This document discusses reading skills and the reading process. It defines reading as a complex skill involving word recognition and comprehension. There are different types of reading like skimming, scanning, and close reading. Effective reading involves both bottom-up processing of decoding words and top-down use of background knowledge. Most models of reading are interactive, with the reader using both linguistic and conceptual knowledge simultaneously. The document outlines the key stages of planning and guiding a reading lesson, including pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading activities.

1. Basic reading
skills

2. What is reading?
Reading is ƒ
⬡ a skill which enables us to get a message; ƒ
⬡ recognizing the written words (written symbols);
⬡ getting (understanding) the meaning;
⬡ used to teach pronunciation;
⬡ grasping information from texts.
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3. What is reading?
Reading is a complex activity that involves both
perception and thought. Reading consists of two
related processes:
1. word recognition and
2. comprehension.
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4. What is reading?
 Word recognition refers to the process of perceiving
how written symbols correspond to one’s spoken
language.
 Comprehension is the process of making sense of
words, sentences and connected text.
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5. Types of reading
There are the following types of reading and the
corresponding types of activities to develop the
corresponding reading skills: ƒ
 Skimming reading is reading to confirm expectations; reading for
communicative tasks.
 General reading or scanning is reading to extract specific information;
reading for general understanding.
 Close reading or searching reading is reading for complete understanding.
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6. Skimming
• Skimming is the most rudimentary type of reading. Its
object is to familiarize you as quickly as possible with
the material to be read.
• Skimming is reading rapidly in order to get a general
overview of the material. Skimming tells you what
general information is within a section.
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7. Skimming
⬡ When you're going through a newspaper or
magazine in the morning: you read quickly to
get the main points, and skip over the detail.
Then you rush to your University or office.
⬡ Use skimming when you're trying to decide if a
book in the library or bookshop is right for you.
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8. Scanning
Scanning is a skill that requires that you read
quickly while looking for specific information.
To scan a reading text, you should start at the top
of the page and then move your eyes quickly
toward the bottom.
Generally, scanning is a technique that is helpful
when you are looking for the answer to a known
question. 8

9. Close Reading
Close reading is the most important skill you need for
any form of literary studies. It means paying especially
close attention to what is printed on the page.
Close reading means not only reading and
understanding the meanings of the individual printed
words, but also involves making yourself sensitive to
all the nuances and connotations of language as it is
used by skilled writers.
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10. “
Models of Reading
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The following models of Reading are useful:
1. Bottom-up Model
2. Top-down Model and
3. Interactive Model

11. Models of reading: Bottom up model
Reader builds meaning from the smallest units of meaning to
achieve comprehension.
Example: letters > letter clusters > words > phrases >
sentences > longer text > meaning = comprehension.
Reading is regarded as a process of “decoding”, which
moves from the bottom to the top of the system of language.

12. 12Dealing with Reading Skills
Bottom up knowledge
Sentences/
Phrases
Words
Morphemes
Phonemes
Bottomup
⬡ Linguistic knowledge is
used.
⬡ Knowledge of the:
∙ conventions of print.
∙ way words look.
∙ relationship between
sounds and letters.

13. 13Dealing with Reading Skills
Problems with the bottom up model
⬡ Spelling to sound correspondences is complex and
unpredictable.
⬡ The serial processing of every letter in a text would slow
reading up to the point where it would be very difficult for
meaning to be retained.
⬡ To assign a phonemic value to graphene it is often
necessary to know the meaning of the word containing
the graphene.

14. 14Dealing with Reading Skills
Models of the reading process:
The top-down model (1/2)
⬡ This model emphasises the reconstruction of meaning as
the reader interacts with the text. Reader generates
meaning by employing background knowledge,
expectations, assumptions and questions.
⬡ Using this information the reader forms hypotheses about
text elements and then samples the text to determine
whether or not his hypotheses are correct.

15. 15Dealing with Reading Skills
Models of the reading process:
The top-down model (2/2)
⬡ This model of teaching reading is based on the theory in
which reading is regarded as a prediction-check process,
“a psycholinguistic guessing game” (Goodman, 1970).
⬡ The learner uses pre-existing knowledge (schema) of
topic/field, cultural understandings & life experiences to
make out what makes sense.

16. 16Dealing with Reading Skills
Models of the reading process:
The interactive model
As the reader moves through the text, he/she employs
various types of knowledge. The reader draws on top-down
and bottom-up knowledge alternately or simultaneously
depending on the type of text, the reader’s background
knowledge and his/her language proficiency level.
Example: Reader uses top-down strategies until he/she
encounters an unfamiliar word, then employs decoding
skills to achieve comprehension.

17. 17Dealing with Reading Skills
Both types of knowledge are
necessary
⬡ Language knowledge is necessary because it enables
readers to recognise and decode quickly and accurately
letters, words, grammatical structures and cohesive
devices.
⬡ Schematic knowledge is necessary because it allows
us to make sense of new experiences and enables us to
make predictions about what we might expect to
experience in a given context.

18. 18Dealing with Reading Skills
The interactive model
Top down knowledge
⬡ Text source.
⬡ Text design.
⬡ Discourse type.
⬡ Inter-sentential links.
⬡ Sentence structure.
⬡ Clause structure.
⬡ Words.
⬡ Word structure.
Bottom up knowledge
⬡ Knowledge of the world.
⬡ General, topic,
sociocultural.

19. 19Dealing with Reading Skills
Strategies that effective readers
employ (1/4)
⬡ Recognise words quickly.
⬡ Use text features (i.e. headings, subheadings, pictures)
to predict the content of a text.
⬡ Deduce the meaning and use of unfamiliar lexical items
by using contextual clues.
⬡ Read at different speeds for different purposes.
⬡ Understand information when not explicitly stated.

20. 20Dealing with Reading Skills
Strategies that effective readers
employ (2/4)
⬡ Distinguish main ideas from minor ones.
⬡ Identify the salient points in a text to summarise.
⬡ Distinguish between fact and opinion.
⬡ Use prior knowledge to work out the meanings within a
text.
⬡ Understand the relationships between parts of the text
from the use of connectives.

21. 21Dealing with Reading Skills
Strategies that effective readers
employ (3/4)
⬡ Skimming (quickly reading through a text to get the gist).
⬡ Scanning (quickly searching a text for a particular piece
of information).
⬡ Identify the main point in a piece of discourse.
⬡ Use a dictionary well and understand its limitations.

22. 22Dealing with Reading Skills
Strategies that effective readers
employ (4/4)
⬡ Use context to build meaning and aid comprehension.
⬡ Continue reading even when unsuccessful, at least for a
while.
⬡ Adjust strategies to the purpose of reading. (Adapted
from Munby, 1978, and Aebersold and Field, 1997.)

23. Planning your
reading lesson
⬡ What you will do with the students before the reading.
⬡ What you and the students will do while (during) the
reading is going on.
⬡ What you will do after the text has been read.
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24. 24Dealing with Reading Skills
Pre reading stage
⬡ This stage is used to prepare student for the reading. It
aims to activate students’ schematic and language
knowledge and to ensure that reading is purposeful.
⬡ Pre- reading activities should always aim to develop
knowledge related to the overall meaning of the text.
They are not meant to deal with every potential difficulty.

25. 25Dealing with Reading Skills
This stage can be used to:
⬡ Orient the students to the context of the text.
⬡ Prepare the students for the content of the text.
⬡ Establish a purpose for reading.
⬡ Activate background knowledge.
⬡ Encourage students to express an attitude about
the topic.

26. 26Dealing with Reading Skills
Types of pre-reading activities
⬡ Brainstorming.
⬡ talking about pictures accompanying a text.
⬡ predicting content from title.
⬡ answering a set of questions or a quiz.
⬡ discussing the topic.
⬡ Identifying genre.
⬡ Learning key vocabulary.

27. 27Dealing with Reading Skills
The stages of a reading lesson:
The while-reading stage
⬡ The aim of this stage is to encourage learners to
be active, flexible and reflective readers. This
stage is used to practise and develop a range of
reading strategies.
⬡ The purpose of while reading activities is to
model good reading strategies and to examine
how the text achieves its purpose.

28. 28Dealing with Reading Skills
In this stage students can be
encouraged to:
⬡ Follow the order of ideas in a text.
⬡ React to opinions in a text.
⬡ Confirm expectations or prior knowledge.
⬡ Predict the next part of the text from various clues.
⬡ Distinguish fact from opinion.
⬡ Distinguish major from minor ideas etc.

29. 29Dealing with Reading Skills
Types of while-reading activities
⬡ Multiple choice.
⬡ Fill in the blanks.
⬡ True-false.
⬡ Matching.
⬡ Sequencing.
⬡ Completing a table.
⬡ Sorting/grouping.
⬡ Answering
questions.
⬡ Writing a reflection.

30. 30Dealing with Reading Skills
Reading comprehension questions
(1/2)
⬡ Questions for literal comprehension. (Answers directly and
explicitly available in the text).
⬡ Questions involving reorganization or reinterpretation.
(Require students to obtain literal information from various
parts of the text and put it together or reinterpret it).
⬡ Questions for inferences. (What is not explicitly stated but
implied).

31. 31Dealing with Reading Skills
Reading comprehension questions
(2/2)
⬡ Questions for evaluation or appreciation. (making a
judgement about the text in terms of what the writer is
trying to convey).
⬡ Questions for personal responses. (Reader’s reaction to
the content of the text).

32. 32Dealing with Reading Skills
The post reading stage (1/2)
⬡ Post-reading tasks should provide the students with
opportunities to relate what they have read to what they
already know or what they feel.
⬡ Tasks in this stage should encourage students to check
and discuss activities done while reading so that students
can make use of what they have read in a meaningful
way.

33. 33Dealing with Reading Skills
The post reading stage (2/2)
⬡ In addition, post-reading tasks should enable students to
produce language based on what they have learned.
⬡ They provide an excellent opportunity to integrate skills.

34. 34Dealing with Reading Skills
Purposes of post reading stage
activities
⬡ To use the now-familiar text as a basis for language
study.
⬡ To allow students to respond creatively to the text
(through art, drama and/or writing activities).
⬡ To focus more deeply on information in the text by
representing the information in a different form (e.g. time
line, diagram etc.).

35. 35Dealing with Reading Skills
Types of post reading activities
⬡ Critical analysis and evaluation.
⬡ Summarising/paraphrasing.
⬡ Language work.
⬡ Integrated activities.

36. 36Dealing with Reading Skills
Reproducing the text
⬡ Tell part of the story from these prompts:
∙ A doctor – village – annoyed.
∙ People – stop – street – advice.
∙ Never paid – never – money – made up his mind –
put and end.

37. 37Dealing with Reading Skills
Role Play
⬡ Act out the conversation between the doctor and the
young man.
⬡ Act out an interview between a journalist and the doctor.

38. 38Dealing with Reading Skills
Gap-filling
⬡ One day the doctor ________ by a young man. The
doctor _________ to be interested. He felt the young
man __________ in the street with his tongue ______
out.

39. 39Dealing with Reading Skills
False summary & writing
⬡ The teacher provides a summary with some wrong
information, and asks the students to correct it.
⬡ Writing based on what the students have read, e.g.
producing a tourist brochure, an advertisement, a short
summary, etc.

40. 40Dealing with Reading Skills
Approaches to the development of
reading skills
Intensive Approach:
Intensive reading "calls attention to grammatical forms,
discourse markers, and other surface structure details for
the purpose of understanding literal meaning, implications,
rhetorical relationships, and the like." He draws an analogy
to intensive reading as a "zoom lens“ strategy .

41. 41Dealing with Reading Skills
Intensive Reading Characteristics
⬡ Reader is intensely involved in looking inside the text
⬡ Focus on linguistic or semantic details of a reading
⬡ Focus on surface structure details such as grammar and discourse markers
⬡ Identify key vocabulary
⬡ Draw pictures to aid them (such as in problem solving)
⬡ Read carefully
⬡ Aim is to build more language knowledge rather than simply practice the skill
of reading

42. 42Dealing with Reading Skills
Intensive Reading Activities
⬡ Identify main ideas and details
⬡ Making inferences
⬡ Looking at the order of information and how it effects the
message
⬡ Identifying words that connect one idea to another
⬡ Identifying words that indicate change from one section to
another .

43. 43Dealing with Reading Skills
Approaches to the development of
reading skills
Extensive Approach:
Extensive reading is carried out "to achieve a general understanding of
a text."
⬡ extensive reading as "occurring when students read large amounts
of high interest material, usually out of class, concentrating on
meaning, "reading for gist" and skipping unknown words."
⬡ The aims of extensive reading are to build reader confidence and
enjoyment.

44. 44Dealing with Reading Skills
Extensive Reading Characteristics
⬡ The purposes of reading are usually related to pleasure, information and
general understanding.
⬡ Reading is its own reward.
⬡ Reading materials are well within the linguistic competence of the students in
terms of vocabulary and grammar.
⬡ Reading is individual and silent.
⬡ Reading speed is usually faster than slower.
⬡ Teachers orient students to the goals of the program.

45. 45Dealing with Reading Skills
Extensive Reading Activities
⬡ Interview each other about their reading.
⬡ Reading may be combined with a writing component. For example, after reading the
newspaper, students may be asked to write a newspaper report.
⬡ Class time reading
⬡ Students may set their own goals for their next session.
⬡ A reading log (recording number of pages read and at what level)
⬡ A reflection on what they noticed about their own reading
⬡ A book report or summary
⬡ A retelling of part of the text book

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