The Challenges of Learning to Teach Reading | Reading Rockets

The Challenges of Learning to Teach Reading

By: Louisa Moats

 
Teaching reading is a complex process that draws upon an extensive knowledge base and
repertoire of strategies. This article argues that many novice teachers are underprepared to
teach reading effectively, and examines some of the reasons why.

 
 Reading develops a whole range of language learning processes, it does the work of
many teachers combined into one place, it provides a stable source of language to work
with and it is very easily adapted into highly interactive and communication-driven
tasks.  The issue of teaching reading and reading comprehension so far is much involved
with  the  reading  skills  and  tradition  of  exercises  in  reading. The  development 
of reading  exercises  normally  go  with  the  exercises  students  equipped  to  achieve
proficiency  in  reading.    The  exercises  include  reading  techniques  to  improve
comprehension: skimming, scanning, reading  for  thorough comprehension,  and critical
reading. So to avoid or lessen this kind of problem. As a future educator, I have to
implement this kind of  techniques and I already practice it myself. The way I learned
English I learned to read English by scaffolding the long words to know which part of
speech they are. I started by reading words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs then whole
pages. At the start, I realized the mistake I was making by stopping at each difficult word
to translate. This interrupted my whole understanding of what I was reading. Then I
moved to guessing difficult words from the context.
The second strategy is scanning. It is a primarily quick reading through that allows me to
break reading into pieces or scaffolding to reach the main ideas. Scanning is to review
what you have read to understand your reading. Deconstructing the material of reading
is a direct purpose of reading. It allows to get specific details to connect with general
ideas to get a full picture of what is being read. The third strategy is summarizing.
I used to give the reading passage again but in my own words to make sure to what
extent I mastered it. This develops my understanding of the reading material. Then I
answer reading questions and try to get answers from my summary and from the original
reading material to make sure my summary lacks nothing.
Summarizing makes me understand what I am reading using a simpler language.  The
fourth strategy to learn English reading is discussing. I used to discuss what I read which
an adult or a teacher. Discussing my reading will add assurance and full understanding of
it. It will make me more able to apply what I read in life through discussing and analyzing
looking for positive and negative aspects in the reading passage. Discussion based
reading can also be tested through answering questions related to the passage if reading
and commenting on them. The fifth strategy is extracting. It is very important to use it
for getting information out if visual charts or timetables. Through exploring these various
reading strategies I have learned that there is no right or wrong approach to teaching
reading.  The real key is that as a reading teacher I need to get to know my students and
their needs and find out what approaches best fit their needs and leaning styles. I also
understand that I need to take into consideration the philosophy of the school and my
own philosophy of teaching reading in order to reach all of my students.  Using all of the
resources that I have learned through completing my degree and exploring the resources
at my school will be key factors in maximizing my instruction and options for my
students. With these techniques I hopefully to pass this kind of challenges of my
teaching journey in the future.