Teaching ESL Reading

Effective language instructors show learners how they can adjust their reading behavior to deal with a variety of situations, types of input, and reading purposes. They help learners develop a set of reading strategies and match appropriate strategies to each reading situation. Strategies that can help learners read more quickly and effectively include:

• Previewing: reviewing titles, section headings, and photo captions to get a sense of the structure and content of a reading selection
  
• Predicting: using knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension; using knowledge of the text type and purpose to make predictions about discourse structure; using knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing style, vocabulary, and content
  
• Skimming and scanning: using a quick survey of the text to get the main idea, identify text structure, confirm or question predictions
  
• Guessing from context: using prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text as clues to the meanings of unknown words, instead of stopping to look them up
  
• Paraphrasing: stopping at the end of a section to check comprehension by restating the information and ideas in the text
  

Tutors can help learners to understand when and how to use reading strategies in several ways:

• By modeling the strategies aloud, talking through the processes of previewing, predicting, skimming and scanning, and paraphrasing. This shows learners how the strategies work and how much they can know about a text before they begin to read word by word.
  
• By allowing time in class for group and individual previewing and predicting activities as preparation for in-class or out-of-class reading. Allocating class time to these activities indicates their importance and value.
  
• By using cloze (fill in the blank) exercises to review vocabulary items. This helps learners learn to guess meaning from context.
  
• By encouraging learners to talk about what strategies they think will help them approach a reading assignment, and then talking after reading about what strategies they actually used. This helps learners develop flexibility in their choice of strategies.
  

When language learners use reading strategies, they find that they can control the reading experience, and they gain confidence in their ability to read the language.
Reading to Learn
Reading is an essential part of language instruction at every level because it supports learning in multiple ways.

• Reading to learn the language: reading material is language input. By giving learners a variety of materials to read, instructors provide multiple opportunities for learners to absorb vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and discourse structure as they occur in authentic contexts.
   
• Learners thus gain a more complete picture of the ways in which the elements of the language work together to convey meaning.
  
• Reading for content information: learners' purpose for reading in their native language is often to obtain information about a subject they are studying, and this purpose can be useful in the language learning classroom as well. Reading for content information in the language classroom gives learners both authentic reading material and an authentic purpose for reading.
  
• Reading for cultural knowledge and awareness: reading everyday materials that are designed for native speakers can give learners insight into the lifestyles and worldviews of the people whose language they are studying. When learners have access to newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, they are exposed to culture in all its variety, and monolithic cultural stereotypes begin to break down.
  

When reading to learn, learners need to follow four basic steps:

• Figure out the purpose for reading. Activate background knowledge of the topic in order to predict or anticipate content and identify appropriate reading strategies.
  
• Attend to the parts of the text that are relevant to the identified purpose and ignore the rest. This selectivity enables learners to focus on specific items in the input and reduces the amount of information they have to hold in short-term memory.
  
• Select strategies that are appropriate to the reading task and use them flexibly and interactively. Learners' comprehension improves and their confidence increases when they use top-down and bottom-up skills simultaneously to construct meaning.
  
• Check comprehension while reading and when the reading task is completed. Monitoring comprehension helps learners detect inconsistencies and comprehension failures, helping them learn to use alternate strategies.
  

Use pre-reading activities to prepare learners for reading:
Perhaps the most important step for effective reading instruction is providing your learners with pre-reading instructional activities. The activities you use during pre-reading may serve as preparation in several ways. During pre-reading you may:

• Assess what learners already know about the topic
  
• Give learners the background knowledge necessary for comprehension of the text, or activate the existing knowledge that the learners possess
  
• Clarify any cultural information which may be necessary to comprehend the passage
  
• Make learners aware of the type of text they will be reading and the purpose(s) for reading
  
• Provide opportunities for group or collaborative work and for class discussion activities

Sample pre-reading activities include:

• Using the title, subtitles, and divisions within the text to predict content and organization or sequence of information
  
• Looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs and their captions
  
• Talking about the author's background, writing style, and usual topics
  
• Skimming to find the theme or main idea and eliciting related prior knowledge
  
• Reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures
  
• Reading over the comprehension questions to focus attention on finding that information while reading
  
• Constructing semantic webs (a graphic arrangement of concepts or words showing how they are related)
  
• Doing guided practice with guessing meaning from context or checking comprehension while reading
  

Pre-reading activities are most important at lower levels of language proficiency and at earlier stages of reading instruction. As learners become more proficient at using reading strategies, you will be able to reduce the amount of guided pre-reading and allow learners to do these activities themselves.

(Adapted from materials developed by The National Capital Language Resource Center, Washington, DC.)