Teaching English as Foreign Language (01) : How to Teach Reading Skill

PART 1

How to Teach Reading

1.      Why teach reading?

There are many reasons why getting students to read English texts is an important part of the teacher’s job. In this first place, many of them want to be able to read texts in English either for their careers, for study purposes or simply for pleasure.  Reading is useful for other purposes too, any exposure to English (provided students understand it more or less) is a good thing for language students. Reading text also provide good models for English writing. Furthermore, it also provides opportunities to study language such as vocabulary, grammar, punctuation and the way we construct sentence, paragraph and texts.

2.      What kind of reading should students do?

In the practice of learning, reading skill will need some kinds of part that students should do. It is such as the kind of reading text that will be suitable for using based on their level.

§  A balance should be struck between real English on the one hand and the students’ capabilities and interests on the other.

§  The topic and types of reading text are considering too.

§  A lot will depend on who the students are based on their passion or subject class. Then, if they are all business people, the teacher may well want to concentrate on business texts. Besides, if they are science students, reading scientific text may be a priority.

3.      What reading skill should students acquire?

In the process of reading skill, the students need to be able to do a number of things with a reading text.

1.      The students need to be able to scan the text for particular bits of the information they are searching for.

2.      The students need to be able skim a text as if they were casting their eyes over its surface to get a general idea of what it is about.

4.      What are the principles behind the teaching of reading?

1.      Reading is not a passive skill.

It means that reading is an incredibly active occupation. Then to have successfully, we should understand what the words mean, see the pictures the words are painting, understand the arguments and work out if we agree with them.

2.      Students need to be engaged with what they are reading.

It means that as with everything else in lesson, students who are not engaged with the reading text, not actively interested in what they are doing, are less like to benefit from it.

3.      Students should be encouraged to respond to the content of a reading text, not just to the language.

It means that the students should know well about the content of the reading skill such as meaning and message of the text. These are the important part and the teacher should give a chance to respond that message in some way.

4.      Prediction is a major factor in reading.

It means that teacher should give students ‘hints’ so that they can predict what is coming too. Then, it will make them better and more engaged readers.

5.      Match the task to the topic.

It means that the teacher should have more creativity to design the interesting task based on the topic that will be delivered.

6.      Good teachers exploit reading texts to the full.

It means that teachers should integrate the reading text into interesting class sequences, using the topic for discussion and further tasks, using the language for study and later activation.

5.      What do reading sequences look like?

ESA in one type of teaching sequence takes students in a straight line: First the teacher gets the class interested and Engaged, then they Study something and they then try to Activate it by putting it into production. In the following paragraphs, there are four different kinds of reading texts and four different kinds of reading tasks so that we can see how the reading texts fit into an ESA sequence in each case.

a.       Elementary

In elementary school, the teacher has introduced the topic of ‘attraction’. Then he asks the students what they find attractive in a person. The discussion should be enjoyable and amusing. After that he tells the students to fill a chart about what their partner thinks is important when meets a new friend. Next, he tells the class to read the next page to see how their opinions are different from men or women being described and he allows them to discuss their answer in pairs to give them a chance to clear up any small comprehension problems before they talk in front of the class. The students now have to complete the following task.

            The teacher asks the students to think of people who they find attractive and then mention what the most attractive thing about them is. As a follow-up this patchwork lesson consists of Engage activity, Activate exercise (working with a partner), Activate reading (do you agree with the passage?), Study reading (answer the questions), before being followed up with Activate exercise. Actually, Activate exercise is important to give the students a chance to predict what was coming.

b.      Lower Intermediate

·         Engage: The teacher and students discuss about ghost and read some information about haunted house.

·         Activate: Then they read for general understanding

·         Study:  The teacher wants students to understand how they use pronoun to refer back to subjects that they have already mentioned

·         Activate: The students write a description of a haunted house which they can invent. They can do this individually or in pairs or groups. They can read out their final versions to the rest of the class

c.       Intermediate

·         Engage: The student first look at a picture of people sunbathing and value it.

·         Study: The are shown magazine article and read it

·         Activate: The teacher checks that they have understood by asking them question

d.      Intermediate to advanced

·         Engage: The teacher and the students talk about poetry. Then the teacher put them in groups then give a line from a poem for every student

·         Study: Every student read the line and every group try to arrange the lines into a poem then they decide good tittle for the poem

·         Activate: The students describe the rhyme. After that the teacher gives students first line of poem and tells them to write their own.

6.      More Reading Suggestions

a.       Elementary/ Intermediate: Students read a recipe and after matching instructions with pictures, they have to cook the food.

b.      Intermediate/ Upper Intermediate: Students have to match topic sentences with the paragraphs they come from.

c.       Lower intermediate/ Advance: Students read a text and have to guess which of a group of people they think wrote the text (using the pictures provided)

d.      Intermediate/ Advance: Students read a narrative with the end missing. In groups, they have supply their own ending.

e.       Any Level: Students read an extract from a play or film and, after ensuring that they understand it, they have to work on acting it out.

PART 2

Reading Techniques

Reading is an exercise domintaed by the eyes and the brain. The eyes receive message and the brain then has to work out significance of these message. Unlikea listening text, areading text moves at the speed of the reader. In other words it is up to the reader to decide how fast he or she wants to tead a text, whereas listeners often have to do their best with atext whose speed is choosen by the speaker. The fact that reading texts are stationary is clearly a huge advantage. As we know many student in the class less identifying their book when they read. And the result many student do not know the clear ideas of what writer to communicate. And here below some of tehcnique which improved your reading to be better.

1.      SQ3R  Technique

SQ3R stand for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Revise.

Survey

Before starting read the text, the student should ideally do some surveys on the text being read. All these we can draw the reader’s attention on the topic read and relate his or her ecperience and background knowledge.

Before you read, Survey the chapter:

a.       the title, headings, and subheadings

b.      captions under pictures, charts, graphs or maps

c.       review questions or teacher-made study guides

d.      ntroductory and concluding paragraphs

e.       summary

Question

This is very important in order to concentrate their mind on comprehendingthe text being read. The question come from any part of text.

Question while you are surveying:

Turn the title, headings, and/or subheadings into questions

Read questions at the end of the chapters or after each subheading

Ask yourself,

"What did my instructor say about this chapter or subject

when it was assigned?"

Ask yourself,

"What do I already know about this subject?"

In some cases the reader can simply find out question mark on the parts that attract his or her attention on the text, for example, he or she puts question mark after the heading or tittle.

Read

This is main part of the tehcnique. You begin to do a real reading guided by preceding activities, survey, and question. In this part, strategies of dealing with new vocabulary and undestanding various kinds of sentences ae very important. The reader should know the elements of paragrpah, such as topic sentence, supporting details and the main idea of the paragraph.

When you begin to Read:

a.       Look for answers to the questions you first raised

b.      Answer questions at the beginning or end of chapters or study guides

c.       Reread captions under pictures, graphs, etc.

d.      Note all the underlined, italicized, bold printed words or phrases

e.       Study graphic aids

f.       Reduce your speed for difficult passages

g.      Stop and reread parts which are not clear

h.      Read only a section at a time and recite after each section

Recite

In recitation, the learner attempts to tell what he has learnt or read. the list of question he has made can be used as stimulus to eac part of the question. There are several ways to do this. For leaners who are studying together can tell other learners about what he has just read basen on the question or have other learners to ask the question to answer or if he has no friend, just writes the answer down or tell to himself.

Recite after you've read a section:

a.       Orally ask yourself questions about what you have just read, or summarize, in your own words, what you read

b.      Take notes from the text but write the information in your own words

c.       Underline or highlight important points you've just read

d.      Reciting:

The more senses you use the more likely you are to remember what you read Triple strength learning: Seeing, saying, hearing

Quadruple strength learning: Seeing , saying , hearing, writing

            Revise

Revision is the last step of the tehcnique. After a few days, the material which has been learnt should be revised in order to avoid forgetting. This means that he learner studies the material again. He just re reads quickly through the text by referring to the question he has made and answers quickly.

Applying in the class

Opening

Assalamualaikum Wr Wb.

Let’s open our class by reciting basmalah together

Morning student, How are you ?

I am great, what day is today ?

what date is today ?

okey, say together yes we can I love English

I hope you are enjoy our class today

Brainstorming

today we will learn about reading method, Ummah what the meaning of reading ?

great, etik what the meaning of method ?

So Reading Method is some tehcniques which improved your reading skill to be better  artinya beberapa tehnik membaca yang dapat meningkatkan kemampuan membacamu lebih efektif.

how many reading method ?

Body

There are three methods of reading comprehension such as : SQ3R, double S (Skim and Scan) and PRR (Preview, Read and Recall)

SQ3R is …

Double S is Scan and Skim ….

PRR is Prewiev, Read and Recall …..

Closing

I have a song to make you easier to memorize it

one and one I have three methods

Two and two is SQ3R

Three and three is Scan and Skim

One two tree is PRR

Come on sing together

Now let’s practice it, we will practice one of this method that is double S (give some papers)

listen the instruction carefully, I will give you a text and some questions you have to read it by two technique those are skimming and scanning write down your answer  in the blank paper.

let’s do it.

time is up, raise up you hand, okey didi read your answer

sinta read your answer

thank’s guys, didi collect your friends duty.

time is up but we will practice SQ3R technique next week and I will give you a home work,

please find a new text and try to analyse it by using PRR technique submit your duty next week.

Thank’s for your attention

let’s say hamdalah together. Say together Yes We Can We Love English

Advantage

1.      Principles of learning skill, study skill and learning styles are principally incorporated into this system as there is a great need to understand and briefly form a basic idea of what one is getting into. This is thought to be better than blindly memorizing as the conventional rules of studying dictate. Surveying helps students identify certain important ideas from the chapter and the lessons.

Asking questions and seeking answers immediately will help retain ideas that the chapters contain, helps develop study skills, learning skills and learning styles. This is necessary as reading automatically makes a child understand the chapter better and in an effective manner enabling them to retain it for a long time to come.

Understanding and repeating in own words make the concepts clearer than simply memorizing the pattern of the book chapters or the language that is used in the respective books

2.    SQ3R (survey, question, read, recite and review) Method has been viewed as the essential study method for textbook reading for the last 40 years. The SQ3R Method requires students to survey, question, read, recite and review textbook material. Following this method allows students to use their memories to their full potential by creating a visual and auditory memory of the text as well as using repetition of the material as sort of a rote style of memory. It also has been proven beneficial for students to write out notes instead of highlighting them. Writing them out requires much more thought processing than the simple action of running a bright color over a few words. Students who utilize the SQ3R Method will also require less time studying for a final exam since most of the textbook material has been stored into long-term memory. By taking the additional time to study by taking the steps in the SQ3R method the information you retain continues to be utilized throughout your study time converting over from short-term memory into long-term memory. Once the information is stored in the long-term memory it because more easily accessible.

3. Organized and systematic for recording and reviewing notes. Easy format for pulling out major concept and ideas. Simple and efficient. Saves time and effort. “Do-it-right-in-the-first-place system”.

Disaadvantages

a.        Requires more in class thought

b.      May not show good sequence relationships

c.       Cannot use if the lecture is too fast

2. Scanning and Slamming technique

Skimming is meant to go through a reading material quickly in order to get the gist of it, to know how it is organized it can also used to find main idea of a paragraph. Whereas, Scanning is a reading activity to locate specific information, often we do not even follow the linearity of the passage to do so. The readers needs not read the whole text because his purpose is to find specific information such as places, times character, or happening's. Both of them can be used to put the learners in am authentic situation where they would naturally skim or scan rather than read.

Applying in the class:

Opening:

Hello, good morning everybody !! How are you today? Is it a wonderful day, right?

Brainstorming:

Guys, what technique that you all use to determine the topic of a text? Is it same to answer some questions about specifik information in a text? Is it use totally different technique, right?

Do you know what is Skimming and Scanning?

Body:

Today I will explain about " Scanning and Skimming" to make sure your understanding

Okey let's practice it !

Please skim those paragraphs, and then find the topic and main idea of the text !

Then, please write down your answers on a piece of paper !

Closing:

Now, share your answers with a partner. Was it difficult to answer the two questions?

How can skimming can help you become a more effective reader?

3. PREVIEW - READ - RECALL technique

PREVIEW

WHY?

If you give your mind a general framework of main ideas and structure, you will be better able to comprehend and retain the details you will read later.

HOW?

1. Look quickly (10 minutes) over the following key parts of your textbook to see what it's all about and how it is organized:

a.Title

 b. Front and back cover info.

 c. Author's biographical data

 d. Publication date

 e. Table of Contents

 f. Introduction or Preface

 g. Index

 h. Glossary

2. Before you read each chapter, look over:

a.      Title

b.      Introduction

c.       Sub-headings

d.      First sentences of each paragraph (should give main idea).

e.       Any diagrams, charts, etc.

f.       Conclusions or summaries

3. Then answer the following questions:

a.      What is this mainly about?

b.      How is it organized?

c.       How difficult is it?

d.      About how long will it take to read?

READ ACTIVELY

WHY?

Being an active reader will involve you in understanding the material, combat boredom, and will increase retention.

HOW?

1. Set realistic time goals and number of pages to be read.

2. Divide your chapter into small (1/2 page? 1 column?) sections, rather than try to read the whole chapter non-stop.

3. Ask yourself a question before each paragraph or section, then look for its answer. This will give you a definite purpose for your reading. Try turning the sub-heading or first sentence into question form, using "who," "what," "when," or "how" if necessary.

4. Take breaks when you feel unable to stay with the material due to day-dreaming, drowsiness, boredom, hunger, etc. After a short break, you can return to your reading with more energy and alertness.

RECALL

WHY?

Research shows that 40 - 50% of the material we read is forgotten very shortly (about 15 minutes) after we read it. Immediate recall is an essential first step toward continued retention of the material.

HOW?

After reading each small section of material, choose one (or more) of the following methods:

1. Recall mentally or recite orally the highlights of what you have read.

2. Ask yourself questions (maybe the same ones you used before you read the section) and answer them in your own words.

3. Underline and make notes in the margin of the key words or phrases in the section. Underlining after you read is the best way to decide what's the most important information to remember.

4. Make separate notes or outlines of what you have read. This technique often works for more technical material which you need to put into your own words.

5. Recall with a friend. What you don't recall, he/she might.

Applying in the class

         Opening class

In this session, the teacher gives question to the students in the class. It happens because this way can invite the interesting of students to the material and getting the good attention from the students. Consequently, the teacher can deliver the main material in the class in clear way by having more attention from the students.

Teacher: Good morning, everybody?

Students: Good morning, Ma’am.

Teacher: How are you today?

Students: I am fantastic.

Teacher: Okay, good! We will start our meeting this day. Who is absent today?

Students: Nobody, Ma’am.

Teacher: That’s right. I will begin this meeting by reviewing material last week.

Students: Yes, Ma’am.

Teacher: Okay students, the first question is what is reading skill?

Students (one student): Reading is skill that should be learned for having good understanding in English text.

Teacher: That is good. Any other opinion?

Students (one student): Reading skill is skill that the focus is to understand the meaning and message of text with appropriate way.

Teacher: That’s awesome. Okay students, I think all of you have already understood well about reading skill. Here, we are going to the next material.

         Main class

In this session, the teacher will deliver material that has been programmed in course outline. The teacher can choose the interesting and innovative way to get successful teaching process.

         Closing class

In this session, the teacher can give the conclusion of all material that has already delivered. Furthermore, the students will be given an evaluation for exercising their understanding about material. In this case, the teacher can give the kind of homework to the students.

Part 3

Tips and Tricks

Tips and tricks in Reading Classroom activity :

Ø  Assess level

Knowing your students’ level of instruction is important for choosing materials. Reading should be neither too hard, at a point where students can’t understand it and therefore benefit from it. If students don’t understand the majority of the words on a page, the text is too hard for them. On the other hand, if the student understands everything in the reading, there is no challenge and no learning. So assess your students’ level by giving them short reading passages of varying degrees of difficulty. This might take up the first week or so of class. Hand out a passage that seems to be at your students’ approximate level and then hold a brief discussion, ask some questions, and define some vocabulary to determine if the passage is at the students’ instructional level. If too easy or too hard, adjust the reading passage and repeat the procedure until you reach the students’ optimal level.

Ø  Choose the correct level of maturity

While it’s important that the material be neither too difficult nor too easy, a text should be at the student’s maturity level as well—it’s inappropriate to give children’s storybooks to adult or adolescent students. There are, however, edited versions of mature material, such as classic and popular novels, for ESL students, that will hold their interest while they develop reading skills.

Ø  Choose interesting material

Find out your students’ interest. Often within a class there are common themes of interest: parenting, medicine, and computers are some topics that come to mind that a majority of students in my classes have shared interest in. Ask students about their interests in the first days of class and collect reading material to match those interests. Teaching reading with texts on these topics will heighten student motivation to read and therefore ensure that they do read and improve their skills.

Ø  Build background knowledge

As a child, I attempted, and failed, to read a number of books that were “classics”: Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” leaps to mind. It probably should have been a fairly easy read, but it was so full of cultural references to life in mid-nineteenth century New England that I gave up in defeat each time. It was not at my independent reading level, even if the vocabulary and grammatical patterns were, because of its cultural references. Why, for example, would young schoolgirls lust after limes, as the youngest daughter in the story, Amy, and her friends do? Cultural material like this would stop me abruptly. Clearly, this was not independent reading for me because of its cultural references, and I needed help to navigate this text—to explain that limes, a citrus fruit, would have been rare and prized a century ago in New England with its freezing winters and before there were effective methods of transporting and storing fruit. Similarly, our students, many new to the U.S., would need equal help with such material. It is important for the teacher to anticipate which cultural references students might need explained or discussed. This is not easy, of course, but can become so through such techniques as related discussion before the reading (e.g., “Who knows what the American Civil War was? When was it? Why was it fought?” or “Where is New England? Have you ever been there? What is the climate like?”) A discussion before the reading on its topics builds background knowledge and the comprehensibility of the text as well as giving the teacher an idea of where students’ background knowledge needs to be developed more.

Ø  Expose different discourse patterns

The narrative form is familiar to most students. In addition, it is popular to teachers. It is easy to teach: we’ve been reading and hearing stories most of our lives. However, reports, business letters, personal letters, articles, and essays are also genres that students will have to understand as they leave school and enter the working world. We understand the discourse pattern of a story: that is, its pattern organization. It is related chronologically, for the most part; it is in the past with past tense verb forms; it is structured around a series of increasingly dramatic events that build to a climax or high point, and so forth. The discourse pattern of an essay for example, may be less familiar but still important to understanding the text: that it is built around a series of topics related to one main idea or thesis. Knowing the discourse pattern lets the reader know what to expect, and therefore increases comprehensibility.

Ø  Work in groups

Students should work in groups each session, reading aloud to each other, discussing the material, doing question and answer, and so forth. Working in groups provides the much needed interactivity to increase motivation and learning. Students may choose their own groups or be assigned one, and groups may vary in size.

Ø  Make connections

Make connections to other disciplines, to the outside world, to other students. Act out scenes from the reading, bring in related speakers, and or hold field trips on the topic. Help students see the value of reading by connecting reading to the outside world and show its use there.

Ø  Extended practice

Too often we complete a reading and then don’t revisit it. However, related activities in vocabulary, grammar, comprehension questions, and discussion increase the processing of the reading and boost student learning.

Ø  Assess informally

Too often people think “test” when they hear the word “assess.” But some of the most valuable assessment can be less formal: walking around and observing students, for example, discuss the reading. Does the discussion show they really understand the text? Other means of informal assessment might be short surveys or question sheets.

Ø  Assess formally

There is also a place for more formal assessment. But this doesn’t have to be the traditional multiple choice test, which frequently reveals little more than the test-takers skill in taking tests. The essay on a reading - writing about some aspect of Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” for example - demonstrates control of the reading material in a way a multiple choice quiz cannot as the student really needs to understand the material to write about the reading’s extended metaphor of the farm.

REFERENCES

Harmer Jeremy(1998). How to teach English. Spain: Graficas Estella, S.A

Sutarsyah Cucu(2014). Understanding English Texts. Depok: PT Rajagrafindo Indonesia.

Harmer Jeremy(1991). The practice of English Language Teaching. New York: Longman Group

Ciccarelli, S. and White, J.N. (2009). Introduction. Psychology, Second Ed. (pp. i4-i5) Prentice Hall.

Busyteacher.org