How to teach reading?

[liuyanli]

I want to know how to teach student a new passage?

[I'm With Stupid]

Well you can teach a student how to read a passage, but if they're just memorizing it, you're not really teaching them anything.

What sort of level are we talking about here? Do they know how an "e" on the end of a word changes the pronunciation, for example? Have they been taught how "though/thought/rough/through/cough/plough" are pronounced differently?

I'm not a teacher yet, but personally, I would approach it by looking at the passage, and seeing what sort of English language rules are present that you could teach them. Then put it all together, so they can read it, and anything else containing the same rules, without just memorizing it.

[MaryTeacher]

Hi-

A helpful way to work with a student on a reading passage is to break the lesson down into 3 or 4 stages:

1- prereading: At this stage you are introducing the topic or ideas that are contained in the passage, but in a way that personalizes it for the learner. You are trying to activate the knowledge about the topic that the student has, or encourage him to think of questions about the topic that he would like answered.

You can also introduce key vocabulary which you think will be unfamiliar to the student, but which is important for understanding the passage. (If you have a huge list of words, the passage is too difficult, and you should choose something easier.)

2- reading: at this stage, the student actually reads the text.
A good strategy is to have some information questions for the student to find the answers for quickly after an initial reading.This is to ensure that the student has gotten the general meaning of the passage before you begin to look at it in more detail.

The next reading can look for more details, or you can have the student read more carefully, underlining difficult words or phrases. Have them retell the story to you after reading, then go over the difficult vocab and phrases.

3- post reading. At this stage you can look at different aspects. I think it is always good to engage with the ideas presented in the text- talking about them, expressing opinions, relating them to other things you have studied.

You can then pick a language focus to work on. Is there a grammatical structure present in the text that would be good to focus on? Is there a vocabulary focus that you could develop. Use the text as a context for more detailed language work.

4- Follow up. You can follow up the reading activities in many ways: have your student find an article on a related topic, and summarize it or create a reading lesson for another student. Have him write about it in his own words... There are many ways to extend the learning.

These steps work for learners of all levels and with all kinds of texts. You just need to develop activities that are appropriate to the level of the student.

I hope this helps.

Take care,
Mary

[STCrowley]

I agree. Set the stage before you start, and they'll do better.

The biggest thing, I think, is to pick reading that's relevant to them. If the only relevance it has is 'it's on the test' it's better than nothing, but not as good as 'makes me want to read more.' The great thing about teaching English is that it opens up so many possibilities. Make your reading expand their world, and they'll do it.

[Black Iris]

Thanks for your great Answer MaryTeacher..

[Teacher_Joe]

I certainly agree with Mary. Good post! One additional point I would make is that you should encourage students to read on their own, so that they can practice the skills you teach in class. Graded readers using limited vocabulary are excellent for lower-level adult ESL students or you can use most children's books.

[acecrystal]

yeah,good post Mary

points taken