ST.

JOSEPH’S COLLEGE OF QUEZON CITY

295 E. Rodriguez Sr. Blvd., Quezon City

GRADUATE SCHOOL

MASTER OF ARTS IN EDUCATION MAJOR IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Name: Danilo C. Siquig, Jr.

Topics: What is Reading?

Strategies in Learning to Read in the 21st Century

OUTLINE OF THE REPORT

I. What is Reading
a. Some Definitions of Reading
b. Components of Reading
c. Kinds of Reading
d. Reading Techniques
e. Comprehension: the product of reading

II. Strategies in Learning to Read in the 21st Century

a. Explicit instruction in vocabulary development
b. Knowledge through text
c. Reinforce, deepen, and consolidate learning from reading
d. Digital Text Reading
e. Attention to syntax to strengthen comprehension

WRITTEN REPORT

I. WHAT IS READING?
A. Some Definitions of Reading
1. “Reading is the ability to perceive and interpret the sounds and
symbols”---Robinson
 The term “perceive” describes the mechanical aspect of reading
(seeing and perceiving the words). The term “interpret”
describes the intellectual process involved in reading.

2. “Reading is an active process of reaching and searching for meaning.”-

--John J. DeBoer
 Reading is an activity which involves comprehension and
interpretation of ideas symbolized by printed page. The task of
interpretation depends upon the meaning of the words. The
meaning of the word is sometimes different in different context.
 3. “Reading is a process of thinking”---Betts
 All reading involves physical factors, thinking and feeling.
Thinking is implicit in every aspect of reading.

4. “Reading is a process of reasoning.”---Edward L. Thorndike

 It consists in selecting the right elements of the situation and
putting them together in right relations and so with the right
amount of weight as influence or force for each.

Frederick B. Devis described reasoning in reading as the general mental

ability that is involved in reading. This is made up of two identifiable kinds of
reasoning facility in reading.
a. Several ideas to see the relationships among concepts
b. Ability to draw correct inferences from writer’s statements

B. The Components of the Reading Process

1. Vocabulary
 The knowledge of word and word meaning

2 Types of Vocabulary
a. Receptive Vocabulary
---Includes the words that one takes in when listening
and reading.

b. Expressive
---Is composed of the words one uses when speaking and writing.

2. Comprehension
 It is defined as the level of understanding of a text/message. This
understanding comes from the interaction between the words that are
written and how they trigger knowledge outside the text/message.

List of Reading Strategies

Reading Description
Strategies
Predicting  Helps activate prior knowledge
 Based on clues in text (pictures, subtitles, etc.)
Connecting  Connecting prior knowledge to new information

Comparing  Thinking more specifically about connections

they are making,
e.g. How is this different to….?
Inferring  Taking information from a text and creating
their own interpretations beyond the literal
 level.

Synthesising  Piecing information together as students read a

text, to keep track of what is happening
Creating  Creating sensory images to assist with overall
Images comprehension of a text
Self-  Providing a framework for active learning as
questioning students engage with the text to find answers
Skimming  Glancing quickly through material to gain an
overall view of text
Scanning  Glancing through a text to locate specific details
, e.g. names, dates etc.
Determining  Prioritizing most important information from
Importance phrase, sentence, paragraph, chapter or whole
text

3. Oral Reading Fluency

 The ability to read aloud with expression to demonstrate an
understanding of the author’s message.

According to Mc Kenna & Stahl (2009) the three key components of

reading fluency are
• accurate word recognition
• automaticity
• appropriate rhythm and intonation of speech.

Each component affects comprehension in a different way.

Accurate word recognition: In order to improve reading fluency

pupils should be reading at their instructional reading level i.e. 90% -
95% accuracy.

Automaticity: This is the ability to read words without conscious

decoding.

Rhythm and intonation: this is also referred to as prosody and

concerns the ability to read with some sort of inflection.
Other approaches to reading are tabulated below
 Activity Method

Choral Children chorally read a portion of text

Reading altogether.

In this activity, the teacher tapes the children

reading individually. This can be done with the
Taped microphone on your interactive whiteboard or a
Reading tape recorder. The children may listen back to
what they have read. They self-assess their own
reading.

The teacher may work with a small group/whole

class/individual. The teacher models fluent
Echo
reading and the children repeat the reading back
Reading
to the teacher. They echo the teachers’
expression and intonation etc.
Older children are paired with younger children.
If children are too close in age, some readers
Buddy might feel uncomfortable when reading aloud.
Reading There
are benefits for the older and younger child
here.

4. Reading Attitude/Motivation
Motivation refers to a child’s eagerness and willingness to read.

Motivated readers require a safe, supportive classroom environment,

one in which both the physical aspects and the culture encourages
opportunities to use and combine printed, spoken, visual and digital
texts.

Ways of motivating students are outlined in the table below:

Ideas for Explanation

Motivating
Students

Reading Time Establish a time for independent reading

DEAR time, USSR time and be a role model
for students by sharing your enthusiasm for
reading. Share with pupils which reading
 material you enjoy

Sharing After independent reading sessions, allow

time for students to
share what they have just read with
partner/group/class
Reading to Help students experience a wide variety of
Students texts by reading many different text forms,
authors and genres regularly. It is very
valuable to allow time daily where the
children are read to for the
sheer purpose of enjoyment
Using Fads Make literacy links to current fads/trends
such as current sporting
events
Films and TV Provide opportunities for students to explore
reading material
related to appropriate films/TV programmes
Poetry Ensure a variety of poetry texts is available
Inventories/surv Distribute a questionnaire at the start of the
eys year to help select
motivating material based on student’s
interests
Book Discussion Provide opportunities for students to discuss
Groups a common text that

5. Phonological Awareness
Two Important Definitions

Phonological Awareness Ability to recognise, combine

and manipulate the different
sounds of spoken words
Phonics The combination of (letters) in
written language and phonemes
(sounds) in spoken language
and how to use these
correspondences to read and
spell
 Levels of Phonological Awareness:
Phonological awareness is an umbrella term. It can be divided into
the following levels:

1. Syllabic Awareness: This involves syllable blending, segmentation

and isolation.
a. Syllable blending: The teacher demonstrates this by saying a
word such as pronouncing syllables with one second intervals
between them before asking pupils ‘What is this word?’
Example: “po-ta-to”

b. Syllable Segmentation: the teacher presents words for

segmentation by showing real objects or pictures or by simply
saying the word and asking the students to segment it
Example: win-dow

c. Syllable Isolation: teacher presents 2 syllable words which also

happen to be compound words. The words are presented orally and
the pupils are asked to say the first part or first syllable on its own
before advancing to the second syllable.
Example: postman, playtime, playground etc.

2. Onset-Rime Awareness (Rhyming):

All syllables can be divided up into onsets and rimes. All syllables
have rimes but not all syllables have onsets.
For example: the word “bat” b = onset, at = rime.

3. Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is the awareness that spoken language

consists of a sequence of phonemes (a single unit of sound). There
are 44 phonemes or individual sounds, 24 consonant phonemes and
20 vowel phonemes in the English language.
 Phonemic Awareness Games
Name of Game Explanation

Mystery Bag Place some ‘mystery objects’ in a

bag. Select one object at a time,
but do not show it to the students.
Provide clues to help them identify
it. For example,
In the bag I can feel something
whose name begins with ‘f’. What
could it be?
In the mystery bag I can feel a f
/ish. What could it be? The
procedure is then repeated with
other objects.
Hunting for Words Challenge students to go ‘hunting’
for words in the classroom, at
home, or in the general
environment. The words should
fulfil a given
criterion, such as words beginning
with ‘m’,
words ending with ‘t’ or words with
four letters. Students copy the
words into their ‘spy pads’ and later
they share and discuss them as a
class.
Sing a Song Using Songs and Rhymes for
phonemic awareness sung to the
tune of ‘Old McDonald Had a Farm’.

Tic Tac Toe Tic Tac Toe is played in the same

way as Noughts and Crosses but
students use pictures to create a
sequence of three (diagonally,
vertically or
horizontally). Player A may
have to choose
pictures of words that begin with
the letter ‘b’ and player B may have
to choose pictures of words that
begin with the letter ‘s’.
Students play the game in pairs.
Each pair is provided with a playing
 grid and a selection of picture
cards. Each student selects five
cards matching their given criterion.
They then take turns to place their
cards on the grid. The winner is the
first to place three words
horizontally, vertically or diagonally
on the grid.
Elkonin Boxes Elkonin Boxes (Elkonin, 1973)
support students in identifying the
number of sounds in a word, which
is not always the same as the
number of letters; for instance,
‘bike’ has four letters but only
three sounds.

Draw up an Elkonin Box on the

board. Ensure that the box has the
same number of spaces as there
are sounds in a chosen word. Begin
by asking students, for example,
‘What sound do you hear first in
“cat”?’ When they respond with the
first sound, not the letter name,
place a counter in the first space.
Repeat this procedure for each
sound in the word, saying ‘What
sound do you hear next?’ Place a
counter in the second and third
spaces respectively when each
sound is identified. Finish by
counting the number of sounds.
Phonics
Systematic phonics instruction has been defined as follows:

Phonics is a method of instruction that teaches students correspondences

between graphemes (letters) in written language and phonemes (sounds) in
spoken language and how to use these correspondences to read and spell.
A suggested sequence for teaching phonics might be the following

The ability to say the sounds of the

letters

The ability to sound out and read

CVC words

The ability to sound out and read 4

letter words with initial and final
blends (short vowel sounds)

The ability to understand and read

magic e words (long vowel sounds)

The ability to understand and read

vowel digraphs (long vowel sounds)

The ability to segment and read

multisyllabic words
 Strategies for teaching phonics
 Making and Breaking Words
 Chunking

C. KINDS OF READING
A. According to purpose & manner of comprehending
1.Extensive Reading
- reading for pleasure any topic of interest
- main purpose: to relax and enjoy yourself
- comics, humorous stories, tales, novels, short articles in the
newspapers and magazines, jokes, and other forms of light reading
materials
2. Intensive Reading
- careful or in-depth reading
- you read for details and extract specific info on particular topics
- the kind of reading you do when you study, prepare a term paper, or
an oral report
- has several techniques or sub-types: scanning, skimming, exploratory
reading, study reading, critical reading, and analytical reading.

D. READING TECHNIQUES/SUBKINDS (for Intensive Reading)

1. Scanning
 rapid reading assisted by key words to locate specific pieces of info
-for research, review
-gets info that answer what, who, where, when, how
Examples; looking for a word meaning in the dictionary, getting a
document from the filing cabinet, looking through the yellow pages.
2. Skimming
 rapid reading focusing on the TITLE, HEADINGS, TOPIC
SENTENCE, SIGN POSTS to get the main idea
 effective preliminary step to reading thoroughly because after
skimming, you can quickly go back to details you need to read
entirely.

Skimming Steps
a. Preview the text by reading the title and the introduction. (Usually, the
intro has the thesis statement).
b. Check if there are headings and subheadings.
c. Read the 1st parag. and the 1st sentences of the succeeding paragraphs.
d. Quickly check keywords in the parag. (sometimes higlighted, italicized,
underlined)
e. Read the last parag. (Usually it summarizes the main points.)
f. If you feel that a parag. contains impt. Info that answers what, why,
when, how, and who, read it fully.
 Examples:
• Surveying a chapter/article
• Reviewing something you’ve read
• Choosing a magazine/book to buy in the bookstore

3. Exploratory Reading
• Aims to get a fairly accurate picture of a whole presentation of ideas;
how the whole selection is presented
• Allots more time for reading
Examples: Long articles in magazines. ,short stories, descriptive texts

4. Study Reading
- the reader must get a maximum understanding of the main ideas and
their relationships
Examples: SQ3R, SQ4R
(survey, question, read, record, recite, review)

SQ4R: STEPS
1. SURVEYING: (preparing for reading) Take note of the titles, headings &
subheadings; words in italics or bold print; intro & summaries; pictures
& captions; questions at the end of the chapter or section (do this in few
minutes only)
2. QUESTIONING:(focusing your reading)Turn headings & subheadings
into questions by asking who, what, when, where, why, and how abt.
them.
3. READING:(focusing your reading)Take time to read with maximum
comprehension. Try to answer the questions you posed in the previous
step. Try to det. the main ideas and major details of the text.
4. RECORDING: (focusing your reading)Take note so you can remember
what you have read.
5. RECITING:(recalling step) Recite aloud or mentally, pair up with a
partner for a Q&A session.
6. REVIEWING: (recalling step) Repeat some of the previous steps and
review on a regular basis

5. Critical Reading
- question, analyze and evaluate the text
- use critical-thinking skills to:
 differentiate bet. fact & opinion;
 recognize author’s purpose in writing;
 make inferences abt. purposes and characters;
 recognize the author’s tone in writing;
 recognize persuasive techniques or propaganda designed to
sway you to believe
 - reader stops to consider the facts carefully, “take time to read in order
to the get facts straight”
Examples:
Reading done in periodicals, books, ads which are loaded with propaganda
devices designed to sway opinions.
6. Analytical Reading
-careful attention to each word and its importance in relation to other words
in the sentence or the paragraph.
Examples:
Reading mathematical problems, scientific formulas, and certain definitive
statements of key ideas that require a questioning/inquisitive mind.

7. Developmental Reading
- When a reader is under a comprehensive reading program that lets him
go through stages & monitors him closely.

E. COMPREHENSION: THE PRODUCT OF READING

The definition of comprehension includes three levels or types of
understanding.
a. Literal Comprehension means a “clear grasp of what is read.”
b. Determining implied meaning.
c. Focuses on the implication and significance of the author’s ideas beyond
those things.

II. STRATEGIES IN LEARNING TO READ IN THE 21ST CENTURY

1. Children need explicit instruction in vocabulary development
 As learners begin to read, they map the printed vocabulary
encountered in texts onto the oral language they bring to the
task. Understanding text, therefore, depends on being able to
translate letter–sound correspondences into known words and
comprehensible concepts (Kamil, 2004).
 Categories are essential to concept building (Neuman, Newman,
& Dwyer, 2011; Neuman & Wright, 2013). They enable children
to build knowledge networks—connections between concepts
that are meaningful and enduring in their longer-term memory
and are primary in comprehension development. They become
the background knowledge that we know needs to be activated
when children are trying to make sense of new ideas. Teaching
words in meaningful semantic clusters enhances children's
reading development.
2. Children need to develop knowledge through text
 Studies suggest that the information genre may elicit more
cognitively demanding teaching interactions around vocabulary
than narrative. Pellegrini and his colleagues (1990), for example,
 reported significantly more utterances of high cognitive demand
during expository texts reading (16%) compared with reading
storybook texts (4%). Similarly, children have been reported to
use a greater numbers of initiations, book-relevant responses to
questions, and text-external response (e.g., text to life) with
expository texts than storybook reading. Therefore, given the
substantial differences in the accumulation of words among low-
and middle-income children's vocabulary before school entry,
information books could serve as a potential resource for
promoting vocabulary development.
3. Rereading helps children to reinforce, deepen, and consolidate
learning from reading.
 More rigorous English language arts standards worldwide are
revitalizing the longstanding but too often overlooked
instructional technique of rereading. An integral part of the
directed reading lesson, rereading typically occurred toward the
end of the lesson for the purpose of extending comprehension of
content. Students were guided to reread excerpts for new
purposes, such as investigating a concept, generalizing, and
thinking critically or creatively, after reading and discussion.
 Today's version of rereading is focused on intensive reading
or close reading, which involves multiple readings for purposes
of text analysis during and after reading (Shanahan, 2012).
 Students reread to develop an aggressive, probing, analytical
approach to what the text says and how it says it—the function
of details, for example, or logical order and relationships in text
organization.

Two primary sources of evidence support the instructional

technique of rereading as intensive reading.
1. Researched Based
 Research shows, for example, that rereading improves meta-
comprehension accuracy, that is, the ability to monitor and
assess one's own comprehension in learning new material — a
critical strategy when reading to learn complex material
(Rawson, Dunlosky, & Thiede, 2000).
2. Expert Opinion Based
The other is expert opinion based on scholarly thought and work.

4. Children's motivation to read is enhanced through digital texts

 A digital textbook is not the static version of a print book.
Rather, as currently defined, it is “an interactive set of
learning content and tools accessed via a laptop, tablet or
other advanced device” (The Digital Textbook Playbook, 2013,
 p. 5). A digital textbook is lightweight (literally), Internet
connected, and personalized. It enables collaboration and
provides instantaneous feedback to student and teacher. It
changes how students read.
 Research evidence is mounting that digital textbooks give
students a reading edge. Studies report that reading in a
digital learning environment is an incentive in younger and
lower performing students and that feedback in e-books and
apps plays a powerful role for staying engaged and motivated
(Grinshaw, Dungworth, McKnight, & Morris, 2007; Zucker,
Moody, & McKenna, 2009). Digital features like animation,
hotspots, and audio facilitate comprehension and aid recall of
story plots and content information (Shamir & Korat, 2009;
Verhallen, Bus, & de Jong, 2006). Most promising are built-in
tutors or virtual assistants that focus attention and provide on-
the-spot teaching of reading skills, such as decoding and word
meanings (Smeets & Bus, 2013).
 It is a best practice that can personalize student learning,
increase relevant instructional time, and support
differentiation to meet students' specific needs. Digital
textbooks provide teachers with opportunities to apply proven
practices (the best ones) more often with all students that in
turn increase student opportunities to engage in meaningful
and appropriate learning experiences.
5. Attention to syntax to strengthen comprehension
 Attention to syntax or sentence structure has not been a high-
priority best practice for many years, although parsing sentences
as an aid to comprehension has a long history in reading
instruction. To read complex, challenging texts, students must
become familiar with increasingly complex sentences of written
language. They need to cultivate a syntactic awareness of
sentence structures used in the more formal language of books.