Reading skills: Ideas to teach reading skills

Lesson objective (Goal) Activities for the lesson

1. Skimming Materials
"signs" (includes: section Textbook chapter or a nonfiction trade book
headings, chapter titles,
Directions
illustrations, photographs,
graphs, diagrams, maps, 1. Explain to students that by skimming text they
math examples, repeated
will be able to find the elements that are worth
words,
boxes and sidebars, index, the most to them and leave what they don't really
captions, boldface terms
need or want behind.
or concepts, key words in
questions) 2. Explain the goal for skimming this particular
text:
Suitable for Form 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
Example: Discover the characteristics of the Renaissance
man and woman and list them.
3. Think aloud as you go through the text, modeling
how to skim to locate information.
Example:
"Let's check the Table of Contents for chapters that seem
to discuss the Renaissance man and woman."
"I remember there being something mentioned about this
at the end of the chapter, so I'll go back through the end
of chapter pages."
"There is a mention on these two pages: I'll reread this
entire section."
"Here are bold face headings that say: 'The Renaissance
Man' and 'The Renaissance Woman.' I'll reread the
section about men and list details. Then I'll read the
second section about women again."
4. Gather feedback and questions about your
process from students. Encourage them to share
their take on skimming. Then invite them to
 practice finding information that is under a
boldface heading, in a graph, diagram, or in a
caption.
5. Model how to use key words in a question to
locate information.
Example: If the question asks, "What is the feudal
pyramid?" Laura Robb uses this think- aloud with her 5th
graders:
"There are two key words in this question: feudal and
pyramid. I remember seeing a triangle-shaped model of
this in the chapter, but I'm not sure if it was at the
beginning, middle, or end. To save time, I'll skim the
index and see what's listed under feudal. Here it is. With
essential words, I know the index can
help me quickly locate information."
6. Repeat step 4 and continue modeling and
practicing until students demonstrate they can
successfully skim to locate information.

Activity: Have skimming activities where you copy the

text, blocking out everything but the title, pictures,
first lines of each paragraph, and the last paragraph.
From this information, get your students to identify the
main idea and why the author is writing this story.
Have a discussion about what they already know
about the text and what they think they will learn in
the details. [good one!]

Using Newspaper article in teaching skimming: Once

the class is clear on the strategies, each student should
skim the front page of The New York Times. Next, have
a class discussion about the various stories that caught
their attention and why.
Idea #1: The teacher writes the headline and first
sentence of each paragraph on the board. Students pair
up to discuss the guessed-at topic and contents of the
article.
Idea #2: Students read only the first paragraph and the
last paragraph of the article. They then work in pairs to
discuss the guessed-at contents of the piece. To guide the
discussion, the teacher can provide questions on the
board, such as:
What do you think the writer will present and/or
explain?
What details do you expect to be introduced?
Do you think the author is for or against the
topic?
Idea #3: Students have two minutes to read the article.
Of course, they won't be able to complete the piece,
especially if they try to read each word. After two
minutes, students get into pairs to discuss the contents of
the piece without referring back to the article's contents.
Additional points may also be discussed, such as overall
tone (humorous, serious, persuasive), whether the writer
supports or opposes the main idea, etc. Students receive a
second opportunity to read the article, again receiving
two minutes, before sharing the information in pairs
again. From:
http://www.headsupenglish.com/index.php/esl-
articles/four-skills/109-four-skills/303-skimming-and-
scanning
2. Scanning for specific We can set tasks which require students to scan and find
details/ information particular bits of information. Classic examples are
small ads, tv listings etc.

A good scanning activity is a running race. To do this

activity, prepare 9 or 10 questions about the details of a
text; these questions should not be subjective but have
one clear objective answer. This activity can work either
before students read the text or as a review activity
when students have finished the reading. Put students
into pairs with each student having a copy of the text in
front of them and make enough copies of the questions
for each pair. Cut the questions so they are in strips of
paper, and give each pair question number one only.
When you tell students to start, they should race to find
the correct answer to the first question, and then one
partner should run their written answer to your desk to
show you. If the student is correct, give them question
number two, and so on until a group has answered all of
the questions correctly. This activity works well with any
text but can be especially challenging if you give
students the classifieds section of the newspaper. For
more advanced students, you can mix-up the order of
your questions so that they do not follow in order
with the text.[ good one!]

Another scanning activity is to do a find the word race.

With the text in front of them, write down a word on
the board that only occurs once in the text. When
students find the word, they should stand up. Wait until
all students are standing to have the first student point
out the sentence that the word is in.[ good one!] || A
more challenging alternative is to only say the word
aloud without writing it down. This is a good way to
pre-teach vocabulary by drawing students attention
to these words and discussing the meaning of these
words. This activity also works as a way to preview the
text as it can lead to a discussion of what the students
believe the story will be about based on the words you
select from the text.

Introduce a scanning game (using newspaper article):

For this game, choose three to five vocabulary words and
write them on the board. Tell students that they will have
a contest to find how many times the word appears on the
front page of The New York Times.
Another way to play this game, to work on both
scanning and vocabulary, is to have students scan the
front page of The New York Times for vocabulary words
they do not know, look them up and record the
definition, then have each team challenge another team to
find their words. (You may wish you use our New York
Times Vocabulary Log handout for this activity.)

Idea #1: Several content-specific questions are written

on the board before students receive the article. Students
read through the text and answer the questions.
Idea #2: Key vocabulary words are written on the board
before students receive the article. Students read through
the text and circle the words, then read the sentence for
each word for context.
Idea #3: You read aloud the beginning of a sentence.
 Students must go through the article, find the sentence,
and read it aloud.
With any of the above skimming and scanning ideas,
make sure to let students return to the piece again and
again. For example, in a discussion activity, allot several
minutes to skim and/or scan through the information
once more to confirm the ideas exchanged with a partner.
Students should then pair up, correct any information
previously exchanged, and add to the discussion. When
the teacher then assigns students follow-up tasks with the
article, such as presentations or writing homework, they
will be better prepared to do so.
From: http://www.headsupenglish.com/index.php/esl-
articles/four-skills/109-four-skills/303-skimming-and-
scanning

3. Both skimming and Skimming and Scanning: Using The Times to Develop
scanning LP activity Reading Skills
(last pdf from skimming Materials: Computers with an Internet connection,
and scanning desktop stopwatch or timer
folder) 1. Tell students they will be competing for best
time in a game of Who? What? Where?
Review the following skimming When? Why? How? Use The Learning
strategies with students as you Networks 6 Qs About the News feature to
write them on the board: play the game.
Read the first and last 2. Teachers preparation beforehand: Before
paragraphs of an article class, choose the 6 Qs post that will suit the
first. class. Note that not all questions every day have
Notice the titles and answers in the text, as sometimes personal
headings and subheadings. questions are included to allow students to make
Look at the illustrations, personal connections to the articles content. For
 graphs or other visuals on this exercise, allow students to skip those
the page. questions, or choose a different 6 Qs post.
Read the captions of the 3. Give all students a copy of the related article, and
visuals. begin by asking the Who? question. Direct
Read the first sentence of students to look through the article to find the
each paragraph. answer, write down their answers and raise their
hands when finished. Repeat the process for the
other five questions. (If desired, add an element
of competition if appropriate, award small prizes,
like school supplies, to the students who were
both fast and accurate.) After all the students have
completed the entire task, review the answers.
4. Ask students to quickly jot down the strategies
they used to find the information quickly and
accurately. Prompt them by asking specific
questions: Did they scan for words in the text?
Did they read the first line of each paragraph?
Did they use the photograph as a clue?
5. Introduce the terms skimming and scanning
and discuss when each skill would be useful.
Skimming is discovering the main ideas of a
text by reading first and last paragraphs and topic
sentences, and paying attention to other details on
the page like titles, bold type or italics,
photograph captions, etc. Scanning is when
one looks down and around a page quickly and
efficiently searching for important words, facts or
phrases to find specific information. Tell students
that during the class activity they will be
practicing these two skills.
4. Reading for gist = This doesnt mean telling the students, read the text to
skimming??? get a general idea of what its about. That is never a very
helpful task because it doesnt give the students any
reason to read, or any orientation to the topic or context.
A gist question should mean that the students have to
read the whole text, though not necessarily very
thoroughly, in order to answer the question. For Commented [A1]: How to do that??? Need to search
online
example, students might choose which title or picture
most closely matches the content of the text. The idea
is for students to get an overview of the text, which can
help them when they return to the text to find more
detailed information. From: https://elt-
resourceful.com/2015/12/01/what-are-reading-skills-
theyre-not-only-what-you-think/

In this series of lessons, students read newspaper articles

obtained from newspaper websites. Students then
identify journalism's "5 Ws and 1 H" (who, what, when,
where, why, and how) and complete a template with the
corresponding information they have found in the article.
Finally, students use their notes to write a 20-word
summary called a GIST. Once students have mastered
writing a GIST using newspaper articles, the strategy is
then applied to content area texts to support
comprehension and summarizing skills. Retrieved from:
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-
resources/lesson-plans/gist-summarizing-strategy-
content-290.html
Use the reading for gist-template.pdf
5. Identifying main ideas Activities: Give students the 6W questions to ask about
the authors purpose after reading an entire text. Who is
writing this text and who did the author want to read this
text to? What is the author saying? Why is the author
saying this? When did the author write this story?
Where does this story take place? How did the author
write this story? By getting the basics of the authors
purpose, we can more easily understand what the main
idea is.

Alternatively, you can try the main idea builder after

reading a text in its entirety. Ask students to close their
books and tell you what this article is about in one word.
For example, if we had just read a story about the ancient
Mayan civilization and some of their customs, the one
word response would be The Mayans. After giving you
one word, then ask them to put more description on that
one word, such as Mayan civilizations. Slowly add
onto your description one or two words at a time until
you get a full, complex sentence that highlights the main
idea of the story.

An alternative to this activity is Related Categories

Reading (/classroom_activities-readingworksheets/) to
have students close their books, and then describe their
article to a partner, but they must pretend that their
partner has never read the story. You can also have
students write a letter to their family member describing
the story to them.

[The most practical activity!] Another activity that

emphasizes main idea is outlining. Give students a
blank outline form that asks them to fill in the authors
 thesis, main points, details, and examples. If the text
youre working with doesnt lend itself well to the rigid
structure of an outline, have students write down one
sentence for each paragraph that expresses the main idea
that paragraph. When they are finished, they should be
able to put their main idea sentences for each paragraph
together to find the main idea of the whole story.

6. Context clues Activity: Choose a made-up word (for example, noubit)

To help them master and use it in many different contextual sentences, and ask
unknown words is students to determine the meaning of this non-word.
discovering meaning Keep the same made-up word for each sentence, but use
through context. Context appropriate word endings to illustrate the change in part
clues can be found in of speech (i.e. noubits, noubiting, nubition, nubitous,
other words nearby and noubitously, etc). Using the same non-word
also from the grammatical throughout
structure of the sentence. the exercise will prevent them from relying on their
dictionaries while also keeping them from thinking that
this word is a real word. Your sentences should be rich
with context so that students can determine the meaning,
for example The invention of the car has made
transportation much easier. In the past, people had to use
noubits to get around which took a long time.
Emphasize to the students that its not always necessary
to get the exact, precise meaning of the word. For
example, in the
above sentence, noubits could be horses, bicycles, or
feet, but any of those meanings will still allow them to
comprehend the importance of the invention of the car.
As long as students can understand the meaning of the
sentence, that will be enough for them to finish reading,
and they can look up the specific word in their
dictionaries later. Also, some of your sentences should
include grammatical clues, such as appositives, for
example, The task was so noubitous, or strenuous, for
the students. Take time to go over each question as a
class so that you can model for your students how to
identify and effectively use these context clues.

Lesson Plan
Before Reading
Review the skill: context clues.
Explain the purpose of the lesson, building on
past lessons using context clues.
Model how to find context clues.
During Reading
Display a short passage about da Vinci on the
interactive whiteboard.
Have students read the passage in pairs.
Invite students to come up to the whiteboard and
highlight unfamiliar words and surrounding
context clues.
Have students share their thinking and discuss.
To confirm their thinking, have students search
for words in dictionaries and other resources.
Repeat the process for one or two more words.
Have students use context clues to understand
new vocabulary and track these words on the
class wiki.

After Reading
 Have students share their answers and prompt
them to explain their process.
In pairs, have students discuss at least two ways
to figure out the meaning of a new word.
Create a reference list of strategies.

7. Making inferences from Activity: Using riddles (http://busyteacher.org/8043-

context riddles-for-your-esl-classroom.html) with your students
- Inferences from context is a good way to illustrate the importance of inference.
(to understand the Start with something simple like, I love my job. I go to
meaning from context the the hospital everyday, and I take care of my patients.
first time to read between What am I? Students should easily be able to identify
the lines.) the description of a doctor/nurse. Ask them how they
- Recognizing implications knew that when you never explicitly stated what your job
and making inferences was. Similar to the context clues example above, students
To make use of syntactic, may
logical and cultural clues have similar but different answers, such as a doctor and a
to discover the meaning of nurse (http://cna.plus). Many times we wont be able to
unknown elements identify exactly what the author is inferring, but if we can
determine something that retains the main meaning, we
can still understand the text appropriately. As students
progress, give more challenging riddles.

Another activity to do is to find short mystery stories or

whodunit stories. The very old book series
Encyclopedia Brown works great for this reading skill,
and there are countless others to be found on the web.
These activities will teach your students close reading
skills and force them to think critically about what is
both in and not in the text, thus helping them become
 better at inferences. [refer to the mystery genre folder in
all about reading]
8. Monitoring 1. QUOTE CARDS (while-reading process)
comprehension Teacher gives students index cards with a quote
from the text. Students should write about how
that quote makes sense within the text- addressing
the who, the what, the when, the where and the
why of the quote. Teacher circulate around the
room to check on student
2. JOURNAL RESPONSES
3. LIVING SENTENCES [ Beginners level ]
Living Sentences is a fun exercise for younger
children to give them practice in the way
sentences are put together.
Preparation
On A4 sheets of paper write single words which
will go to make up sentences which are an
appropriate level for your class.
THE DOG CHASED THE CAT.
I WENT TO THE CINEMA ON
SUNDAY.
And so on. Its best to paperclip the words of
each sentence together so you dont mix them up.

Running the Activity

In class, go over the way in which sentences are
constructed. Here you can concentrate on the kind of
sentence your class is studying, for example making
questions or negations or simple declarative sentences,
etc.
As an example, get 5 students to the front of the class and
give them each one word from the first sentence and
have them stand in a group, holding the word they have
above their head. Get the class to call out and tell those
students where to stand in a line so that the sentence is
formed properly.

THE DOG CHASED THE CAT

or maybe

THE CAT CHASED THE DOG

With the younger students this is great fun and

leads to a lot of enthusiastic noise!
Variations on a Theme
Once the class is familiar with this you can:
turn the activity into a team game
use grammatical labels instead of words, e.g.
ARTICLE NOUN VERB ARTICLE
NOUN
use semantic fields and grammatical labels, e.g.
ARTICLE ANIMAL VERB ARTICLE
ANIMAL
4. PARKING LOTS
Encourage questioning
Divergent questions asked by students should not be
discounted. When students realize that they can ask
about what they want to know without negative
reactions from teachers, their creative behavior tends
to generalize to other areas. If time will not allow
 discussion at that time, the teacher can incorporate
the use of a "Parking Lot" board where ideas are
"parked" on post-it notes until a later time that day or
the following day.
Teachers have a poster board divided into squares
(enough for each student to have his or her own). The
squares are numbered, and each student has been
assigned a number. When the teacher poses a
question or task, the students write their answers on a
sticky note and place it in their assigned parking spot.
Although the concept is the same, each teacher uses
the parking lot slightly differently.
Students use the parking lot as a place to park their
answers to a question she asks at the end of a reading-
strategy or math lesson. Karen simply poses one or
two questions and gives her students a few minutes to
jot down their answers. Once all students are finished,
she can quickly check their understanding, which
informs her future instruction on the concept.

From: [ MORE TO LITERATURE/ AFTER READING

http://busyteacher.org/10971-top- STORY]
10-ways-check-reading- 5. Grab Bag Goodies
comprehension.html After your students have read a story, check
their comprehension with this sequencing activity. Commented [A2]: Sequencing events

Write the major points of the story on note cards, put

those cards into a grab bag, and shake it up. Each
member of a small group should then pull one of the
cards from the bag and place in its correct place in a
sequence. Once group members have put all the cards in
their correct place in the timeline, ask the rest of the class
to check if the sequencing is correct. If it is, the group
should then retell the story using the cards.
6. The Funny Papers
Blank comic panels are a great resource for the
reading teacher. Once your students have finished a
story selection, give each person a blank comic page in
which to retell the story. (You can find dozens of empty
templates online.) Your students should then retell the
major events in the story by filling in the empty blocks
with pictures and dialogue (when appropriate). Once
students are finished, you can display the comics on a
bulletin board or compile them into a book for students
to read during independent reading time. You will know
if they understood what they read, and they will enjoy
expressing their comprehension in a creative way!
7. Good Book Glimpse [ hands- on activity oh!!]
Your students may enjoy a different creative
expression of a book they have recently finished
reading, and their classmates may enjoy seeing it as
well. So rather than a book report, try this activity with
your ESL students. Ask each person to bring in a
shoebox for the activity. She should then choose a
favorite scene from the book and illustrate it on a piece
of paper the same size as a small inside panel of the
shoebox. (You can also have your student illustrate the
scene and then trim it to fit on the short side of the box.)
Once she is done with the illustration, she should glue the
picture inside the box, and you should cut a small hole on
the opposite side of the box. When she looks through the
hole, she sees the illustration. She can also attach items
inside the box to give a 3D effect for the viewer. On the
top of the box, have each student create an original book
cover that includes the title and author of the book she
read. If you keep a collection of these peep boxes in a
corner of your classroom, you may find that your
students are inspired to read the books that their
classmates have also read, and then he can create his own
peep box on that book for the book box collection.
8. Fan Fiction
Reading a good story can easily cross over into a
writing activity for your ESL students. When your
students find a character they love in something you have
read, ask them to write about the further adventures
of that character. This will not only help them Commented [A3]: Can apply to short story fairs fair

understand what they read, it will give them practice

using vocabulary specific to that character found in the
piece your class read. You can compile all these short fan
fiction pieces into a book for the rest of the class to read
at their leisure during independent reading time.
9. Big Books [whole class activity]
- can apply to F1 Students
If your students are a fan of big books, this
comprehension activity will be perfect for them. As a
class, create your own big book for a story you have just
read. Prepare 5-8 pieces of poster board for the book and
write a description at the bottom of each page retelling
each piece of the story. Working in groups, have your
students illustrate what is described at the bottom of
the page. Once all the pictures are complete, let your
students decide what order they should appear in the
book. Then secure the pages, read the book back to your
class and make it available to your students during
independent reading time.
10. Outstanding moments
Let your students relive their favorite moments from
a story you have read with this activity. Ask a student
to share his or her favorite moment from the reading
selection, and have him write it on a notecard or write it
on one yourself. Ask another student and then another to
do the same. When you have about a dozen cards
completed, ask your students to organize them in any
way that is logical. There may be several organizations
which are possible.
11. Map it Out [ teaching settings of the story]
After finishing a fictional selection, ask your students
to create a map of the setting for the story or
book. They can either draw the setting or create a three
dimensional model of it using cardboard cutouts. Have
your students include any characters in the map as well.
12. Class Voting[ ***fun game for T/F statements]
Give each of your students two notecards and have
him write true on one and false on the other. Then,
read aloud a statement about the selection your class
read. Make sure some of your statements are true and
others are false. Each person should hold up his vote and
 his card after you read each statement. Have students
check each other to make sure all agree. For the false
statements, ask your students what they would need to do
to make them true.
13. Act Out [ can use padlet to upload the pics and
ask the Ss to comment by referring to the short
story text]
Encourage your students to act out in class with this post
reading activity. Ask individuals or groups of students to
pose as the characters in the story in a particular scene.
Then, take a photo of your students. After printing the
pictures out, bring them to class the next day and ask
your students to explain what it happening in the
book at the moment they are acting out!
14. Cast the Characters
After reading a selection as a class, ask pairs of students
to write a description of each of the characters in detail.
Then, have the pair decide which of their classmates is
most like the characters in the story. If you like, you may
want to have the students then reenact parts of the story.

9. Jigsaw Reading Post- reading activity

- For example, you can provide a graphic organizer
or ask them to make a poster to share with the
class. (**important)
- Each group r assigned with different parts of a
text and they have to figure out their task together
 before reporting back to their group
- So, one expert- group task (specific) and one
home- group task (the BIG picture)
10. Teaching reading http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/increasing-ell-
comprehension for non- student-reading-comprehension-non-fiction-text
fiction text

11. Word attack skills

- Lexical items
to identify meaning of
words or groups of words)
- Structural clues
(to establish the type of
grammatical category of
the words)
- Ignoring difficult words
(to ignore words which
are not important for the
immediate purpose)
12. Text attack
- Recognizing and
interpreting cohesive
devices
to identify what the writer
wants to express
- Interpreting discourse
markers
To find out the meaning
of difficult sentences
 13. Discursive
- Prediction
To make students think
about the topic of the text
based on the title and
keywords
14. Prediction> To recognise Students are very often encouraged to use the title of the
the organisation and text, or any accompanying pictures to make predictions
development of a text. about the content. There are good reasons for teaching
Source: https://elt- students to do this; the idea is to activate whatever
resourceful.com/2012/04/06/what students may already know about the topic and help them
-kind-of-reading-tasks-might-be- to start creating a context. Without context,
worthwhile/ comprehension is much harder. Think about those
moments when you turn on the radio and have no idea
for a few moments what is being discussed. It only starts
to make sense once you realise what the basic topic is.
From: https://elt-resourceful.com/2015/12/01/what-are-
reading-skills-theyre-not-only-what-you-think/

Here are a few prediction type activities which might

help with this:
1 Get students to look at the visual clues- how the text is
laid out, any pictures, any headings or sub-headings.
Where do they think the text came from?
2. For a newspaper article, try getting students to read the
title and the first paragraph. This is often a summary of
the rest of the article, so students could predict what will
be found in the rest of the article.
3. Ask students to read just the first sentence of each
paragraph. This is often the topic sentence (sentence with
the main idea), so this can give a good overview of the
content of the text, and its organization.
4. If the text already has comprehension questions (i.e. an
exam practice text), give out the questions before the text
and ask them to use the questions to predict the content
of the text. Exam questions should go in the same order
as the text, so it should be possible to make some
predictions about the organization of the text as well. Commented [A4]: VERY IMPORTANT way to ADAPT the
text from EXERCISE BOOKS !!!!

I am also quite keen on tasks where students have to put

in missing sentences or even paragraphs, as these
really help develop awareness of how texts are
constructed. (Check out the example from the link)
However, they are quite difficult to construct as you have
to make sure that there are very clear clues which guide
them to the right answer. Retrieved from: https://elt-
resourceful.com/2012/04/12/creating-effective-reading-
tasks/

Good LP idea: Give students a Times article (newspaper

article) to take home, and instruct them to read the first
and last paragraphs only. When they are finished, they
should write down a prediction identifying what they
think are the main ideas of the piece. Then students
should read the first sentences of each paragraph. If they
want to change their prediction, they should write a new
prediction below the first one, or they should write, I do
not wish to change my prediction. Students should then
look for words in bold or italics, examine the
photographs, visual charts and other visual cues. Again,
they may change their prediction based on the new
 information or keep their original prediction. Finally,
students should read the entire article and consider the
main idea. At what point was their prediction correct?
How much did it have to change from their initial
statements? Why do they think that is?

15. Set induction for reading There are some quite simple task types which will work
tasks/ activities for a lot of texts. For example, setting up the topic (using
pictures perhaps, or the title) and then asking students
think of questions that they would like answered about
the topic. Alternatively, ask them to write down what
they expect to learn and then read to check their
ideas. This kind of approach has the obvious advantage
of no preparation, and is very close to what we would do
in the real world.

Guess the Picture Activity: Hidden picture (you can use

one from any textbook - the only thing is that it must be
relevant to the topic to be discussed). Teacher shows Ss a
small part of the picture - students in groups discuss what
it might be - you can put some of their ideas on the board
if you wish. If you don't hear any nice ideas, you can try
gradually revealing some other parts of the picture.
Gives an overview of any reading text with a picture.

16. Reading tasks- reciprocal Reciprocal teaching = students becomes the teacher
teaching instead
https://elt- My idea:
resourceful.com/2012/06/15/deve 1. The reading passage is divided into chunks of
loping-meaning-building-skills- paragraphs.
in-reading/ 2. Students sits in a circle of groups , ONE student
 elected as the leader of the group way
3. Each student needs to explain the part that they
get
to lead the discussion after each paragraph, using
four main points, with the leader as the
moderator:
Clarifying any problems
Stating the main idea
Summarizing the content of the paragraph
Predicting the likely content of the next paragraph

17. Post- reading activities 1. Retell the Story

(follow- up) A simple follow-up activity for any reading passage is
having your students retell the story. You can put as
From: much preparation into the activity as you like, either
http://busyteacher.org/22485- leaving students to their own creative devices or
reading-9-follow-up- providing props for them to use in the retelling. If you
activities.html like, have students retell the story or sections of it in
skit form. You will know if they have absorbed all the Commented [A5]: Can be speaking activity. Like in Dr.
Gohs class:
important points in the story if they include them in the Put Ss into pairs, partner A watch the vid first, then explain
to their partner what they saw; then its partner Bs turns to
retelling. tell the story.
T pick random Ss to report to the class their discussion.
2. Vocabulary in Context
Choose or highlight specific words in text. Have your
students find the definitions of those items in the text.
You can also have them write a definition in their own
words based on the context of the items in the reading
passage.
3. Story Board Sequencing
Creating story boards is also a good way to follow up
reading activities with your students. If you have read
a picture book, make a copy of every page in the book
for the activity. If you have read something with few or
no pictures, use smaller pictures that represent the
different events in the story. Separate and shuffle the
pictures, and then have your students put the events from
the story in the correct order.
4. Shorter and Shorter Summaries
Writing summaries is always a good follow-up
activity, and it doesnt require any prep work for
you. Ask your students to write a one page summary of a
longer passage they have read. To make it even more
challenging for them, have them take their one page
summary and pare it down to just one paragraph. Follow
that by having them condense their paragraph long
summary into just one sentence.
5. Whos Asking the Questions Now?
Another great follow-up activity is to have your
students write comprehension questions for their
classmates. This activity does double duty. First,
students have to understand what they read and what was
most important in the text in order to write the questions
in the first place. They have be able to pick out the key
points in what they have read. Then, once students
exchange their questions with each other, they will
have to answer the question their classmates have
written. This ensures that they have also understood Commented [A6]: Differentiated instruction for reading
activity
what their classmates thought was most important in the
text.
6. Copycat
If you have your students read essays or short stories
in class, you might want to see if they can write in the
same structure or style as what they read. In which
case, the reading passage they have completed can serve
as a model for what they themselves will write. If your
students have read a short story, have them break down
the major plot points and make notes on why each piece
is important in the story. If they have read an essay, have
them look at the function and purpose of each paragraph.
Then have them follow the same pattern when they write
their own story or essay.
7. Tell Me What You Really Think
If your students have read an opinion piece, such as
an editorial or personal opinion essay, you can use
what they have read as a starting point for sharing
their own opinions. Break your class into groups of
three or four, and have them discuss the points or
arguments the writer presented in his written piece. Then
have your students discuss whether or not they agree
with what they writer said. Follow up by having each
person write their own editorial, letter to the editor, or
letter of response to the author. If any of your students
does a particularly effective job on their letter to the
editor, have them send it in to the paper and see if it gets
printed.
8. Everyones a Critic
How many critics do you have in your ESL
class? They may not act that way all the time, but
everyone is a critic at some point or another. If your
students have read a book, either in its complete form or
an abridged version, have them write a book review as a
follow-up activity. Have them model it after a movie
review they see online or in a newspaper. Then post your
 students book reviews on a bulletin board in class. If
everyone has read a different book, have your class vote
on whether they would read each book based on the
review their classmate has written.
9. Straight to the Heart
Once your students have finished reading a story or
fictional composition, you can follow-up your reading
with an opportunity to share something personal.
Rather than having your students illustrate someone or
something from the story, have them think about what
the story means to them. It might bring back a memory
or touch on one of their personal values. Have each
person in your class draw a picture that represents what
the story means to them. Then give your students a
chance to share with each other what they drew and what
it means.

18. Learning vocabulary odd man out activities

through reading where one of a group of 3-4 words is different from the
From: others. For example:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.u erupt / lava / extinct / endangered
k/blogs/rachael-roberts/rachael- Here the answer is probably endangered, because the
roberts-learning-vocabulary- others can all be used to talk about volcanoes, but if the
through-reading students have a logical reason for choosing a different
word in the group, thats fine too.
Write a short text using as many of the words and
phrases as possible
and, once you have checked this, it could then be turned
into a gap-fill for another pair or group to tackle. If the
gaps are too hard to guess (context not rich enough), they
could give alternatives for each gap. [ reading follow up
 activities ]

19. Ideas for pre-teaching

vocabulary 1. Categorising is often a good approach, as it should
From: https://elt- get the learners to engage with the meaning of the words.
resourceful.com/2012/03/30/shou If the words arent related in terms of meaning you could
ld-we-pre-teach-vocabulary- always get them to categorise into words I know,
before-reading-and-if-so-how/ words I am not sure about and words I dont know.
Done in pairs, this should lead to peer teaching and you
can monitor and then help with any still causing
difficulties.

2 Connecting words: ask students to choose two or more

words and phrases from those you want to pre-teach and
write a sentence using them. This will only really work if
the words are at least half known though.

3 Predicting: Ask students to make predictions about the

text using the words given. Depending on the words and
the students this could range from guessing the topic, to
guessing the attitude of the writer, to guessing the
answers to the questions they are going to answer.

4 Using the context of the text: Pull out some sentences

which contain the words you want to pre-teach and put
them up on the board with gaps. Get the students to
decide which words go in which gaps.

5 If appropriate, matching the vocabulary you want to

pre-teach with pictures. Relatively easy these days,
 pictures are a great way of providing the context which
would otherwise be missing.
20. Word association activity 1:Associate this!
activities o Ask the class to look at a selection of words from a word
From: list. Ask them to look at the first word on the list and
https://vocabularylists.wordpress. then to find another word on the list which they can
com/2012/02/02/word- associate with it. Ask one student to say her / his
association-activities/ associated word and to explain the association.
o Now ask the class to focus on the word that has just been
mentioned (by the student). Ask them to find another
word from the list that they can associate with the new
word. Ask a volunteer to give the new word and explain
the association. Once the students have grasped the
activity, they can carry on in small groups.
o

Activity 2: Picture associations

o Collect a set of large, varied images (for example, torn
out of a magazine or downloaded and printed): 7 or 8 of
about A4 size should be enough. If you have posters on
the walls of your classroom, you may be able to use these
instead.
o Write a list of words that you want to recycle on one side
of the blackboard. You could include up to about 20
words. Attach the pictures to the other side of the board
(or make them visible to the class).
o Ask the class if anyone can find a connection between
any of the words and any of the pictures. Encourage them
to use their imagination. Elicit two or three responses,
asking the students to explain the connections. If students
are slow to offer a response, you may give an example
yourself.
o Divide the class into groups (of 4 5) and tell them they
must find a connection between all of the words and at
least one of the pictures. When you / they have had
enough, do feedback on the exercise with the whole
class.
Variations
1. Tell the students in groups to choose just one picture, and
then to look for connections between that picture and at
least six of the words on the list.
2. Tell the students to choose one picture (but not to tell
anyone else which picture they have chosen). They must
then choose three words that they can associate with the
picture. They tell their words to a partner, who must
guess which picture was being thought about.
3. Tell the students in groups to prepare (orally) a narrative
which includes seven or eight of the words on the list.
They will find this easier if they relate their narrative to
one of the pictures. Once the groups have prepared their
narratives, they can pass it on to other groups ( la
Chinese whispers).
Activity 3: Words in sentences
o Write a list of words that you want to recycle on the
blackboard. You should include over 25 words. Divide
the class into groups and explain the rules of the game.
With lower levels, the rules can be explained in the
students mother tongue.
Rules
The object of the game is to make sentences that contain
words from the list on the board. If you use just one of
these words in a sentence, you get 1 point. If you use two
of the words, you get 2 points. If you can make a correct
 sentence with three of these words, you get 3 points. The
more risks you take, the more points you can score. But if
your sentence is incorrect, youll get no points and youll
miss your turn.
o Give the groups four or five minutes to begin working.
Then ask one group to send one of their members to the
board. This person will write a sentence that their group
has prepared.
o Tell the group if the sentence is correct (and give points)
or incorrect (but do not explain why it is incorrect!). Give
everyone a little more time before asking someone from
the next group to come to the board to write a new
sentence or to correct a sentence that is already there.
o When a word has been used correctly in a sentence, cross
it off the list. It cannot be used again.
o Continue in this way until you or the students have had
enough. With the whole class, look through any
uncorrected sentences on the board and look at any
words from the list on the board that students seem to
have been avoiding.
Activities such as these, when a class is familiar with the
procedure, can be a useful way of starting or finishing a
class. They also work well towards the end of a term.
They require quite a lot of talking, and hopefully some of
it will be in English!

Some of the reading skills which teachers and materials commonly aim to develop include:

Skimming
 Scanning

Reading for gist

Predicting content

Identifying point of view and tone

Identifying main points

Guessing meaning from context

Recognising the organisation of a text

Source: https://elt-resourceful.com/2012/04/06/what-kind-of-reading-tasks-might-be-worthwhile/

What are reading skills? Theyre not (only) what you think

From: https://elt-resourceful.com/2015/12/01/what-are-reading-skills-theyre-not-only-what-you-
think/

More information Skimming has some crossover with reading for gist, because they
about Skimming and are both about getting an overview. However, I would suggest that
scanning skimming and scanning are more properly called strategies rather
than skills. They were originally both methods of speed reading.
Skimming strategies are often taught as part of EAP (English for
Academic Purposes) because these students have to read a great
deal of content in English. So students may be taught, for example,
to read just the first line of every paragraph, as this is often the
topic sentence, which contains the main idea of the paragraph.

Scanning is a way of reading text quickly by only looking for

specific bits of information, and not reading everything. Again, this
strategy can be particularly useful in academic contexts.

Understanding that we read different texts in different ways, using

 different strategies, is very important for learners. The way we read
a novel on the beach is very different from the way we read a legal
contract. We probably read the novel much faster, with more of a
skimming/gist approach, whereas we are likely to read the contract
carefully and slowly, checking that we understand the details. Commented [A7]: Warm- up / Set induction for teaching
skimming and scanning
Students reading in a second language often fail to transfer these
different ways of reading across from their first language.

Teaching reading skills

If the reader is struggling to decode the words, or understand how
the words fit into the sentence, or how the sentence fits into the
discourse as a whole, their working memory will become
overloaded, and they wont be able to hold onto the overall
meaning of the text.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

https://elt-resourceful.com/2012/06/15/developing-meaning-building-skills-in-reading/

- interesting insights on how words of the passage gives meaning in the students head

Think Aloud: One way to find out more about what kinds of interactive processing your
learners are doing while reading is to ask them to use a think aloud protocol.This can work very
well in small groups. Basically, you get students to read a paragraph, and then discuss with the
rest of the group what they think they have understood so far. Tony Lynch, in Communication in
the Language Classroom (1996:126), says of this process, My experience is that think aloud
tasks make some learners aware of textual clues which other learners in the group have
recognised, which would pass unnoticed in individual reading.

He also suggests following up this task with a round-up where each learner notes something they
felt they learnt from the discussion.
Tips for Developing questions from the text that I found online or anywhere besides
reference book , from https://elt-resourceful.com/2012/04/12/creating-effective-reading-tasks/