Developmental

Reading

Prof. Judy C. Bautista

Philippine Normal University
College of Education
Department of Professional Education
What happens when one
reads?

Group work:

Illustrate, draw, or diagram

whatever you believe is
happening during the process
of reading.
Read

X J L W V R O

E D C S A U Q

P H S W T I E
Read
Kwaa maana jinsi hii Mungu
aliupenda ulimwengu, hata
akamtoa Mwanawe pekee, ili kila
mtu amwaminiye asipotee; bali
awe na uzima wa milele.

Read
For God so loved the world and
He gave his only begotten Son
that whoever believes in Him
should not perish but have
everlasting life.
Reader’s Knowledge
1. Knowledge of the language
2. Knowledge of the world /
knowledge of the topic /
knowledge of the subject
matter
3. Knowledge of the text
structure
Theoretical Models of
Reading
1. Bottom-up / Outside-in Model

2. Top-down / Inside-out Model

3. Interactive / Interactive
Compensatory Model
 Bottom-up Model
The central notion behind the bottom-up
model is that reading is basically a matter of
decoding a series of written symbols into
their aurale equivalent, Cambourne (1979),
cited by Nunan (1987), who uses the term
“outside-in” rather than bottom-up, provides
the following diagram to illustrate how the
model is supposed to work.

Phonemes
Every letter Blending Meaning
Print and Pronunciation
discriminated graphemes
Figure 1. Information Processing in Bottom-up Models of Reading
Vacca, Vacca & Gove(1991)
Top-Down Model
Goodman (1967), in attacking the bottom-up
model of reading, refuted that:

“Reading is a precise process. It involves

exact, detailed, sequential perception and
identification of letters, words, spelling patterns
and large language units.” Advancing a new
paradigm, he stressed: “In place of this
misconception, I offer this: Reading is a selective
process. It involves partial use of available
minimal language cues selected from perceptual
input on the basis of the reader’s expectation. As
this partial information is processed, tentative
decisions are made to be confirmed, rejected, or
refined as reading progresses. More simply
stated, reading is a psycholinguistic guessing
game. It involves as interaction between thought
and language. Efficient reading does not result
from precise perception and identification of all
elements, but from skill in selecting the fewest,
most productive cues necessary to produce
guesses which are right for the first time”.
Figure 2. Information Processing in Top-Down Model of Reading
Vacca, Vacca and Grove (1991)
It deonst mttaer in what oderr
the lteter eb ni the rghit pcale.
The rset can eb a taotl mses
and oyu can sltil raed this
wouthit a plobrem. This is
baceuse the hmaun mnid deos
ton raed ervey lteter yb istlef
btu het word sa a wlohe.
Amzanig huh? Yeah and I
aywlas tguhoht slepilng asw
ipmorant!
The Interactive-
Compensatory Model
Schema Theory
The role of background knowledge in language
comprehension has been formalized as schema
theory (Bartlet 1932; Rumelhart 1980), which has
one of its fundamental tenets that text, any text,
either spoken or written, does not by itself carry
meaning. Rather, according to schema theory, a text
only provides directions for listeners or readers as to
how they should retrieve or construct meanings from
their own, previously acquired knowledge. This
previously acquired knowledge is called the reader’s
background knowledge, and the previously
acquired knowledge structures are called schemata
(Bartlett 1932, Adams and Collins 1979; Rumelhart
1980). According to schema theory, comprehending
a text is an interactive process between the reader’s
background knowledge and the text. Efficient
comprehension requires the ability to relate the
textual material to one’s own knowledge.
Comprehending words, sentences, and entire texts
involves more than just relying on one’s linguistic
knowledge. As Anderson et al. (1977) point out,
“every act of comprehension involves knowledge of
the world as well”.
…The very act of learning to
read and write has to start
from a comprehensive act
of reading the world,
something which humans
do before reading the
words

(Freire & Macedo, 1987)

 According to schema theory, the process
of interpretation is guided by the principle that
every input is mapped against some existing
schema and that all aspects of that schema
must be compatible with the input information.
There are two types of schemata: formal
schemata (background knowledge of the
formal, rhetorical, organizational structures of
different types of texts) and content schemata
(background knowledge of the content area of
a text).

Schema theory research has shown that

the most efficient processing of text is
interactive – a combination of top-down and
bottom-up processing models. Failures in
reading comprehension can, therefore, occur
due to the breakdown of bi-directional
processing and the over reliance on
unidirectional processing in second language
reading.
Rocky slowly got up from the mat, planning his
escape. He hesitated a moment and thought.
Things were not going well. What bothered him
most was being held, especially since the
charges against him had been weak. He
considered his present situation. The lock that
held him was strong but he thought he could
break it. He knew, however, that his timing
would have to be perfect. Rocky was aware
that it was because of his early roughness that
he had been penalized severely, much too
severely. From his point of view, the situation
was becoming frustrating; the pressure had
been grinding on him for too long. He was
being ridden unmercifully. Rocky was getting
angry now. He felt he was ready to make his
move. He knew that his success or failure
would depend on what he did the next few
seconds.
The procedure was actually quite simple. First
you arrange things into different groups. Of
course, one pile may be sufficient, depending on
how much there is to do. If you have to go
somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is
the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set.
It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is
better to do too few things at once than to many.
In the short run this may not seem important, but
complications can easily arise. A mistake can be
expensive as well. At first the whole procedure
will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will
become just another facet of life. It is difficult to
see any end to the necessity for this task in the
immediate future, but then one never can tell.
After the procedure is completed, one arranges
the materials into different groups again. They
can be put into their appropriate places.
Eventually they can be used once more, and the
whole cycle will then have to be repeated.
However, that is part of life.
With hocked gem financing him,
our hero bravely defied all scornful
laughter that tried to prevent his
scheme. “Your eyes deceive,” he
had said. “An egg, not a table,
correctly typifies this unexplored
planet.” Now three sturdy sisters
sought proof. Forging along,
sometimes through calm vastness,
yet more often over turbulent
peaks and valleys, days became
weeks as many doubters spread
harmful rumors about the edge. At
last, from nowhere, welcomed
winged creatures appeared,
signifying momentous success.
Reading
…is the active construction of
meaning out of the interaction
of the reader, the text, and the
context.
Domain of the Reader
1. Schema / Background
Knowledge
A. Language
B. World / Subject Matter
C. Text Structure
2. Attitude, Enthusiasm,
Motivation, Interests
3. Strategies and Skills
Psychological Correlates of an
Effective or Strategic Reader
– Short-term Memory
– Long-term Memory

Intellectual Correlates of an
Effective or Strategic Reader
– Intelligence
• Intelligence Quotient
• Multiple Intelligences
Linguistic Correlates of an
Effective or Strategic Reader

Four Cueing Systems:

1. graphophonic
2. syntactic
3. semantic
4. pragmatic
Jabberwocky
Lewis Caroll

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
 He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came.

One two! One two! And through and through

the vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arm, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Sociological Correlates of an
Effective or Strategic Reader
– Sociolinguistic competence
– Social context

Physiological Correlates of an
Effective or Strategic Reader
– Saccades
– Return sweeps
– Clustering
– Regression
– Fixation
– Subvocalization
 Scarcell and Oxford (1992) have described
the listening and reading processes in terms
of Canale and Swains’s (1980) model of
communicative competence. According to
this model, listeners and readers draw upon
four types of competencies as they attempt
to comprehend an oral or a written message.

1. grammatical competence: knowledge of

morphology, syntax, vocabulary, and
mechanics;
2. sociolinguistic competence: knowing what is
expected socially and culturally by native
speakers of the language;
3. discourse competence: the ability to use
cohesion devices and transitional phrase to
link meaning across sentences as well as the
ability to recognize how coherence is used to
maintain the message’s unity;
4. strategic competence: ability to use a
number of guessing strategies to
compensate for missing knowledge.
Domain of the Text
What makes a text a text?

One day, Jose went to school.

Juan, the naughty boy, arrived.
She found out that she lost her
wallet. After realizing that he
was late, he tried to think of a
good reason so he won’t be
scolded by his teacher. Jose’s
friend cried.
How much have you
understood from the text?

Where did Jose go?

He went to school.
Who was late to school?
Either Jose or Juan
Who is Jose’s friend?
Either Juan, the girl who lost
her wallet, or somebody else
Why did Jose’s friend cry?
Because she lost her wallet, or
because he was late.
I bet…
We cannot even generate
a title for the text that we
have just read.

The Missing Wallet?

When Jose arrived in

school?
Juan, the naughty boy?
Let’s try to read the following text.
One day, Jose happily went to school.
When he was walking along the road, he
saw his friend crying. He approached
her and asked why she was crying. She
said that her wallet is missing. Jose
tried to help her look for her wallet.
Suddenly, Juan, the naughty boy,
arrived and tried to disturb them while
they were looking for the wallet. It was
too late when they realized that they are
already late for their first period class.
Jose tried to think how he could explain
the incident to their teacher so that he
would not scold them anymore.
Now, how much have you
understood from the text?

Who is Jose’s friend?

The girl who lost her wallet.
Why was Jose late to school
when he was supposed to be
early?
He tried to help his friend look
for her wallet.
Why did Jose need to explain
why they were late?
They feared that their teacher
gets angry.
There is nothing to unify this
paragraph. There is no
purpose for listing these
seemingly unrelated events
together. Now read the same
paragraph. There is no
purpose for listing these
seemingly unrelated events
together. Now read the same
paragraph with a few more
events added to unify the
whole story.
How about this? Is this a
text?
Kring…kring…

Telephone!

I’m in the bathroom.

Okay.

Thanks
A newspaper is better than a
magazine. A seashore is better
place than the street. At first it is
better to run than to walk. You may
have to try several times. It takes
some skill but it’s easy to learn.
Even young children can enjoy it.
Once successful, complications are
minimal. Birds seldom get too
close. Rain, however, soaks in very
fast. Too many people doing the
same thing can also cause
problems. One needs a lot of room.
If there are no complications, it can
be very peaceful. A rock will serve
as an anchor. If things break loose,
however, you will not get a second
chance.
Domain of the Text
• Cohesion
– The relationship between the
structure of the words, phrases
and sentences to fit a logical
whole.
• Coherence
– The relationship of ideas to other
ideas in a given text to form a
meaningful whole.
Reading and Text
• A text is the verbal record of a
communicative act (Brown and
Yule, 1983: 6).
• Text is a language that is functional,
that is which is ‘doing some job’
such as persuading us to buy a
product or conveying New Year’s
greetings (Halliday in Halliday and
Hasan, 1985: 10).
• Text is any chunk of written
language which carries a whole
meaning and is describable by
some term such as ‘warning’,
‘novel’, or ‘letter’ (Wallace, 1992).
Features of Connected Text
• It is possible to look at texts in three
different ways:
• in terms of their formal features, that
is, at ways features of the
grammatical system are used to link
sentences or paragraphs
• in terms of their propositional
meaning, that is how ideas or
concepts are expressed and related
to each other, and
• in terms of their communicative
function, both the ways in which
sections of a text can be interpreted
in relation to other sections and of
the function of any text as a whole
 Stages of Reading
Development

Stage One: Emergent Literacy

(Birth to Five Years)
• Children move from learning
primarily through direct sensory
contact and physical manipulation
to using an intuitive kind of logic to
form concrete concepts.
• They draw conclusions based on
perceptions and experience
difficulty putting them into words.
• Language growth is rapid.
• Toward the end of this stage,
children may be able to read signs
and labels and may explore writing
in the form of scribbles, letter-like
forms, or invented spellings.
• One or two children out of a hundred
will learn to read before starting
kindergarten (West, Denton, Germino-
Hausken, 2000); however, all will have
some experience with reading and
writing.
• Children at this stage are egocentric
and they cannot appreciate another’s
point of view.
• They love being read to and cannot
hear their favorite tales often enough.
• They have a poorly developed concept
of causation and so enjoy stories that
involve magic and personification.
• They also like the elements of rhyme,
repetition, and alliteration.
Stage Two: Early Reading
(Kindergarten and First Grade)
• Children are able to manipulate objects
and ideas mentally and can reason
logically in a concrete way. However,
they have difficulty comprehending
underlying principles, especially abstract
ones.
• A key characteristic of this stage is an
evolving grasp of the alphabetic principle.
• Students begin using their knowledge of
letter-sound relationships and context to
decode printed words.
• Children taught through a bottom-up
approach will rely heavily-perhaps too
heavily- on phonics and context clues.
• Children who are taught through a
top-down approach tend to over-rely
on context.
• Later, they, too, will integrate
phonics and context cues.
• Children should be given lots of
easy books at this stage so that
they have ample opportunity to
practice their developing skills. The
easiest reading material consists of
brief, heavily illustrated selections.
• Sentences are short and
uncomplicated; vocabulary consists
of easy words that have a high
frequency of appearance in print or
are easy to decode.
 Stage Three: Growing
Independence (Grades Two
and Three)
• The main characteristic of this stage is the
children’s evolving fluency. As the process
of decoding becomes automatic, they are
able to concentrate on meaning.
• For many, this stage is also marked by
extensive reading of both fiction and
nonfiction.
• Reading becomes one of their preferred
activities.
• They especially like humorous tales.
• Students may begin to read easy chapter
books and show an increased interest in
informational books.
• They still enjoy fantasy but may also
appreciate biography; as they become
less egocentric, they are able to
become more appreciative of stories
involving the lives of others.
• They judge their reading affectively
and personally rather than by using
standards; however, they may have
difficulty explaining why they like a
selection.
• As students pass through the primary
grades, their reading selections grow
longer and more complex.
• Sentences are lengthier and more
complicated, and a wide range of
words is used.
• By the end of the third grade,
children are encountering many
thousands of different words in their
reading, most of which average
third-graders know if they hear them
spoken out loud.
• A major task is to sound out, or
“decode”, words that are in
students’ listening vocabularies but
that they may be seeing on a page
for the first time.
Stage Four: Reading To Learn
(Grades Four through Six)
• This stage is marked by the wide application
of word-attack and comprehension skills.
• From about fourth grade on, much greater
emphasis is placed on grasping informational
text; vocabulary and conceptual load increase
significantly.
• Students are required to comprehend
numerous concepts, many of them quite
abstract, in science and social studies.
• Reading material is longer and more complex.
• Students must not only comprehend the
material but must also be able to carry out
complicated sets of directions or form mental
maps of concepts.
• How-to, hobby, mystery, and sports
books become popular, as do series
books.
• Emphatic reading and verbalizing
judgment about selections,
including evaluations of stylistic
devices and personal reactions.
• Interests of boys and girls diverge.
• Intense absorption in a single topic-
sports, horses, or cars, for instance
–also manifests.
• Students have the most energy to
devote to their school work.
• For many, it is a time of peak
involvement in reading.
• Reading materials become more
complex and sophisticated.
• Informational material is
increasingly prevalent as such texts
are a prominent part of social
studies and science instruction.
• A major task at this stage is to cope
with a burgeoning vocabulary.
• Students are now faced with large
numbers of words that are not a
part of their listening vocabularies.
Stage Five: Abstract Reading
(Grades Seven and Up)
• Students enter the stage of formal
operations, in which they think abstractly.
• They are able to understand systems as
systems; that is, they can grasp
underlying organizational principles.
• They can construct multiple hypotheses,
consider several viewpoints, and mull over
logical alternatives.
• Evaluations of readings become more
elaborate and reflect an evolving set of
standards for judging.
• Much of their school learning is
conveyed by texts that are
longer, more complex, and
more abstract. Reading
interests are even more varied
and individualized.
• Caught up in adolescence and
the need to be involved actively
with peers, students typically
do the least amount of reading
at this stage.
Approaches in Reading
Instruction
1. Phonics (Code emphasis)
– Explicit phonics
– Embedded phonics
2. Whole Language Approach
(Meaning Emphasis)
– Four-pronged Approach
– Literature-based reading
instruction
– Reading-writing workshop
Strategies in Reading and
Reading Instruction
Vocabulary Instruction
– Semantic feature analysis
– Semantic mapping
– Frayer model
– Context clues
– Structural analysis
– Word formation techniques
– Multiple meanings
– Idioms
– Figures of speech
Comprehension Instruction and
other Reading skills instruction
– Text structure awareness
• Rhetorical patterns
• Hierarchy of ideas
– Story grammar
– Anticipation guide
– KWL / KWL+
– Graphic organizers
– Presentation clues
– Scanning, skimming, close reading
– QAR
– Levels of Comprehension
Anticipation Guide
Statement 1:

A reading teacher should ask

higher-order questions to
students to develop their critical
thinking.
Statement 2:

Juan answered all the

comprehension questions of
the teacher after the reading
instruction. Therefore, he has
higher-order thinking skills and
processes.
Statement 3:

When a reader answers a

comprehension question, his or
her level of thinking depends
upon the question asked by the
teacher.
Statement 4:

Maria answered HOW and

WHY questions with minimum
effort; much more when she
was asked with questions that
start from WHO, WHAT,
WHERE, and WHEN. Maria
really possesses the HOTS.
Statement 5:

Teachers should abandon

developing lower-order thinking
skills. Instead, they should
focus on developing higher-
order thinking skills so that
readers will comprehend better.
Motive Question

“Can we tell whether a person

thinks or comprehends in a
higher or lower level? If so, how
can we tell?”
Higher versus Lower Order
Questions

Common notion for HOTS:

“How and Why questions are

higher order questions”
Case 1:

Jenny decided not to

wear her jewelry
because she was going
to the airport.
Case 2:

Jose Rizal was born in

Calamba, Laguna.
Case 3:

This is a picture of a
a) school.
b) house.
c) church.
Case 4:
Mary heard the ice cream truck
coming down the street. She
remembered her birthday
money and rushed into the
house.

Mary heard the ice cream truck

coming down the street. She
remembered her gun and
rushed into the house.
 Levels of Comprehension
Herber (1978) Vacca (1996) Raphael (1982-
85; 2003)

Literal Rdg. the lines Right There

Think and
Inferential Rdg. between Search
the lines
Author and
Applied Me
Rdg beyond
the lines On My Own
The Butterfly and the Caterpillar
Retold by Joseph Lauren

1A butterfly, one summer morn,

sat on a spray of blossoming thorn.
And as he sipped and drank his share
of honey from a lovely flower,
below, upon the garden wall
a caterpillar chanced to crawl.

2“Horrors!” the butterfly exclaimed.

“This must be stopped! I am ashamed,
that one like me should have to be
in the same world with such as he.
3Keep me away from such a hideous
thing!
Disgusting shape! Where are his
wings?
Fuzzy and gray. Eater of clay.
Won’t someone take the worm away?”

4The caterpillar crawled ahead.

But as he munched a leaf, he said,
“Eight days ago, young butterfly,
you wormed about, the same as I;

5within a few days from today,

two wings will bear me far away
to brighter blooms and lovelier lures
with colors that outshine yours.
6 So flutter-flit, be not so proud,
each caterpillar is endowed
with power to make him by and by
a blithe and cheerful butterfly.

7For you who hate the common

clay,
you in your finery so gay,
and all the gaudy moths and millers
are only dressed-up caterpillars.
Use the QAR strategy to
answer the following
questions.
1. What time of the day did the
butterfly sit on a spray of
blossoming thorns?
A. evening
B. dawn
C. twilight
D. morn
Right There
LITERAL D
2. The text above suggests
that the setting of the story
is a
A. garden of vegetables.
B. garden of orchids.
C. garden of fruits.
D. garden of roses.

Think and Search

D
Interpretive or
Inferential Level
3. Stanza 2 suggests that the
butterfly is
A. caring.
B. selfish.
C. careful.
D. selfless.

Author and You

B
Applied
4. If you were Caterpillar, what would
you have done to Butterfly after all
that she has told you?
A. Eat all the flowers so she won’t have
any nectar.
B. Wrestle with her.
C. Wait for the time for your own
transformation.
D. Call all caterpillars and eat Butterfly.

On my own
Applied C
Levels of Comprehension
(Herber, 1978)
Literal Comprehension
• “Meaning is derived from ‘reading
the lines’, in which the reader
constructs the meaning that
accurately reflects the author’s
intended message. Literal
comprehension is text-explicit;
that is, answers to literal questions
require reader understanding of
ideas stated directly in the text.”
Interpretive Comprehension
• “Meaning is derived by ‘reading
between the lines’, in which the
reader perceives author’s intent or
understands relationships
between text elements that are
not stated directly. Interpretive
comprehension is text-implicit;
answers to interpretive questions
require the reader to draw
conclusions in response to
unstated cause-effect
relationships or comparisons,
perception of nuance, and/or
symbolic use of language and
ideas.”
Applied Comprehension
• “Meaning derived by ‘reading
beyond the lines’, in which the
reader understands unstated
relationships between information
in text and information in his/her
previous knowledge base.
Applied comprehension is
schema-implicit or experience-
based; answers to questions at
this level require integration of
new information into the reader’s
previous fund of knowledge, from
which new relationships emerge.”
• The Question and Answer
Relationship (QAR) developed by
Raphael (1982) can be a good
tool in assessing the
comprehension of the readers
towards texts. The QAR strategy
recognizes the claim that levels
of comprehension is determined
by the source of the information
used by the reader while
attempting to make sense from
the text. The following is a
graphical representation of the
QAR strategy.
 Right There – The answer is in the
Right Author text, usually easy to find. The words
There and You used to make up the question and
  words used to answer the question are
 
  right there in the same sentence.
 
  Think and Search – The answer is in
Think On my the story, but you need to put together
and Own different story parts to find it. Words for
Search the question and words for the answer
 
  are not found in the same sentence.
 
  They come from different parts of the
 
text.
Author and You – The answer is not in the story.
You need to think what you already know, what the
author tells you in the text, and how it fits together.
On my Own – The answer is not in the story. You
need to use your own experience.
 Anticipation Guide
Agree Disagree Statement
_____ _____ 1. A reading teacher
should ask higher-
order questions to
students to develop
their critical thinking.
Agree Disagree Statement
_____ _____ 2. Juan answered all
the comprehension
questions of the
teacher after the
reading instruction.
Therefore, he has
higher-order thinking
skills.
Agree Disagree Statement
_____ _____ 3. When a reader
answers a
comprehension question,
his or her level of
thinking depends upon
the question asked
by the teacher.
Agree Disagree Statement
_____ _____ 4. Maria answered
HOW and WHY
questions with minimum
effort, much more
when she was asked
with questions that
start from WHO,
WHAT, WHERE, and
WHEN. Maria really
possesses the HOTS.
Agree Disagree Statement
_____ _____ 5. Teachers should
abandon
developing lower-
order thinking
skills. Instead, they
should focus on
developing higher-order
thinking skills so that
readers will comprehend
better.
The level of thinking of a reader
depends not on the question
markers the teachers used but
upon the source/s of
information the reader used to
answer the question regarding
the text.
Recreatory Reading
• Reader’s Theater
• Chamber Theater
• Dramatization / Conventional
plays
• Storytelling
• Reading and the Visual Arts
Assessment Tools and
Procedures
• Standardized tests
• Teacher-made tests
• Cloze tests
• Think-aloud / verbal protocol
analysis
• Informal reading inventory
• Miscue analysis
Preparing Reading Lesson Plans
Lesson Plans
• are systematic records of a teacher’s
thoughts about what will be covered during a
lesson (Farell, 2002).
• Richards (1998) suggests that lesson plans
help the teacher think about the lesson in
advance and “resolve problems and
difficulties, to provide a structure for a lesson,
to provide a ‘map’ for the teacher to follow,
and to provide a record of what has been
taught” (p.103).
• Planning for language lessons may be
different than other content lessons because
the same concepts may need to be reinforced
time and again using different methods,
especially for beginning and intermediate
level students.
• Generally speaking, the format of a
language lesson (such as reading) can
be in five parts or phases:
– The perspective or opening phase where
the teacher gives a preview of the new
reading lesson that he/she will teach.
– The simulation is where the teacher poses
a question (or questions) to get the students
thinking about the coming activity. This is
used as a lead into the main activity.
– The instruction/participation phase
introduces the main activity of the reading
lesson.
– The closure phase is where the teacher
attempts to get the students’ input regarding
what they have learned in the lesson that
was just presented.
– The follow-up and final phase has the
teacher using other activities to reinforce the
same concepts and introduce new ones.
The instructional objectives for a
second/foreign language reading
program are as follows:
– To develop an awareness of reading
strategies necessary for successful
reading comprehension.
– To expand vocabulary and develop
techniques for continued increase of
vocabulary.
– To develop an awareness of linguistic
and rhetorical structures found in
reading texts.
– To increase reading speed and fluency.
– To promote an interest in different types
of reading materials.
– To provide individual feedback on
progress in improving reading skills.
– To provide practice in extensive reading
skills.
“To be an effective teacher in
reading, one has to have a
comprehensive theory of the
nature of reading in a
second/foreign language and
referred to this in planning
his/her teaching of reading
(Richards, 1990).”
 Other aspects of planning to be
considered:
• Objectives should be stated in terms of
what students will do. The objectives
should be statements of what you want
the students to gain from the lesson.
• Action words should be used to state
these objectives.
• Avoid vague or immeasurable
expressions.
– Students will practice reading skills; Students
will learn vocabulary.
• Avoid trying to accomplish too much in
one lesson.
– Students will underline the topic sentence in
each paragraph.
Principles for Designing Effective
and Interesting Reading Lessons
1. The reading materials are interesting for
the students
– Get away with the usual “Open your
textbooks on page 22 and read the first part
of the text” practice.
2. The major activity of the reading lesson
is students reading texts.
– Every class should have a reading period of
actual reading where writing, speaking, and
listening should take a back seat.
3. Activities and exercises reflect the
purposeful, task-based interactive
nature of real reading (predicting,
hypothesizing, and revising ideas about
what was read).
4. Activities and tasks allow the learners to
bring their knowledge and experiences
to the reading passage.
5. Instructional activities have a
TEACHING rather than testing focus.
– Testing has a place after students have
been taught effective methods of
comprehending the text.
6. A variety of different reading activities
are used during each lesson (to
maintain interest, motivation, and pace).
7. Lessons should be divided into pre-
reading, during reading, and post-
reading phases.
Analyzing Test Items
1. In the bottom-up perspective,
a reader could read a text
when he/she
A. uses his prior knowledge to
make sense of the text.
B. selects only the meaningful
segments in the text.
C. can translate the visual symbols
to their aural equivalent.
D. relates the text to other texts
previously read.
2. Which of the following reading
skills or strategies is the
closest to outside-in
processing or reading?
A. inferencing
B. outlining
C. predicting outcomes
D. structural analysis
3. Before a reader could read the
WORD, he must learn to read the
WORLD first. This statement
implies that
A. students or readers must know the
names of the letter first before they
will know what the word means.
B. Readers must know the sounds of
the letters first before they will know
what the word means.
C. Words are only representations of
the concepts that the child or reader
knows before encountering the print.
D. The text supplies the readers with the
necessary knowledge they need to
make sense of the print.
4. Teacher A explicitly teaches
his/her students the rhetorical
patterns of an informational
text taken from a science
textbook. Which of the
following does the teacher
want to develop in the
reader?
A. print skill
B. content schemata
C. formal schemata
D. vocabulary knowledge
5. Teacher B uses the timeline
as a graphic organizer to
teach the readers to
understand a given expository
text. Which of the following
organizational structures
might be the one used in the
exposition of the text’s
information?
A. cause and effect
B. comparison and contrast
C. enumeration-description
D. sequence or procedural
6. Teacher C has presented a reading
lesson to her students. The lesson went
on for a span of a week. After a day or
two, when the teacher introduced a new
lesson that requires them the
knowledge of the previous lesson, the
students no longer remember it. What
could be the cause of this problem?
A. There was a lack of constant drill and
practice given by the teacher.
B. The text used and the instruction given in the
previous lesson is within the students’
independent level.
C. There was a lack of activities that integrate
the students’ background experiences to the
text presented.
D. The text used and the instruction given in the
previous lesson is within the students’
instructional level.
7. A reader was asked to fill in
words to the sentences that
are found inside the box
below. Which of the
following cueing systems did
the reader fail to consider?
The candy is in the sweet.
It’s in the inside bowl.
A. graphophonic cues
B. syntactic cues
C. semantic cues
D. pragmatic cues
8. A reader read the word “plan”
with a pronunciation like
“plane” in the sentence, “It’s
my plan to sail across the
ocean.” The deviation of the
reader in reading the text can
be explained by the reader’s
use of
A. syntactic cues
B. semantic cues
C. graphophonic cues
D. pragmatic cues
9. An office secretary encoded her
boss’s memorandum for the
company’s employees. The boss
returned the memo to the
secretary along with the note,
“Please justify this!” The
secretary felt bad and wanted to
resign immediately because she
thinks that it’s not her job to
explain the contents of the memo.
What cueing system did the
secretary fail to consider?
A. Graphophonic
B. Syntactic
C. Semantic
D. pragmatic
10. A reader was asked to read the
sentence found inside the box
below. Instead of reading the
word “moved”, he substituted it
with the word “ran”. Which of the
cueing systems could have
interfered his reading so that he
manifested such a deviation from
the text?
The car moved fast.
A. graphophonic cues
B. syntactic cues
C. semantic cues
D. pragmatic cues