Developing for Reading

Teaching Reading

Strategies for Developing Reading Skills

Using Reading Strategies
Language instructors are often frustrated by the fact that students do not automatically transfer the strategies they use when reading in their native language to reading in a language they are learning. Instead, they seem to think reading means starting at the beginning and going word by word, stopping to look up every unknown vocabulary item, until they reach the end. When they do this, students are relying exclusively on their linguistic knowledge, a bottom-up strategy. One of the most important functions of the language instructor, then, is to help students move past this idea and use top-down strategies as they do in their native language.
Effective language instructors show students how they can adjust their reading behavior to deal with a variety of situations, types of input, and reading purposes. They help students develop a set of reading strategies and match appropriate strategies to each reading situation.

Strategies that can help students read more quickly and effectively include
• Previewing: reviewing titles, section headings, and photo captions to get a sense of the structure and content of a reading selection
• Predicting: using knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension; using knowledge of the text type and purpose to make predictions about discourse structure; using knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing style, vocabulary, and content
• Skimming and scanning: using a quick survey of the text to get the main idea, identify text structure, confirm or question predictions
• Guessing from context: using prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text as clues to the meanings of unknown words, instead of stopping to look them up
• Paraphrasing: stopping at the end of a section to check comprehension by restating the information and ideas in the text
Instructors can help students learn when and how to use reading strategies in several ways.
• By modeling the strategies aloud, talking through the processes of previewing, predicting, skimming and scanning, and paraphrasing. This shows students how the strategies work and how much they can know about a text before they begin to read word by word.
• By allowing time in class for group and individual previewing and predicting activities as preparation for in-class or out-of-class reading. Allocating class time to these activities indicates their importance and value.
• By using cloze (fill in the blank) exercises to review vocabulary items. This helps students learn to guess meaning from context.
• By encouraging students to talk about what strategies they think will help them approach a reading assignment, and then talking after reading about what strategies they actually used. This helps students develop flexibility in their choice of strategies.
When language learners use reading strategies, they find that they can control the reading experience, and they gain confidence in their ability to read the language.
Reading to Learn
Reading is an essential part of language instruction at every level because it supports learning in multiple ways.
• Reading to learn the language: Reading material is language input. By giving students a variety of materials to read, instructors provide multiple opportunities for students to absorb vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and discourse structure as they occur in authentic contexts. Students thus gain a more complete picture of the ways in which the elements of the language work together to convey meaning.
• Reading for content information: Students' purpose for reading in their native language is often to obtain information about a subject they are studying, and this purpose can be useful in the language learning classroom as well. Reading for content information in the language classroom gives students both authentic reading material and an authentic purpose for reading.
• Reading for cultural knowledge and awareness: Reading everyday materials that are designed for native speakers can give students insight into the lifestyles and worldviews of the people whose language they are studying. When students have access to newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, they are exposed to culture in all its variety, and monolithic cultural stereotypes begin to break down.
When reading to learn, students need to follow four basic steps:
1. Figure out the purpose for reading. Activate background knowledge of the topic in order to predict or anticipate content and identify appropriate reading strategies.
2. Attend to the parts of the text that are relevant to the identified purpose and ignore the rest. This selectivity enables students to focus on specific items in the input and reduces the amount of information they have to hold in short-term memory.
3. Select strategies that are appropriate to the reading task and use them flexibly and interactively. Students' comprehension improves and their confidence increases when they use top-down and bottom-up skills simultaneously to construct meaning.
4. Check comprehension while reading and when the reading task is completed. Monitoring comprehension helps students detect inconsistencies and comprehension failures, helping them learn to use alternate strategies.




Developing Reading Activities

Developing reading activities involves more than identifying a text that is "at the right level," writing a set of comprehension questions for students to answer after reading, handing out the assignment and sending students away to do it. A fully-developed reading activity supports students as readers through prereading, while-reading, and post-reading activities.
As you design reading tasks, keep in mind that complete recall of all the information in a text is an unrealistic expectation even for native speakers. Reading activities that are meant to increase communicative competence should be success oriented and build up students' confidence in their reading ability.

Construct the reading activity around a purpose that has significance for the students
Make sure students understand what the purpose for reading is: to get the main idea, obtain specific information, understand most or all of the message, enjoy a story, or decide whether or not to read more. Recognizing the purpose for reading will help students select appropriate reading strategies.
Define the activity's instructional goal and the appropriate type of response
In addition to the main purpose for reading, an activity can also have one or more instructional purposes, such as practicing or reviewing specific grammatical constructions, introducing new vocabulary, or familiarizing students with the typical structure of a certain type of text.

Check the level of difficulty of the text

The factors listed below can help you judge the relative ease or difficulty of a reading text for a particular purpose and a particular group of students.
• How is the information organized? Does the story line, narrative, or instruction conform to familiar expectations? Texts in which the events are presented in natural chronological order, which have an informative title, and which present the information following an obvious organization (main ideas first, details and examples second) are easier to follow.
• How familiar are the students with the topic? Remember that misapplication of background knowledge due to cultural differences can create major comprehension difficulties.
• Does the text contain redundancy? At the lower levels of proficiency, listeners may find short, simple messages easier to process, but students with higher proficiency benefit from the natural redundancy of authentic language.
• Does the text offer visual support to aid in reading comprehension? Visual aids such as photographs, maps, and diagrams help students preview the content of the text, guess the meanings of unknown words, and check comprehension while reading.
Remember that the level of difficulty of a text is not the same as the level of difficulty of a reading task. Students who lack the vocabulary to identify all of the items on a menu can still determine whether the restaurant serves steak and whether they can afford to order one.
Use pre-reading activities to prepare students for reading
The activities you use during pre-reading may serve as preparation in several ways. During pre-reading you may:
• Assess students' background knowledge of the topic and linguistic content of the text
• Give students the background knowledge necessary for comprehension of the text, or activate the existing knowledge that the students possess
• Clarify any cultural information which may be necessary to comprehend the passage
• Make students aware of the type of text they will be reading and the purpose(s) for reading
• Provide opportunities for group or collaborative work and for class discussion activities
Sample pre-reading activities:
• Using the title, subtitles, and divisions within the text to predict content and organization or sequence of information
• Looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs and their captions
• Talking about the author's background, writing style, and usual topics
• Skimming to find the theme or main idea and eliciting related prior knowledge
• Reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures
• Reading over the comprehension questions to focus attention on finding that information while reading
• Constructing semantic webs (a graphic arrangement of concepts or words showing how they are related)
• Doing guided practice with guessing meaning from context or checking comprehension while reading
Pre-reading activities are most important at lower levels of language proficiency and at earlier stages of reading instruction. As students become more proficient at using reading strategies, you will be able to reduce the amount of guided pre-reading and allow students to do these activities themselves.
Match while-reading activities to the purpose for reading
In while-reading activities, students check their comprehension as they read. The purpose for reading determines the appropriate type and level of comprehension.
• When reading for specific information, students need to ask themselves, have I obtained the information I was looking for?
• When reading for pleasure, students need to ask themselves, Do I understand the story line/sequence of ideas well enough to enjoy reading this?
• When reading for thorough understanding (intensive reading), students need to ask themselves, Do I understand each main idea and how the author supports it? Does what I'm reading agree with my predictions, and, if not, how does it differ? To check comprehension in this situation, students may
o Stop at the end of each section to review and check their predictions, restate the main idea and summarize the section
o Use the comprehension questions as guides to the text, stopping to answer them as they read
• Give students the practice to read with ease and confidence, and watch accuracy and understanding soar.
• Have you ever watched students struggle with what you know to be a great book, just perfect for their age and development? The NAEP recently reported that 45 percent of all fourth graders tested in the U.S. are not fluent readers. Without that fluency, the world of imagination, humor, and drama contained in the finest books is no more than a tangle of words.
• One definition of fluency is the ability to read aloud expressively and with understanding. When fluent readers read aloud, the text flows as if strung together like pearls on a necklace, rather than sounding halting and choppy.
• Here are some strategies to help second through fifth graders make important gains in this area. Before you use these techniques, however, you should assess your students and determine their needs. If several students need help, you may want to create whole-class lessons based on choral reading or reader's theater. If there are only a few students, you may decide to work with them in small groups.
• 1. Model Fluent Reading
• In order to read fluently, students must first hear and under-stand what fluent reading sounds like. From there, they will be more likely to transfer those experiences into their own reading. The most powerful way for you to help your students is to read aloud to them, often and with great expression. Choose selections carefully. Expose them to a wide variety of genres including poetry, excerpts from speeches, and folk and fairy tales with rich, lyrical language — texts that will spark your students' interests and draw them into the reading experience.
• Following a read-aloud session, ask your students: "After listening to how I read, can you tell me what I did that is like what good readers do?" Encourage students to share their thoughts. Also, ask your students to think about how a fluent reader keeps the listener engaged.
• 2. Do Repeated Readings In Class
• In their landmark book, Classrooms That Work (Addison-Wesley, 1998), Patricia Cunningham and Richard Allington stress the importance (and I agree) of repeated readings as a way to help students recognize high-frequency words more easily, thereby strengthening their ease of reading. Having students practice reading by rereading short passages aloud is one of the best ways I know of to promote fluency.
• For example, choose a short poem to begin with, preferably one that fits into your current unit of study, and transpose it onto an overhead transparency. Make a copy of the poem for each student. Read the poem aloud several times while your students listen and follow along. Take a moment to discuss your reading behaviors such as phrasing (i.e. the ability to read several words together in one breath), rate (the speed at which we read), and intonation (the emphasis we give to particular words or phrases).
• Next, ask your students to engage in an "echo reading," in which you read a line and all the students repeat the line back to you. Following the echo reading, have students read the entire poem together as a "choral read." You will find that doing group readings like these can be effective strategies for promoting fluency because all students are actively engaged. As such, they may be less apprehensive about making a mistake because they are part of a community of readers, rather than standing alone.
• 3. Promote Phrased Reading In Class
• Fluency involves reading phrases seamlessly, as opposed to word by word. To help students read phrases better, begin with a terrific poem. Two of my students' favorites are "Something Told the Wild Geese" by Rachel Field, and "Noodles" by Janet Wong. (See resource box below.)
• After selecting a poem, write its lines onto sentence strips, which serve as cue cards, to show students how good readers cluster portions of text rather than saying each word separately. Hold up strips one at a time and have students read the phrases together. Reinforce phrased reading by using the same poem in guided reading and pointing to passages you read as a class.
• 4. Enlist Tutors to Help Out
• Provide support for your nonfluent readers by asking tutors — instructional aides, parent volunteers, or older students — to help. The tutor and the student can read a preselected text aloud simultaneously. By offering positive feedback when the reader reads well, and by rereading passages when he or she struggles, the tutor provides a helpful kind of one-on-one support. The sessions can be short — 15 minutes at most. Plus, if you provide tutors with the text that you plan to use in an upcoming group lesson, you can give your nonfluent readers a jump start prior to the next lesson.
• 5. Try A Reader's Theater In Class
• Because reader's theater is an oral performance of a script, it is one of the best ways to promote fluency. In the exercise, meaning is conveyed through expression and intonation. The focus thus becomes interpreting the script rather than memorizing it.
• Getting started is easy. Simply give each student a copy of the script, and read it aloud as you would any other piece of literature. (See the resource box, below, for script sources.) After your read-aloud, do an echo read and a choral read of the script to involve the entire class. Once the class has had enough practice, choose students to read the various parts. Put together a few simple props and costumes, and invite other classes to attend the performance.
• For the presentation, have readers stand, or sit on stools, in front of the room and face the audience. Position them in order of each character's importance. Encourage students to make eye contact with the audience and one another before they read. Once they start, they should hold their scripts at chest level to avoid hiding their faces, and look out at the audience periodically.
• After the performance, have students state their names and the part that they read. You might also want to videotape the performance so that you can review it with students later. In doing so, you will show them that they are, indeed, fluent readers.
























Developing Reading Fluency
Fluent reading is reading in which words are recognized automatically. With automatic word recognition, reading becomes faster, smoother, and more expressive, and students can begin to read silently, which is roughly twice as fast as oral reading. But beginning readers usually do not read fluently; reading is often a word-by-word struggle.
How do we help children struggling with slow, painstaking sounding out and blending? Support and encourage them. Effortful decoding is a necessary step to sight recognition. You can say, "I know reading is tough right now, but this is how you learn new words." Ask students to reread each sentence that requires ususual decoding effort.
In general, the fluency formula is this: Read and reread decodable words in connected text. Decode unknown words rather than guessing from context. Reread to master texts. Use text with words children can decode using known correspondences. Use whole, engaging texts to sustain interest.
There are two general approaches to improving fluency. The direct approach involves modeling and practice with repeated reading under time pressure. The indirect approach involves encouraging children to read voluntarily in their free time.
The direct approach: Repeated readings. We often restrict reading lessons to "sight reading." Who could learn a musical instrument by only sight-reading music and never repeating pieces until they could be played in rhythm, up to tempo, with musical expression? In repeated reading, children work on reading as they would work at making music: They continue working with each text until it is fluent. Repeated reading works best with readers who are full alphabetic, i.e., who know how to decode some words. Use a passage of 100 words or so at the instructional level. The text should be decodable, not predictable. The reader might select a favorite from among familiar books.
Here are two ways to frame repeated reading.
1. Graph how fast students read with a "one-minute read." Graphing is motivating because it makes progress evident. The basic procedure is to have your student read for one minute, count the number of words read, and graph the result with a child-friendly graph, e.g., moving a basketball player closer to a slam dunk.
Aim for speed, not accuracy. Time each reading with a stopwatch—if available, use the countdown timer, with its quiet beeping signal, rather than saying "stop," which can be startling. It is important in one-minute reads to emphasze speed rather than accuracy. Over repeated readings, speed in WPM will increase and errors will decrease. If you emphasize accuracy, speed falls off.

I recommend you get a baseline reading first. A realistic average goal for a first grade reader is 60 WPM, but adjust the goal to your student's level—30 WPM may be plenty for very slow readers, and 120 WPM may be an appropriate challenge for others. Laminate your chart, and place a scale in erasable marker to the right. When the goal is reached, raise the bar 5 WPM for the next book, which requires a new scale on your graph.
To speed up the word count, mark off every 10 words in light pencil so that you can count by tens. Subtract a word for each miscue so accuracy is not totally abandoned. Continue to support reading in ordinary ways: Ask a question or make a comment about story events after each reading to keep a meaning focus. Collect miscue notes to analyze for missing correspondences.

Children enjoy one-minute reads because their success is evident. They will ask you if they can read the passage again!
2. Use check sheets for partner readings. With a class of children, pair up readers to respond to one another. Begin by explaining what you'll be listening for. Model fluent and nonfluent reading. For example, show the difference between smooth and choppy reading. Show how expressive readers make their voices go higher and lower, faster and slower, louder and softer.
In each pair, students take turns being the reader and the listener. The reader reads a selection three times. The listener gives a report after the second and third readings. All reports are complimentary. No criticism or advice is allowed.

The indirect approach: Voluntary reading.
Sustained silent reading (SSR, a.k.a. DEAR, "drop everything and read") gives children a daily opportunity to read and discover the pleasure of reading. Each student chooses a book or magazine, and the entire class reads for a set period of time each day. SSR has been shown to lead to more positive attitudes toward reading and to gains in reading achievement when peer discussion groups discuss the books they read. When students share their reactions to books with classmates, they get recommendations from peers they take seriously.
Tierney, Readence, and Dishner, in Reading Strategies and Practices (Allyn & Bacon, 1990, pp. 461-462) list three "cardinal rules" for SSR:
a. Everybody reads. Both students and teacher will read something of their own choosing. Any text that keeps the reader interested is acceptable. The teacher reads too. Completing homework assignments, grading papers, and similar activities are discouraged. I recommend teachers read children's books so they can participate in discussions and give booktalks for their students.
b. There are to be no interruptions during USSR. The word uninterrupted is an essential part of the technique. Interruptions result in loss of comprehension and loss of interest by many students; therefore, questions and comments should be held until the silent reading period has concluded.
c. No one will be asked to report what they have read. It is essential that students recognize SSR is a period of free reading, with the emphasis on reading for enjoyment. Teachers should not require book reports, journal entries, or anything other than free reading. Do not give grades for SSR.
One landmark study of SSR* showed that reading gains from SSR depend on setting up discussion groups and other peer interactions around texts. In other words, students need to talk with one another about the books they are reading to motivate a significant increase in reading. With regular opportunities to discuss books, students learn about good books and read more because they want to read what their peers are reading. They usually experience peer pressure to read in order to be able to have something to say to their friends. In this way, reading becomes part of the culture of the classroom.

*Manning, C. L., & Manning, M. (1984). What models of recreational reading make a difference? Reading World, 23, 375-380.
Other essentials for encouraging voluntary reading include a plentiful library of books and frequent opportunities to choose. Children should be allowed and encouraged to read page turners (e.g., easy series books) rather than the classics for their independent reading. For gaining fluency, quantity is more important than quality.
Book introductions help children make informed decisions about what they want to read. For an effective booktalk, choose a book you like. Show the illustrations to the students. Give a brief talk, hitting the high points: the setting, characters, and the inciting incident leading to the problem or goal. Do not get into the plot, and especially not the resolution! If there is no clear plot, ask a have-you-ever question (e.g., Have you ever been afraid of the dark?) and relate the question to the book. Good booktalks often feature some oral reading, e.g., of a suspenseful part.