View Content #23928

By Valeria Ochoa, CASLS Fellow

This activity aims to make learners aware of their current reading strategies and finding new strategies to improve their reading comprehension. The learners will first engage in a timed-reading task to have a fresh reading experience in mind when thinking about the strategies they employ while reading a new text. Next, the learners are expected to write down their answers to five questions proposed by Anderson (2003) to consider their own reading strategies and to start generating new ones that may better suit their needs. Once they have written their responses, they will share their strategies with their peers and evaluate the strategies together. The teacher can create a master-list of the strategies generated, ask the students to employ at least one or two of the new strategies, then follow up with the students in the future about their progress made while using the new strategy(ies). This activity is intended for intermediate-high learners of English. The selection for the timed-reading task can be adjusted to the level and content of the course in which it will be used.

Objectives:

• Learners will be able to write their responses to the five questions proposed by Anderson (2003) after a 30-second timed-reading task.
• Learners will be able to generate reading strategies as a class and share their strategies with their peers
• Learners will be able to choose reading strategies that suit their individual needs and improve their comprehension while reading
• Learners will be able to reflect on their use of new readings strategies and reporting on their progress.

Modes: Interpersonal communication, Interpretive reading 

Resources: Reading strategy questions handout, text for timed reading task

Procedure:

1. The teacher will begin by explaining to the class that they will be doing a quick reading task in which the learners only have 30 seconds to read a text. The teacher will direct the learners to employ and reading strategies they are familiar with while reading the text.
2. The teacher can then distribute the reading to the class face-down. Once all the learners have a copy the teacher can direct the learners to turn the sheet over at the same time and start the timer.
3. Once the time is up and the learners have read the text, the teacher will give the students the handout with the questions formulated by Anderson (2003) to answer.
4. Next, as a class, the students will share their responses to the handout with the teacher facilitating the discussion.
5. The teacher may choose to create a list on the board of the suggested reading strategies, or have students come up and write their suggestions on separate parts of the board if enough space is available.
6. After the class compiles their reading strategies, the teacher and learners may discuss why some strategies may be more useful than others, especially based on the type of reading the learner encounter.
7. Upon finishing the discussion, the teacher will ask the learners to choose one or two new reading strategies and using this/these strategy(ies) when reading in the future.
8. Once some time has passed (length of time can be determined by the teacher), a follow-up can be done with the students to see if implementing the new reading strategies has helped the learners to improve their reading skills. 

Resource Cited

Anderson, N. (2003). Reading. In Nunan, D.. Practical English language teaching (pp. 67-86). McGraw-Hill/Contemporary.