• Noble Enlightenment Education Institute – NEEI

• Teaching Reading

• Tr.Khine

10/10/2023 1
While reading activities
- help students focus on text features and comprehension.
- In addition to guiding students towards a better understanding of the text,
The activities aim at:

• Connecting students prior knowledge with the content of the reading,

• Helping them gain new knowledge,
• Training them to deal with similar text in the future.
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Examples of while reading activities

Skimming
Skimming the text to check predictions is a while-reading activity that is an extension of some
pre-reading activities. Skimming can be defined as reading a text quickly to get a general idea of
the passage.

Students do not have to read everything. Skimming involves among other things:
• Reading the title, the headings, and the subheadings.
• Reading the introduction or the first paragraph.
• Reading the topic sentence of each paragraph.
• Looking at pictures, charts, or graphs.
• Paying attention to italicized or boldface words or phrases.
• Reading the concluding paragraph.
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Scanning
Scanning refers to reading to find specific information such as a name, a date, or a number. This is
a technique used when one is interested in finding specific information quickly.

• As a teacher, you may want to ask your students to scan a text to find answers to (a) specific
question(s).
• With these questions in mind, your students read the text to attempt to find answers to only
these questions.

• They may ignore irrelevant information.

• Students may use headings and any other clues that will help them identify which part of the text
might contain the needed information. In other words, they will have to read selectively and skip
through irrelevant sections of the text.
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Comprehension questions
Most textbooks include comprehension questions that students have to answer while they are reading.
These comprehension questions have different forms:

Wh -questions
WH-questions begin with who, what, when, where, how, why, etc.
• These questions test both writing ability as well as reading ability.
• These questions can be literal or inferential. Inferential questions are more difficult to answer.
• The answer to pronominal questions might be one word, a phrase, or a full sentence.
• If the teacher aims are to test comprehension, spelling mistakes, as well as grammar mistakes, may be
tolerated.
Commands
Instead of questions, students answer commands such as:
• Identify,
• Circle,
• Underline,
• Describe,
• Explain,
•…
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Yes/no questions
Yes/no questions require short answers. These types of questions are easy to answer and do not
require a high level of writing proficiency skills. Learners have a 50% chance of getting the correct
answer.
True/false statements
Like yes/no questions, there is a 50% chance of getting the correct answer in true/false exercise.
• Learners decide whether each sentence is true or false according to the text.
• They may be asked to justify their answers from the text.
• The learners may be asked to rewrite the false sentences making the necessary changes to make
them true.

Multiple-choice questions
Four choices are provided. So the leaner has a 25% chance of getting it right. This exercise is
difficult to make, but it is easy to correct. Incorrect choices must be possible (partly correct) and not
stupid.
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Vocabulary and grammar work
Reading is a great opportunity for vocabulary and grammar practice, which contribute, to a bette
understanding of the text. Here are some examples of these activities.

Vocabulary work
Provide a list of vocabulary words from a reading passage and have students sort them into various
categories:

• Parts of speech,
• Semantic fields (e.g. food, means of transport, banking, branches of government, etc.)
Other vocabulary activities consist of:

• Matching synonyms or opposites;

• Filling the gaps with the appropriate words from the text.
Grammar work
Many grammar points are directly related to the meaning of the text.
Students can be encouraged to notice the grammar structures used to convey meaning
through activities such as:

• Identifying verb tense

• Identifying verb patterns (verb + infinitive or gerund..)
• Distinguishing passive from active structures.
• ….
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Post-reading activities
Post-reading activities help learners summarize their learning, get a deeper understanding, and organize
their thoughts and ideas. Here are examples of these activities.

What I learned
Some elements of the KWL chart mentioned above, namely the L (Learned) column, have to be completed
after reading the text.

Discussion
Groups react to the content of the passage. Each group reports to the other groups a summary of their
findings followed by whole-class discussion.
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Summarizing
As a post-reading activity, teachers may ask students to write a summary of the main points of a text.
Chambers and Brigham (1989, cited in Nation, 2009), report an interesting strategy to help learners
summarize a passage. This strategy is called a summary by deletion. This involves the following steps:

1. Students read the passage and delete all the sentences that merely elaborate the main sentences;
2. They delete all unnecessary clauses and phrases from the main sentences;
3. They delete all unnecessary words from what remains;
4. They replace the remaining words with their own expressions;
5. They write a final draft of the summary.
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Retelling the story
Retelling the story would help learners to talk about the content of the passage. It is an opportunity for
the teacher to integrate the speaking skill within the reading activity.

Think-Pair-Share
This is an excellent activity to help learners summarize what they learned and discuss it with other peers.
Here is how to proceed:

• Students write down their thoughts on the topic of the passage.

• Then, they discuss it with a partner.
• Finally, they share with the whole class.
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This activity also encourages interaction and leads to various perspectives and comprehension.
Drawing
The teacher encourages the learners to translate the content of the text into storyboards, cartoons, or
pictures. For example, they have to convert the most important ideas, facts, or events into the form of
pictures accompanied by explanations in the form of captions.

Search quest
After reading the text, the teacher encourages the students to conduct a search quest to find out more
about the topic of the text.

Videos
Students may use their cameras on their mobiles to make a video about the text. This can take the form
of:

• a role-play,
• a report,
• interview, etc.
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Presentations
Students may be asked to prepare a presentation about the text. They may use the internet to find
documents related to the topic. These documents can be in the form of pictures, movies, songs, poems,
etc.

Vocabulary work
To gain cognitive depth of the vocabulary learned, students have to be encouraged to work on the newly
acquired lexical items:
• Students identify the newly acquired words in the passage. They quiz each other on the parts of speech
and the meaning of these words.
• Students choose 10 words from the text, which they have to use to produce 10 sentences or to write a
piece of writing that is related to the topic.
Peer testing
Students work in pairs or groups.
• They have to prepare questions about the text they have just read.
• The members of each pair or each group will have to answer.