4.

TEACHING READING: STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH A TEXT

Introducing the topic is the stage at which the teacher could try to personalize the topic so that
the students might be more involved and motivated.
e.g.: the teaching of a text dealing with entertainment could start with discussions about the
students’ personal experience.

Another possibility is to ask the students to predict the context and possible content of the text
by looking at the layout, visuals or title of the text.

These introductory techniques aim at creating a ‘need’ for reading.

Facilitating the task: is the stage at which the teacher pre-teaches the vocabulary items by
focusing upon key words only

Getting the gist: can help students practice the sub-skill of skimming by the use of such
techniques as T/F and multiple choice exercises.
- Do not forget that the questions should be given to the students before starting to read the
text.

Intensive reading: refers to students’ re-reading of the whole text and aims at checking if they
understood the message of the text. It involves a detailed reading.
Techniques for the checking of the text comprehension:
- T/F
- Yes/No questions
- Wh - questions
- Multiple choice questions
- Drawing of maps
- Filling in charts
- Ordering scrambled pieces of texts (or pictures), etc.
! Though reading is an individual activity, the teacher can encourage students to co-operate in the
exchange of information.

‘THE HUNGRY TOMATO’ – A huge tomato which is a monster. It ran after people.

! A good lesson is one which balances the skills practiced. Therefore, reading should not take up
a whole lesson.
Ten tips for teaching reading:
1. In the absence of interesting texts, very little is possible.
2. The primary activity of a reading lesson should be learners reading texts.
3. Growth in language ability is an essential part in the development of reading ability.
4. Classroom procedure should reflect the purposeful, task-based, interactive nature of real
reading.
5. Teachers must learn to be quiet: all too often, teachers interfere with and so retard their
learners’ reading development by being too dominant and by talking too much.
6. Exercise types should, as far as possible, approximate cognitive reality.
7. A learner will not become a proficient reader simply by attending a reading course or by
working through a reading textbook.
8. A reader contributes meaning to a text.
9. Progress in reading requires learners to use their ears, as well as their eyes.
10. Using a text does not necessarily equal teaching reading.