Language Skills

TKT Preparation Course

Unit 5. Reading

T. César Cárdenas / March 2021

The boy was surprised because the
girl was much faster at running
than he was. But after he found
out that her mother had won a
medal for running at the Olympic
Games, he understood
Reading involves …
• Recognition of letters.
• Recognition of words.
• Recognition of meaning of words.
• Making sense of text.
• Understanding the connection between
sentences.
• Knowledge of the world (Schemata)
 Key concepts: Reading
Connected text or ideas = Discourse

Sense connection
= Coherence
(Knowledge of the world)

Grammatical Connection = Cohesion

 Reading Subskills
• Reading for specific information (Scanning).
• Reading for gist / global understanding (Skimming).
• Reading for detail.
• Deducing meaning from context.
• Understanding text structure and types.
• Intensive and Extensive Reading
• Inferring.
• Predicting.
• Inferring attitude, feeling, mood.
• Proofreading
 Reading Subskills
Scanning / Reading for specific information
to read a text quickly to pick out specific information, e.g. finding a
phone number in a phone book

Skimming / Reading for gist / global understanding

to read a text quickly to get a general idea of what it is about

 Reading Subskills
Reading for detail
to read a text in order to understand most of what it says or
particular information

Deducing meaning from context

to guess the meaning of an unknown word by using the
information in a situation and/or around the word to help
 Reading Subskills
Understanding text structure and types
Involves understanding how certain types of texts generally
develop: essays, complaint letters, etc. Texts follow a sequence.

Intensive and Extensive reading

1. to read or listen and to focus on how language is used in a text
2. Reading for pleasure
 Reading Subskills
Inferring / Inferring attitude, mood, feelings.
• To get implicit information.
• To decide how a writer or speaker feels about something from the
way that they speak or write, rather than from what they openly
say or the words they use.
Predicting
To use clues like headlines or pictures or general knowledge about
the text or topic to make it easier to understand what you read or hear
 Reading Subskills
Proofreading
to read a text in order to check whether there are any mistakes
in spelling, grammar, punctuation etc.
 Key concepts
• When difficult, these are good strategies:
• Preteaching Vocabulary.
• Lead-in activities.
• Brainstorming.
• Graded Readers for extensive Reading.
• Provide confidence.
• Variety of texts: articles, stories, postcards, emails,
brochures, etc.
 Key concepts
• Reading pattern:

Pre While After

Reading Reading Reading
Introductory
Activities Main Task Post Task