Reading is often a tedious part of teaching, but there is a method to it in which students can be engaged, have fun and even come to love it. I often spend an entire class, once a month or so focusing simply on reading. Arguably, the hardest aspect of English is reading. Unlike Spanish where one reads exactly as it is spelt, in English, this is far from the case. Just take a look at the letter ´y´ and think of how many different pronunciations there are for this letter. English is a complicated language to read: it´s riddled with silent letters and confusing contractions.
Try to pronounce this combination of letters: ´ough´. How do you say: rough? How do you say: through? How do you say: thorough? They have the same combination of letters but yet have different pronunciations with no clear rule as to why. This is what makes reading so annoyingly difficult and an integral part of learning English.
Structure
Reading is a tough lesson to teach and to learn, and so your lesson must have a clear sense of direction and structure. Below is a template of how I prefer to generally structure my reading classes.
- The First Reading
A common mistake new teachers make is that they take it upon themselves to read first. NEVER READ FIRST. I cannot stress this enough, why would you read a passage first? You know how to read but the students don’t, so why waste valuable time? Remember this golden rule: if you’re doing something the students could be doing, STOP, and let them do it!
Additionally, if you read, the students will simply copy what you say. Then you will have no idea if they actually know how to pronounce the words or are simply copying you. The aim of the first read is for you to listen to your pupils trying to pronounce the words. If a student is struggling, stop and teach them the correct pronunciation or rule that will help them pronounce the word correctly.
For example: in the word rat, a is pronounced quickly. However, if you add an e at the end of the word, the pronunciation of a becomes longer: rate.
The ´First Read´ should be exciting and undertaken by the whole class by either allowing the entire class to read in unison or by letting one student reading one word each or one student reading one sentence each. Add variety by allowing the students to choose who reads the next word or sentence, and if the chosen student doesn’t know where they are in the passage, they lose a point or the student who chose, gains a point. This keeps the students alert and motivates them to follow the passage whilst the other students read.
Spend no longer than five minutes on this section. This aim of this part is to expose the reading and pronunciation to less capable students so they become more confident to participate in the steps that follow.
An additional point to look out for in this section is whether or not students understand what they are reading. Use this stage to go over any words the students don´t understand.
Below are a few games and activities to play during the ´First Read´:
Reading & Actions
Before you start reading, set up a rule that when a certain type of grammar or word appears, the students have to stand up and clap (or have to do some other action – let them choose the actions). The students read the passage, if everyone does the action at the correct time everyone gets a point, however if only one student doesn’t do the action, no one gets a point (this will motivate every student to follow along).
Switch Word
Choose a keyword or grammar point in the text, then get the students to sit in a circle and read the passage. When a student gets to the key lexis, the students must switch their chairs (cannot be with the person next to them), the last student to sit down must pay a penalty fee such as ten sit ups etc.
Read & Walk
Put the students into pairs. Tell them to stand with their partners in free space in the classroom. Next, all the pairs begin reading to each other at the same time. When you shout switch, they must quickly find another partner to read with. Meanwhile, walk around the class and listen to them reading and correct any mistakes they might make.
Emotional Reading
Tell your class to read the text whilst displaying a certain emotion or situation i.e. happy, sad, angry, excited, tired etc. This can be done individually or as a group.
Upside Down Reading
Put the students into pairs and have them find a free space in the classroom and stand with their books turned upside down. Then get them to try to read the passage, meanwhile, walk around the class and listen to the students as they hilariously try to read upside down.
One Team One Sentence
Divide the class into two equal teams. One student from one team reads a word or sentence from the passage and then chooses a student from the other team to continue reading and so forth. If a student isn’t following and doesn´t know where to read, the other team gains a point.
Punctuation Bomb
Choose a particular punctuation mark such as a question mark. The class reads through the text one word one student. When the question mark comes up, the student reading the word before it is unfortunately out. Continue until only one student remains standing.
Volume Gauge
Draw a volume gauge on the whiteboard. Have the class read the text, meanwhile, a student stands next to the volume gauge and randomly points to a measurement on it. If the student points to the loudest meter, the students must shout the passage. But if the student points to the lowest meter, the class must whisper the passage etc.
Reverse Reading
Simply put – read the text backwards, going from the last word to the first word.
High/Low Voice
Divide the class into two teams. A team reads one sentence then the next team reads the next sentence etc. However, one team must read their sentences in a high voice (or a loud voice), and the other team must read their sentences in a low (or quiet) voice. After completing the passage, have the students read the passage again but swapping their roles.
Loudest Team
Divide the class into two teams. A team reads one sentence then the next team reads the next sentence etc. However, each team must try to read their sentence in the loudest possible voice they can master. The winner is the team who was the loudest.
Moving Dialogue
Students line up face to face, everyone at the same time reads the passage to the student opposite them. When the teacher says stop, the students in one line shuffle to their right one space so that the students are all facing a new partner. Meanwhile, walk around and listen to their pronunciation.
Read and Lie Down
Have the students stand in a place for themselves in the classroom. Then everyone reads the passage, but when the teacher suddenly shouts “lie down”, the students must immediately lie down. The last student to lie down must pay a penalty fee such as five laps around the classroom. Walk around the class as they read and listen to their pronunciation.
- The Second Reading
Now you have read the passage as a class and you have covered any difficulty in pronunciation and comprehension; your students should feel more confident and should be engaged. So now we lead to the second reading in which more time should be spent than the first reading.
There are two points to focus on in this stage: fluency and accuracy. Fluency focuses on the student´s ability to read quickly and smoothly even if they make mistakes. Accuracy focuses on how well they can pronounce the words. Each reading class, try to alternate between focusing on accuracy or fluency.
Below are two examples of both an accuracy and a fluency game:
Bomb Reading
Draw a cartoon style TNT bomb on the whiteboard with five or six individual lines representing the fuse. Divide the class into teams and get one student from one team to come to the front of the class and read the passage. Every time they make a mistake the teacher erases one line from the fuse. When there are no more lines, the bomb explodes and the other team gets a point. If however the student reads the passage and the bomb hasn´t exploded, their team gets a point. In this way, you are checking their accuracy. In order to check their fluency, simply draw one long line as the fuse and time the student as they read. The student must finish the passage in one minute, for example, if they don´t then the bomb explodes and the other team gets a point. If they finish the passage in time, their team gets a point. In this way, you are practising fluency.
Timed Reading
In pairs or individually, students read the passage and are timed. The student or pair who can read in the fastest time wins. Whilst one or two students are reading, don´t allow the other students to just sit back and do nothing. This is the point where you can add an element of accuracy into the activity. Instruct the other students to write down any mistakes they hear from the student/s reading. Each mistake they hear they should write it down. Afterwards go over any words they wrote down that they heard mispronounced, if they are correct they get a point (the teacher should also write down mispronounced words so that he or she can cross-check that the student/s actually mispronounced these words).
- Comprehension
This section is dedicated to comprehension – ensuring the students actually understand what it is they are reading.
My favourite way to accomplish this is by creating a story web using questions words. Look at the two different lists of key question words for lower and higher levels and how they differentiate:
Lower Level
Who
What – beginning, middle, end
Where
When
Higher Level
Title
Characters
Setting
When
What is the problem?
What is the solution?
Students can create this story chart by using a worksheet, in teams, pairs, individually or you can even go through it as an entire class.
- Acting
Time to have a breather. We still need to continue practising reading skills and continue to examine the story´s meaning whilst having a lot of fun… what better way than to act the story out. If the passage is not a story then you can skip this section.
Let´s say we’re reading ´The Three Little Pigs´ and you have 6 students, then three become the pigs, one the wolf, and two can be the narrators. If you have about 8 students, divide the class into teams of 4 students. One team will act the story out whilst the other team narrate the story and vice versa. If you have an excessive amount of students such as 18, divide the class into manageable teams: assign characters within each team, then get one team to act out the story. Like a talent show, the others watch the performance and at the end, they can grade how well the team did by awarding points out of ten. The team with the highest score wins This motivates the students to not only act but to submerge in their imagination, become actors and enjoy themselves more.
- Creating Comprehension Questions
It’s important to understand that the students make the questions, NOT the teacher.
First, give students a sample sentence from the text, and label it as an answer sentence, such as:
Answer) The wolf saw the three pigs in the forest.
Ensure you know your student’s capabilities, if they are unaware or struggling to deal with the past tense, then it’s no use getting them to create past tense questions such as: Where did the wolf see the three little pigs?
Next, elicit the Wh question words:
What
Where
When
Why
Who
Then point to the keywords in the sample answer sentence: ‘The Wolf’.
Proceed to ask your students: “Is the wolf a what, a where a when, a why or a who?” Hopefully, they will reply with ‘The wolf is a who’ (not a what because the wolf is a character in the story).
Finally, erase the keywords ´The Wolf´ and replace them with the word who and a question mark at the end of the sentence:
Question) Who saw the three pigs?
After demonstrating this a few times, your students should be aware of how to formulate questions and you can then skip this explanatory process in your future classes.
The next thing to do is to split the class into teams or pairs. Assign a set period of time such as five or ten minutes and get them to write four to ten questions about the passage.
Once they are finished, get each team to ask the other teams their questions. It’s important to incorporate some sort of game or activity at this stage for when the students ask and answer their questions, as it could be very dull and boring for younger students. Some classes, however, won´t need a game as they are full of energy and personality, however, some classes need more motivation than others. PowerPoint games are my favourite thing to use here (see the PowerPoint chapter).
- Retelling the Story
For higher-level students, this section is an important part of storytelling (see storytelling chapter). Present the story in a word document on the computer and then one by one, the students read a sentence from the story but change one aspect such as:
‘The three little pigs went walking in the forest’.
A student would read this and could change it to:
‘The three massive ogres went running through a supermarket’
Once the story has been completely changed, the students can keep going; it doesn’t have to end when the story ends. But we shall look into this in more detail in the Storytelling chapter.
- Comprehension Worksheets
This is the last 10 or 15 minutes of the class. Before class, prepare a worksheet that has comprehensive questions relating to the story or text you are focusing on in the class. Students can either complete this individually or in pairs. Set them a time limit to complete the worksheet. Once the timer has finished, go through the questions and answers with the students. Get the students to give their worksheets to other students, who then mark each other’s work so that it’s fair and no cheating occurs. Use the worksheet to analyze your student´s improvements, weaknesses and strengths. If there isn´t enough time to complete this section in the class, assign it as homework.
