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Extending Reading Skills

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Accocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry study the order of letters in a word dosen’t mattaer, the only thing thta’s iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat ltteer of eevryword is in the crrecot ptoision. The rset can be jmbueld and one is still able to raed the txet wiohtut defctifuliiy.

Raednig is esay

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Today we will be looking at...• Quick review of last session• What makes reading complex• How to extend reading skills• Reading for different purposes & comprehension

• Levels of meaning• Designing an activity for a learner

Extending Reading Skills

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What Skills do we need to be a fluent reader?

What strategies do fluent readers use?Why is it important to use the phonics

approach?Why is reading for meaning important?What is the Language Experience Approach.

How is it useful?What is Social Sight Vocabulary & why is it

important?What is the Cloze technique? What is a Dolch List?

Review Questions

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Reading for meaning is the main aim when we read and it’s our learner’s first goal when learning to read.

What do we do when we meet a word we don’t understand? Can you remember?

Review of our first reading session

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Review of our first reading session

• We need to understand something in order to remember it, but we don’t have to read or understand every word.

• Reading is easier if the subject matter is of interest – this is why the Language Experience method works so well, and why it’s so important to involve your learner in choosing what to read.

• When we read, we react – we constantly relate/compare what the writer is saying with our own experience – this is how we know if it makes sense.

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How can we help make reading easier and make the content more

understandable?

Make use of headlines, captions, pictures, any other features of the context

Scan for the main ideas of the piece Discuss the main ideas Ask the learner what they think it’s

about, and what they think of it

Don’t forget, reading needs to be taught alongside writing and spelling where possible -- not in isolation.

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• Uses the learner’s interests and experience.

• Uses their own words and structures.

• Meaning of the sentence is more important than form.

• Repetition of words and phrases adds to the effectiveness of the method.

Review of the Language Experience Approach

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• Allows the learner to make informed guesses using the context to help.

• Helps anticipating and predicting to play a part in the learner’s reading.

• Good to involve lots of social sight words, names, places, days of the week etc.

Review of the Language Experience Approach

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• The shape of words also plays a part, and the use of capitals to help with recognition.Example: the and

• Even the spaces between words can act as clues.

• Uses all three learning styles.

Review of the Language Experience Approach

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Where possible, let your learner choose the material.

With a low level learner, decoding words can lose the meaning. Telling the student what the word is helps him/her to recognise it and stay with the flow of the text

Skip problem words and go back later, to keep the flow

Review of paired reading

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The shape of the letters can vary depending on whether they’re hand written or printed, and then printed text can vary a lot with fonts.

Some languages are more phonetic than English – many letters represent more than one sound in English.

Combining letters can change the sound – like ch, sh, th, or silent letters like in knight

What makes reading such a complex task?

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Words that are spelt alike aren’t always pronounced the same – bury, jury.

The bandage was wound around the wound. Putting the stress on the correct place in a

word can totally change its meaning – invalid, object, permit

Putting the emphasis in the correct place in a sentence can have an effect

– Because of the rain, there was no body at the funeral.

What makes reading such a complex task?

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The context in which a word appears is very important for its meaning. Wind and close can mean very different things!

You also need to pay attention to your learner’s spoken vocabulary – it’s much harder to learn words you don’t use

What makes reading such a complex task?

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Discuss with your learner what he/she reads and which aspects of reading they find easy/difficult. Check what reading they would like to be able to do and why.

Ask your learner to choose something to read, or bring something in and read it to you. Treat this as a Paired Reading exercise – only give as much help as is needed.

So where do I start to extend reading skills?

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Learners may be beginner readers but they are not

beginner thinkers.

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Areas you might work on together:

Using context clues Dealing with punctuation when

reading Sequencing Prediction skills Word endings Plurals Phonics skills – e.g. the pronunciation

of vowel sounds or word endings

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Reading for enjoyment Skimming Scanning Proof reading Reading for information – reference books, or the Internet

Critical reading

The goal is reading for meaning – so it’s important to check comprehension. How do

we do that?

Reading for different purposes

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Remember the goal?Reading for Meaning

But don’t assume that reading equals understanding.

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We need to understand what we read in order to remember it.

We don’t have to get every word and every letter, but it needs to make sense.

Reading for Meaning

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The blonkie blipped the scritchy flump.

• What did the blonkie do to the flump?

• Who blipped the flump?• What sort of flump was it?

Reading for Meaning

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Delete words central to the text.Develop prediction skills, checks for understanding AND increase vocabulary.

Even if we leave out the words in the ________you will probably be able to _____________

them.

A good strategy to check for comprehension...

~Cloze~

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Even if we leave out the words in the .........., you will probably be able to .......... them quickly .......... for it not to interfere too .......... with your understanding of the text. The reader uses all sorts of .......... to fill in the blanks. These may not be the same words the writer had in .......... when she wrote the text, but they will have to .......... the meaning and syntax. The only important thing is that it .......... sense!

Using cloze to check understanding

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The team is ................... to stay in the first division.

After losing the last three matches, Butterfingers United face possible relegation. The team is .................. to stay in the first division. Don’t forget you can also use cloze to teach any number of other things – e.g to

emphasise grammatical points, or to highlight spelling patterns, or for humorous effect!

Cloze shows learners the importance of context ...

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~Testing for comprehension~

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Getting the right answer doesn’t always equate with understanding:

To work best, comprehension questions should teach something, and be pitched at the right level.

Well-designed questions:

Recognise the learner’s need to be able to go beyond literal meaning

Look to develop the learner’s ability to make inferences from the text

Aid in the formation of opinions

Using comprehension effectively

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Literal – • Require a specific literal answer• All information is provided in

the text• No interpretation or opinion is

required• Example – “What colour was the

boat?” The answer can only be “The boat was green”.

Levels of Meaning

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Inferential – • Uses partial information from the text –

the learner must collect the information that is available and infer an answer from this.

• Example – “Who was at the door?”. The text tells us that there was a scratching at the door, so a valid answer may be “The cat was at the door”.

Levels of Meaning

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Evaluative – ◦ The learner must make a judgment based on

the information in the text and their own opinions.

◦ Also includes questions which need the learner to understand the writer’s intent and any hidden messages – including sarcasm, wordplay, humour and figurative expressions.

◦ EG: What do you think? What do you believe?

Don’t forget to encourage your learner to support their opinions with explanations.

Levels of Meaning

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The Bear’s Story

In pairs, design an activity for your learner using the story.

Be sure to keep your learner’s goals in mind and the area(s) your learner needs to work on.

Designing an Activity

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We have emphasised from the beginning that confidence is a key skill for our learners – so be sure to empower them to abandon a piece of reading if it’s inappropriate, or worse, boring!