unknown vocabulary, just read.
3. Read the text again, this time look for more specific details that
might help you define more clearly what you are reading. Make some
notes or write down some questions which demand more specific
detail. You may repeat this step as many times as you might feel
necessary to get a better understanding of what you are reading.
4. Read the text one more time, to check if your notes or questions
were correct. You can get this far in a reading exercise without
actually needing to understand 100% of the vocabulary used.
5. Once you have checked that your predictions and hypothesis are
accurate, you may want to read and confirm again the words and
ideas which you might still feel you need to figure out. You may use
any strategy you like to deal with the vocabulary you are still not sure
of.