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Useful Techniques in Teaching Reading

Dina Puiu “Alecu Russo” State University E-mail puiudina@yahoo.com tel.231 23289

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1. Theory and Teaching Practice in Reading to Young Learners 1.1. What do people read? 1.2. Why do people read? 1.3. How do they read?2. Practice. 2.1. Useful techniques in teaching reading. 2.2. Activities 2.3. The analysis of the textbooks: “Magic English 4”, 3. Conclusion

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1. Theory. The student’s success depends on learning to read with a purpose, predict, skim, scan, extract detailed information, read and recognize functions, deduce meaning from context.

But reading in a foreign language creates barriers for the learner in using reading skills.

It is the teacher’s job to re-activate these skills by making students less anxious or frustrated and thus removing some of the barriers.

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A reading lesson might reflect this process in a variety of ways. There are a lot of classroom procedures that activate and encourage pupils to realize that reading can be fun.

Mostly this happens while integrating reading with writing, listening and speaking.

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1. Theory and Practice in Teaching Reading

1.1. What do people read?Activity 1. Web Map. Put everything you can remember reading the previous day( all types even reading labels, shopping list, address book, road signs, posters, articles, books, etc., .

What I read?

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1.2. Why do people read ? There are some main reasons for reading

• Reading for survival - a matter of life or death:immediate needs or wishes, signs instructions,etc.,

Activity 3. Write and read as many signs and instructions you meet on your way to work.

Example: No smoking! Push!

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• Reading for information - goal oriented

Reading to extend the general knowledge of the world

Reading for information

Reading to remind ourselves about half-known

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• Reading for information - goal oriented

Reading to extend the general knowledge of the world

Reading for information

Reading to remind ourselves about half-known

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• Reading for specific purposes - for a very particular purpose

To give instructions

To describe situations

To report events

To generalize

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• Reading for pleasure - for its own sake.

Thrillers

Romantic fiction

The classics

Contemporary fiction.

Activity 1. Classify your reading under the four types of reading.

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1.3. How do people read? The main types of reading are as follows:

•Skimming: quickly running one’s eyes over a text to get the gist of it.

•Scanning: quickly going through a text to find a particular information.

•Extensive reading: reading longer texts

•Intensive reading: reading shorter texts to extract information.

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2. Practice. Useful reading techniques

A reading lesson might reflect this process in a variety of ways. There are a lot of classroom procedures that activate and encourage pupils to realize that reading can be fun.

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All reading techniques are classified according to three main types of classroom procedures:

•pre-reading

•while-reading

•post-reading

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2.2. Pre-reading- activities that precede the reading of the text:

web maps, brainstorming, warming -ups, describing pictures, puzzles, questions, questionnaires, making lists, memory games, anticipation, predicting, etc.,

Activity 1. Read the puzzle. Can you spell these words?

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Activity 1. Read the puzzle. Can you spell these words?

ACTIVITY 2. Anticipation.

What do you know about robots? Read and complete the chart.

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2.2. While-reading activities are designed to:

scan, skim, reassemble jumbled sentences and texts,think of a suitable title, jig-saw reading, locate a key sentence/paragraph, complete a chart, examine punctuation and grammar, etc.,

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Activity1. Unjumble Sue’s letter to Paula

Activity 2. Linking words. Choose the best word.

Activity 3 Read the texts and match the headings to the appropriate paragraph.

Activity 4. Put the following bits together to make the end of Jill’s story.

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2.3. Post-reading that traditionally consisted of questions now:

answer the questions, multiple-choice questions, put the instructions in order, deducing information, read and write a report/ a letter / a project, etc.,

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Activity 1. Read the letters and answer the questions. Write an excuse.

Activity 2. Read the two texts and complete the family trees.

Activity 3. Read the text and write about the typical food of your country or region

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2.4. Reading for pleasure:

romantic fiction, thrillers, quizzes, jokes, mysteries, matching, etc.,

Activity 1.Strange messages.

Activity 2. Reading jokes.

Activity 3. Sleeping cartoons.

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3. Textbook analysis. Magic English 4.

Reading activities.Unit 7

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4. Conclusion.

These techniques remind readers of what they do in fact know and think, encourage them to be active and reflective, realize that reading can be enjoyable and fun.