How to Teach Reading

 Why teach reading?

 What kind of reading should students do?
 What reading skills should students acquiring?
 What are the principle behind the teaching of
reading?
 What do reading sequences look like?
 More reading suggestions
 Why Teach Reading?
 There are many reason why getting students to
read English text is an important part of the
teacher’s job.
• First, many of them want to be able to read text in
English either for their careers, for study purposes or
simply for pleasure.

• Second, good reading texts can introduce interesting

topics, stimulate discussion, excite imaginative
responses and be the springboard for well-rounded,
fascinating lessons.
 What Kind of Reading should
Students do?
 The topics and types of reading texts are
worth considering. But depend on who the
students are.
 What Reading Skills Should
Students Acquire?
 Students need to be able to scan the texts for
particular bits of information they are searching
for.

 Students need to be able to skim a text – as if

they were casting their eyes over its surface.

 Students need to be able Reading for detail

comprehension.
 What do Reading Sequence Look
Like?
 In the following four examples, we are going to look at four different
kinds of reading texts and four different kinds of reading tasks.
 Example 1 (elementary)
In the first example for elementary students the teacher has introduced
the topics of “attraction”
 Example 2 (lower intermediate)
In the second example, the class is once again prepared for the reading
by discussing what, if anything, the students know about ghost.
 Example 3 (intermediate)
In this example for intermediate students, the students first look at a
picture of people sunbathing and say whether it is a positive, safe and
attractive image – or whether it is the opposite.
 Example 4 (intermediate to advance)
The final example shows that reading does not have to be a static ativity
dealing with prose passages.
 More Reading Suggestions
1. Students read small ads for holidays, partners, things for sale etc, to make a
choice. They amplify the ads into descriptions. (intermediate/advance).
2. Students read jumbled instructions. For a simple operation (using public phone
box etc) and have to put the instructions in the correct order.
(elementary/intermediate).
3. Students read a recipe and after matching instructions with pictures they have to
cook the food. (elementary/intermediate).
4. Students read an extract from a play or film and after ensuring that they
understand it, they have to work on acting it out. (any level).
5. Students are given a number of words from a text. In groups, they have to predict
what kind of a text they are going to read. They then read the text to see if their
original predictions were correct. (elementary/intermediate).
6. Students have to match topic sentences with the paragraph they come from.
( intermediate/upper intermediate)
7. Students read a text and have to guess which of a group of people they think
wrote the text (using the pictures provided). (lower intermediate/advance)