TECHNIQUES FOR TESOL

TEACHING READING

TRAN QUOC THAO, PHD

Why is Reading Important ?
The reading skill is one of the two receptive skills
which can provide the language input for
learners.
• Acquire the language (e.g., vocabulary,
grammar) naturally.
• Master the strategies for reading
comprehension.
• Improve other language skills (especially the
writing skill).
• Understand the language better.
Factors affecting the reading teaching
• Characteristics of the passage: Whether
the message is suitable for the learners in terms of
language use (e.g., vocabulary, grammar), and
content (e.g., culture, familiarity of the topic,
authenticity).
• Characteristics of the reader: They include
learners’ language level, intelligence, age,
motivation, interest, and physical health.
• Characteristics of the environment: They
include background noise, the quality of the
reading materials and classroom conditions.
Types of classroom reading performance
Reading classroom performance

Oral reading Silent reading

Intensive Extensive

Linguistic content scanning global skimming

Types of classroom reading performance
1. Oral reading

a. Serve as an evaluative check on bottom –up

processing skills.

b. Double as a pronunciation check.

c. Serve to add some extra student participation if you

want to highlight a certain short segment of a
reading passage.
Types of classroom reading performance
2. Silent reading (Intensive and extensive reading)
Intensive reading: a classroom-oriented activity in which students
focus on the linguistic or semantic details of a message

Extensive reading: is carried to out achieve a general understanding of

a longer text.

It is performed outside of class time

Aspects of teaching reading
The teaching of reading should help learners to develop different skills for
reading comprehension (Brown & Lee, 2015, p.401).

1. Distinguish among the distinctive words and spelling patterns of English.

2. Retain English long and short phrases in short-term memory.
3. Understand written language at an efficient rate of speed.
4. Recognize a core of words and word order patterns, and interpret their
meaning.
5. Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g.,
tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.
6. Recognize that several grammatical forms can represent the same concept.
Aspects of teaching reading
6. Recognize that several grammatical forms can represent the same concept.
7. Recognize cohesive devices in the reading texts.
8. Recognize and interpret the rhetorical forms of written discourse.
9. Recognize the communication roles of written texts in terms of form and
purpose.
10. Use background knowledge for inferences.
11. Make references.
12. Differentiate between literal and figurative meanings.
13. Interpret the contexts using the appropriate cultural schemata.
14. Develop a variety of reading strategies.

The teachers should plan the appropriate techniques for teaching reading skills to
help learners to develop these skills.
Aspects of teaching reading
Good Readers vs. Poor Readers
• Good readers read to construct  Poor readers read to
meaning. decode letters.
• Good readers read and reread,  Poor readers seldom read
becoming increasingly fluent. leading to problems
• Good readers pay attention to establishing fluency.
authors and illustrators, seeking  Poor readers seldom notice
out additional choices based on those details and usually
what they have enjoyed in the read only when material is
past. assigned.
Principles of Teaching Reading
• The teacher should get learners prepared for
reading.
• The teacher should give a purpose when learners
read.
• The teacher should choose the reading texts in
accordance with learners’ interests and language level.
• The teacher should encourage learners to respond
to the content of a passage, not just to the language.
• The teacher should design different reading tasks
for different reading stages.
• The teacher should teach the strategies for reading
comprehension.
• The teacher should exploit reading texts to the
full.
Models of teaching reading

Bottom-up Text-based Letters, morphemes, syllables,

words, phrases…

Learners draw their own intelligence

Top-down Reader-based
and experience to undestand the text.

Interactive processing

(Brown, 2000)
Bottom-up Processing
• Start from sounds and letters to make meaning
• Identify words and structures.
• Focus on vocabulary, grammar, organization.
• Can include text features such as title, subtitles, text
types.
Top-down Processing
• Comprehension resides in the reader.
• Reader uses background knowledge and makes
predictions.
• Teacher focuses on meaning-generating activities.
Top-down Processing
Interactive Processing
• Readers use bottom-up and top-down processes
simultaneously.
• Higher and lower-level processes influence each
other.
Interactive Processing
Procedure of teaching reading
Procedure: Pre-While-Post (P.W.P)
Procedure Way/Mode Tasks

Pre-reading: Whole class  Introduce the topic (who, what, where,

when, ..)
 Introduce vocabulary and grammar
While-reading: Individually  Read and answer the comprehension
Pairwork/ questions
Groupwork
Post-reading Whole class  Check students' understanding
 develop students' writing/speaking
Procedure of teaching reading
leads to
Stages of Teaching Reading
 Pre-reading activities
Create interest and motivate pupils
 While-reading activities
Guide reading and comprehension process
 Post-reading activities
Help to comprehend
Review what was read
Stages of Teaching Reading
Predicting
from
words, title, Predicting
etc. from a key
Sharing illustration
existing
knowledge
Pre-Reading
Activities
Sequencing
illustration
storytelling
Reader
questions
Stages of Teaching Reading

• Word Masking
• Shared book
• Reading for detail
• Skimming and
While Scanning the text
Reading
• Modelled Reading
Activities
• Pause and predict.
• Jigsaw reading
• Reading aloud.
• Running dictation
Stages of Teaching Reading
 Post-Reading activities
 Story innovation
 Time lines.
 Innovating on the Ending.
 Readers’ Theatre.
 Text reconstruction.
 Picture and sentences Matching.
 True/ false question.
 Questioning the text.
Strategies to encourage students to read
What are some strategies to encourage students to read?
• Be a good role model
• Set up a book club
• Reading walls
• Create a reading contest or goals
• Build a classroom library
• Take the class to the local library
• Share your reading experiences
• Let students choose what they read
• Teach reading strategies
1. Pre-reading activities
Brainstorming Guessing from Words
Pictures Guessing from Pictures
The title Guessing from sentences
Discussion True/False
Story telling KWL Charts
Pictionary Running dictation
Videos “Find the word” race
Title and mind map
1. Pre-reading activities
Brainstorming
Give the class five minutes to brainstorm ideas relating to the topic of
the reading. Then give them a further five minutes to organize their
ideas and to form sentences. Once they have completed this,
encourage them to share their ideas with other learners.

• Cover web
• Games

Tieng Anh 11, U2, p.34

1. Pre-reading activities
Pictures
Select three or four pictures that relate to the topic of the reading. Ask
the students to make small groups and give each group a copy of the
pictures. The learners should work together to connect the pictures
and to try to guess what the reading will be about. Each group takes it
in turns presenting their ideas.

Tieng Anh 10, U2, p.19

Tieng Anh 12, U1, p.11
1. Pre-reading activities
The title
Ask the students to make small groups and tell the groups the title of
the reading. The learners should work together to pool their
knowledge of this topic. Again, once the group has finished, each
group can share their ideas with the other groups.

Tieng Anh 11, U2, p.34

1. Pre-reading activities
Discussion
Encourage the learners to have a discussion about the topic of the
reading. Prepare four or five sentences with various opinions relating
to the reading. Read them out to the class and then place them around
the room. Encourage the learners to go and stand near the opinion
that they agree with the most. Then encourage that group to prepare
reasons for agreeing with that particular sentence. Once they have
done this, the learners can then interact with people from other
groups to share their opinions and reasons.
1. Pre-reading activities
Story telling
Prepare a short personalized narrative about something related to the
topic of the reading. Be creative with the story. It doesn’t have to be
100% accurate to something that actually happened to you, but it
should be personal, and be told enthusiastically. It will help if there is
a little suspense and humour in the story too.
1. Pre-reading activities
Pictionary
Select some of the key words from the text. Put the class into two or
three groups. In turn, a learner from each group (at the same time)
comes to the whiteboard. They are told the word and they have to
draw that word. They are not allowed to use letters or numbers in
their drawing. The other students try to guess the word and earn
points for their team. This can get very lively indeed!
1. Pre-reading activities
Videos
• Find a short video relating to the topic of the reading (around three
minutes long).
• Prepare some simple discussion questions.
• Play the video and then ask the students to talk with a partner
about what they saw.
1. Pre-reading activities
Guessing from Words
Before students look at the text they are going to read, the teacher
writes 5 or 6 words from the text on the board and asks the students
to guess the topic.
1. Pre-reading activities
Guessing from Pictures
The teacher finds 3 pictures or objects which are connected to the
story and ask the students to guess how they are connected. Students
read the text to check.
1. Pre-reading activities
Guessing from sentences
The teacher dictates 3 sentences from the passage. Students write
them down and check with a friend. The sentences go on the board if
necessary as a final check. Then the teacher asks how these sentences
might be connected. What is the text about? Students predict then
read the text quickly to check their predictions.
1. Pre-reading activities
True or False
Let’s take the example of the influence of
social media on teenagers again, you can
come to the classroom and read a few
statements and ask them if they think those
statements are true or false. don’t reveal
the answers and let them confirm if they
were right or wrong when they are doing
the reading.
1. Pre-reading activities
KWL Charts
KWL Charts are simple. Just have students write everything they
know about the topic (K column) and everything they want to know
(W column) and what they learned after the reading (L Column)
1. Pre-reading activities
Running dictation
 It is a very useful activity because it develops the four skills.
 Children are divided into groups of four/five people.
 The teacher sits down on a chair in the centre of the classroom
with some sheets of paper that contain some written information
in them.
 A child of each group has to run from their seat to teacher’s seat to
read the information and then, he/she has to come back his/her
seat and dictate what she/he has read in the sheet of paper.
 Then, other child goes to look for some more information.
Running dictation
1. Pre-reading activities
“Find the word” race
 Write down a word on the board that only occurs once in the
text.
 When students find the word, the first student who can find
out the word stands up and says the word out loud.
1. Pre-reading activities
Title and mind-map
• This strategy is used before reading.
• The students look at the title of the book, illustrations, text in the
book, headings, subheadings, italics, and bold font.
• They do this to predict what the story is going to be about.
2. While-reading activities
• Running question
• Table talk
• Story consequences
• Ordering
2. While-reading activities
Running question
 Prepare some questions about the details of a text.
 Put students into pairs.
 Give students pieces of paper with questions.
 Show the answers
 Ask to students to find the right question for each answer.
2. While-reading activities
Table talk
• Table talk is used during reading
• Table talk is when the teacher stops reading and allows the
students to discuss certain points of the story up to that
point.
• The students only talk within their cooperative learning
groups or tables.
2. While-reading activities
Story consequences
Teacher should prepare a skeleton of the story line for the
students to complete. This skeleton does not have to be for
the entire story; it could he for a section, which has just been
completed. Also the students could complete the skeleton
while they are reading a section.
2. While-reading activities
 Ordering
Students put paragraphs,
pictures, list of events,
etc., in the right order.
2. While-reading activities
Others:
• Identify topic sentences and the main idea of paragraphs
• Distinguish between general and specific ideas
• Identify the connectors
• Identify references
3. Post-reading activities
 Character interviews
 Was it in the story?
 Sentence endings and beginnings
 Summary Writing
 Survey
3. Post-reading activities
 Character interviews
• Students role-play an interview with one of the characters.
• Assign students the roles of the characters.
• The rest of the class prepare questions they would like to
ask them.
• The students playing the characters must put themselves
in the characters’ shoes to give suitable answers.
3. Post-reading activities
Was it in the story?
• Give the students some sentences.
• Half are in the text, half are not.
• Students guess (they should know!) which were in the text
3. Post-reading activities
Sentence endings and beginnings
• Write some endings and beginnings on a worksheet.
• The matching endings and beginnings can go up around
the classroom.
• Students write the full sentences on the worksheet.
• They cannot take the endings and beginnings off the wall,
they must read and remember.
3. Post-reading activities
Summary Writing
• Ask students to write a summary of the main
points of a text or passage.
• Modeling the process of good summary
writing during class is also helpful.
• Write all the points that students suggest on
the board.
• Discuss which ideas should be included in the
summary.
(for speaking, if)
3. Post-reading activities
Survey
• Students can prepare a survey about the information they
just read.
• They can prepare the survey in class and ask the survey to
their classmates or they can go home and bring the results
and report them during next class.
Group work
Activities for
+ Warm up?
+ Pre-reading?
+ While-reading?
+ Post-reading?
Group work: Write a class observation
Homework
Read Unit 4
Prepare for Unit 5
Practice teaching