REIMAGINING READING:BUILDING HAPPY AND SUCCESSFUL

ESL READERS

BOSTON TESOL 2010Eva M.Ramos R.evaramos28 @hotmail.com

Problem:Reading is sometimes a hard skill to teach. Students, especially beginners, find reading difficult and even boring, and changing that becomes a real challenge for any ESL teacher.

Questions:What is the right approach to use? How can I make reading interesting and meaningful for my ESL students? What resources can I incorporate to make reading fun and enjoyable?

Solution: Building Happy & Successful readers: The Plan & Strategies = Success!

Purpose: To approach reading with a specific plan in mind and apply different effective and creative ideas to help ESL learners to become successful ESL readers while having fun at the same time.

Preparation:

In order to design a successful and memorable reading lesson we need to start by considering the different factors that may affect the impact that a reading selection may have. Before putting our ideas on paper we need to think about:

WHO Reader WHAT Text WHY Purpose HOW Strategies

This equation can help us remember what are the most important aspects to consider before designing our reading lesson: We need to think about:

a. The who, our students; b. the what, the reading selection; c. and the why, our purpose, what we expect

the learners will be able to do with the text.

Dealing with a text in another language is not an easy task for EFL/ESL learners, for that reason we have to help them become better readers by teaching them how to use some reading strategies to their advantage. We have to teach readers to become independent, and develop the skills to read on their own too.

Student’s Reading StrategiesKWL This strategy consists of three steps to use with a written text in this case. K-W-L encourages students to become actively engaged in thinking about the relevance of the material before and after reading Scanning: is a fast reading technique. It is a way

of

reading to look for specific information in a text. We scan texts such as TV schedules, newspaper ads, timetables, lists, catalogues, etc. You do not need to understand every word to do it.

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Skimming: is a fast reading technique to obtain the gist or main idea(s) of a piece of text.SQ3R: Stands for survey, question, read, recite, review. This strategy is an independent

study method that aids in student understanding of the organization and meaning of written texts. It is a five-step process for making reading more active and improving student understanding of reading assignments.

PDP FRAMEWORK

Pre-Reading: Activities that activates students prior knowledge, before even having the written text. E.g. brainstorming, prediction, skimming, questions, visuals, kwl, etc.During Reading: Activities that help students to construct meaning and monitor their understanding. E.g. questions, verifying predictions, study guides, group discussions, summaries.Post-Reading: Activities that help students to process ideas and apply their knowledge. Here they use the other 3 skills. E.g. Drawings, Retell, make inferences, reflections, mindmaps, etc.

Reading teaching strategies to use in class Jigsaw Reading: It is like playing with a jigsaw puzzle. Each student in a group is given part of the story to read. He has to read and

comprehend, in order to report to other members of the group. Then, the whole group work together re-arranging the parts to recover the original story.Prediction Guide: It is a tool designed by the teacher so the students read it before, having the actual reading. It usually consists of a series of questions the student has to answer before reading the text.Reader’s Theater: This is a good way to motivate students to read more because it is fun. The students or the teacher select a story for a script. Students act out the story in class or in front of an

audience.Choral Reading: It offers many opportunities for repeated readings of a particular piece, and it gives practice in oral reading. Choral reading is particularly well suited to poetry and rhymes.

Echo Reading: Teacher reads selection, one sentence at a time, and students echo it back. Echo reading is appropriate for use with a predictable text, plays, poems, and small parts of a selection a teacher wants to emphasize. Teacher-created books: There will be times that you do not find suitable reading material for your student’s level; so you find yourself adapting a story to their English level. To cause a bigger impact on your students, you can even present your story adaptation in the form of a book. Students can also create books to illustrate their favourite stories.Fly-swatter Reading: You divide your students into two groups and paste some words related to the reading on the board. Ask your young learners to “swat” the word. It is a good activity to develop sound-word recognition. ...And then the chances of having happy and successful ESL readers will increase. Just be ready to start the process all over again.

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