Unit 5 - Reading

READING

 

In this unit, a receptive skill called reading, is going to be analyzed. We will learn the importance of reading and also the different reading skills.

Collins English Learner’s Dictionary (2021) stated that reading is an act of looking at and understanding point. This is quite real, as reading involves using a vision to grasp and make understandable many terms in a phrase. Grellet (2004) stated that reading is a continued method of guessing; students need to be taught how to use their knowledge, whether it be concepts or plain phrases, to grasp uncertain factors.

In reading it is important to have coherence (sense connection between 2 sentences) and cohesion (grammatical links between sentences). Reading involves using different reading skills which include:

-Reading for specific information (scanning).- read the text quickly in order to find specific information, for example, finding names.

-Reading for detail.- it involves paying attention to every single word and spending time thinking on the meaning of each word or sentence. For example, when you read a letter from a person you haven´t seen for a long time.

-Deducing meaning from context.- it involves reading the words that are around an unknown word in order to find or understand its meaning.

-Understanding text structure.- it refers to understand how the information of a text is organized.

-Reading for gist (skimming).- it means to read quickly in order to get a general idea of the text.

-Inferring.- it means figuring out something that the author doesn't actually say. We can use this when we want to draw conclusions.

-Predicting.-these are the clues we can find before reading. These clues are usually in the title of the text or its introduction.

Depending on the age of the learners, teachers can choose the right text for students and also which reading skill they need to learn first. Teachers may help students with different activities, such as lead-in activities which involve looking at pictures around the text and trying to predict what the text will be about. Another activity is brainstorming which can help to discuss the general topic of the text. The activities in reading may follow the following pattern:

-Introductory activities: this activities focus on the topic of the text, teachers may teach vocabulary or ask learners to predict the content of the text

-Main activities: comprehension activities that develop different reading subskills

-Post-task activities: these activities ask learners to give opinions on something in the text.

To conclude, it is very important to read aloud in the class because this help to check learners´ pronunciation or to check their understanding of the text, but it is useful to implement after learners have a good understanding of the details of the text. That is why the correct way in which this skill can be taught must be taken into account, below, we present some activities that can be very useful for teaching reading.

How to apply knowledge related to Reading Skill in the English classroom:

Find the word: pair students and give them a copy of a text. Keep a secret list of words handy and say them, randomly, one at a time. Allow time for students to scan the text for the word they hear. The first pair person to point to the word in the text correctly gets a point. Make sure you have solid rules and simple guidelines for how to prepare the class silently for the next round.

Avoid the line: in preparing a text, underline random phrases. Students begin with five points. Each student must read five words at a time but must not say a word that is underlined. If a student reads the underlined word, he or she loses a point. Students with the most points at the end of the reading activity win.

Find the synonym: teachers have to give students a reading text and provide them with a list of words. They must find and note down the synonyms they find in the text.

 

References.

Dictionary, C. (n.d.). Collins. Retrieved from Collins: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/reading

Grellet, F. (1981). Retrieved from https://doc1.bibliothek.li/aai/000A056672.pdf

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., Williams, M., & University of Cambridge. (2011). The TKT course: Modules 1,2 and 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.