ENG2: Reading

Reading is not simply a system of decoding words or deciphering combinations of letters on the page or screen but an active process and readers will have a purpose for reading. Also, adults will bring their knowledge and experience of the world to read and understand textual material.

Current research into teaching adults to read, or to improve their reading, acknowledges this. We always read and write something, for a particular purpose, in a particular way, in a particular time and place.

Teaching reading
Start where your learners are at. What do they feel comfortable and confident in reading as part of their daily lives; signs, posters, leaflets, menus, simple forms or straightforward emails, newspapers or magazines? You can discuss this with your group.

Reading is something we all do everyday, it is not just a classroom activity. All of us probably have a point where our reading skills will be challenged, so it can be helpful for learners to see confidence in reading as a spectrum that we are all on. There are plenty of examples of text that is so complex, jargon-ridden and dense that it will be beyond most people, such as scientific journals or complex legal documents. It can help if learners think about all the texts they can read and how they can improve from the point they’re at.

Whatever their level, your learners will have experience of reading and this will inform their attitude to it. Reading is not detached from emotion; for instance, is a letter from the council difficult to understand because of complex vocabulary or fear of the message it may contain? Discussing feelings and attitudes to reading can help.

Use a variety of texts to appeal to everyone from factual newspaper articles to TV or play scripts or poetry. Whatever text you and or your learners choose, discuss it first so that it has context and becomes familiar. You can anticipate difficult vocabulary and address this first. Warming up learners by introducing a text will help allay anxieties and support better comprehension of the text, especially if it is quite challenging.

Group reading
Reading together as a group can be very supportive and Maxine Burton’s research  has shown this to be more beneficial than learners working alone. Oral fluency is reading aloud accurately and smoothly; it can improve reading comprehension and confidence.

Paired reading

Choral reading and performance reading
Reading as a group can take the pressure off individuals – either following a printed text or from a slide. You can use the techniques of paired reading where individuals signal if they want to read alone.

Repeated reading
Reading the same passage again and again over a short period until fluency is achieved.

Explicit strategies for supporting reading comprehension skills
Less-skilled readers may need help with comprehension strategies that skilled readers use automatically, explicit comprehension strategies include:

• comprehension monitoring – use techniques to check understanding through questioning, asking learners to summarise sections of text, etc.
• graphic organisers – use charts and diagrams (e.g. spider diagrams and flow-charts) to represent ideas and information found in texts
• story structure – develop awareness of features of story-telling including plot, characters, setting etc.
• question generating and answering – encourage readers to make inferences from reading, and to understand that some questions require background knowledge (from their own experience rather than from within the text
• summarising – identify the topic and main ideas of a text.