A Short Course in Teaching Reading Skills

PART I

 

Readingand Literacy: Some Connections

 

What is Reading?

            The Reading Process

            Implications for Teachers

            The Connection Between Reading and Literacy

What is Literacy?

            The Connection Between Language and Literacy

            Literacy Acquisition and Reading–Implications for Teaching

What Students Need to Be Able to Do to Read Effectively

Teaching Reading: Applying Research to Practice

 

 

PART II

 

Pleasure Reading

 

Self-Selected Books for Pleasure Reading

What Should Students Read?

            Reading Levels

            Suggested Books

When Should Students Read for Pleasure?

Making Books Available for Students

Book Conferences

            Logistics

            Benefits

            Peer Conferences

Other Feedback About the Books

 

 

PART III

 

Teaching Reading Skills

 

A.               Background, Rationale, and Methodology

What are Reading Skills?

      Focusing on Specific Skills

      Reading Skills as the Basis of Lessons

      Cognition and Metacognition

Teaching Interactive, Skill-focused Lessons

Working in Pairs and Small Groups

Lesson Plan

The Role of the Teacher

Organizing Classes and Allocating Time for Various Activities

Intensive Reading Lessons

 

B.               Activating Background Knowledge and Conceptual Frameworks

 

Previewing

      Introducing the Skill of Previewing

      Previewing a Textbook

      Previewing Chapters of Books

      Previewing magazine Articles and Essays

      Previewing Books for Pleasure Reading

      The Benefits of Previewing

Predicting

PreP: Making Semantic Associations

Applying Previewing, Predicting, and PreP

      Benefits of this Lesson Plan

 

C.               Learning Not to Read Every Word

 

Exercises Based on the Principle of Closure (Cloze)

Using Cloze Reading Exercises to Encourage Guessing

Scanning

      Teacher-Designed Materials

      Using Published Materials for Scanning Practice

Reading Faster

      Materials for Practicing Reading Rate Improvement

      Techniques for Teaching Reading Rate Improvement

 

D.               Improving Bottom-Up Processing

 

Perceptual Skills

Identification Exercises

Perceptual Training Combined with Meaningful Text

Automatic Decoding

Spelling, Grammar, and Reading

 

E.               Word Knowledge for Skilled Reading

 

Function Words

 

Pronouns

Synonyms

Hyponyms

Identifying Cohesion Devices

Summary Words

Lexical Items Which Signal Text Organization

 

Approaches to Teaching Vocabulary

 

Direct Instruction

Vocabulary in Context

Vocabulary Development Through Extensive Reading

 

F.               Topics and Main Ideas

 

Sequencing the Exercises

Materials for Teaching Topics Lessons

Learning to Recognize and State the Topic

Topics of Conversations

Topics of Paragraphs

Identifying the Topic Sentence

Stating the Main Idea

 

G.               Patterns of Textual Organization

 

Introducing Patterns

Generalization/Details Pattern

Time Order Pattern

Comparison-Contrast Pattern

Cause-Effect Pattern

Practice in Identifying Patterns

 

H.               Skimming and Summarizing

 

Skimming

Summarizing

 

 

Appendix

 

1.                   Brief Review of methodology

2.                   Teachers Reading Aloud

3.                   Students Reading Aloud

4.                   More About Cloze

5.                   What Are Schemata?

6.                   The Reading Skills Not Discussed in This Book