Reading intro

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo
• Leerjaar 5

Read it!

Making the most out of your reading efforts

What is the first thing you do when you approach a text?

I read the questions

I glance over the text

I read the full text

How often do you really read a full text at school for Dutch, English or other subjects?

Always

Sometimes

Hardly

Never

What do you still remember of this clip?

Lesson objectives

Exploring the concept of reading: 

• The importance of reading well
• There is more to reading than just skimming and scanning
• Learning the strategies that belong to reading to learn > speaking exam prep, but also studying for other subjects & in future! 
• Please note that part of the strategies (pre-reading strategies) prepare you for the English exam 

Did you know that...

• Improving your reading skills contributes to better academic performance, better career opportunities and more happiness

Please note: Most reading assignments involve shallow reading strategies (skimming and scanning due to exams), while reading to learn is (also) crucial for academic success

Do you think reading abilities are fixed?

Yes

No

Is reading an active process?

Yes

No

Pre-reading strategies

1. Reading purpose

2. Previewing and Predicting

3. Activating background knowledge

1. Reading purpose: Why is it important to define your reading purpose before reading?

1. Why define your reading purpose?

The intensity with which to read differs between reading 

a novel 

a poem 

an informative text for fun

an academic text to study 

the prescription of your medicine

to locate information

2. Previewing and Predicting

• Suppose you are about to read the text on the left page. 
• On the next page you see a part of this text
• Look at it and predict what the text is about

2. Previewing and Predicting 

• Look at the Title, Headings and Visuals on the next page. 
• What do you think the text is about? 
• Does this change your predicitons?

2. Previewing and Predicting

• Now look at the Every first sentence of every paragraph on the next slide: 
• What do you think the text is about? 
  
• Does this change your predictions?

Every first sentence (of every parapgrah) has been written below:

2. Previewing and Predicting

Why? You have already created a framework of the text: you know where the text is heading. This helps you to understand the text better. 

How? THIEVES-technique

3. Activating background knowledge

Why? "It is easier to learn something new if you can link it to something you already know." 

How? Word web

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140512101527.htm

While reading

1. Comprehension monitoring & Repair Strategies

2. Annotation

1. Comprehension monitoring

Look at the two slides:

• What do you see?
• Which reader do you identify with?
• Who is the better reader?
• Why?

1. What can you do when you don't understand the text? Which repair strategies can you apply?

2. Annotation

= adding notes or remarks on a piece of writing

• active text interaction
• helps you to monitor understanding
• results in better comprehension and memorization

Oefeningopties

• Annoteer een stukje wel en niet oid.. Kun je ook ah einde van de les doen en dan twee stukjes: welke onthouden ze beter? 

Of hen het plaatje van de geannoteerde tekst laten zien en ze na laten denken over waarom het handig is. 

Of iets over de tijdsinspanning: het kost superveel tijd, maar levert uiteindelijk tijdwinst op bij leren.. (interactieve opdracht)

Read the following paragraph

ENGLISH is the most successful language in the history of the world. It is spoken on every continent, is learnt as a second language by schoolchildren, and is the vehicle of science, global business and popular culture. Many think it will spread without end. But Nicholas Ostler, a scholar of the rise and fall of languages, makes a surprising prediction in his latest book: the days of English as the world's lingua franca may be numbered.

Annotate the following paragraph (see Magister) 

This argument relies on huge advances in computer translation and speech recognition. Mr Ostler acknowledges that so far such software is a disappointment even after 50 years of intense research, and an explosion in the power of computers. But half a century, though aeons in computer time, is an instant in the sweep of language history. Mr Ostler is surely right about the nationalist limits to the spread of English as a mother- tongue. If he is right about the technology too, future generations will come to see English as something like calligraphy or Latin: prestigious and traditional, but increasingly dispensable.

Just reading or annotating?

What do you remember about annotation?

What do you remember about the paragraph starting with: (see next slides)

ENGLISH is the most successful language in the history of the world.

This argument relies on huge advances in computer translation and speech recognition.

3. Post-reading strategies

1. Graphic Organizers

2. Critical Reading

1. Graphic Organizers (GOs)

• Look at the images on the next two slides?
• What do you see?
• How can this help you to improve your understanding of a text?
• In what other ways can it help you?

1. Graphic Organizers

1. Graphic Organizers

Description/ classification                Process/Sequence

What are graphic organizers? Why are they useful?

Graphic organizers (GOs)

Why? 

A graphic organizer helps you to

• simplify and organize information spread out over a text
• enhances your comprehension
• and helps you when studying for a test

How?

By asking a set of questions linked to the different GOs

2.Critical reading

Why important (next slide)?

Critical reading: why?

Critical reading (Analysis)

How?

Next lesson

• You will read a text while applying everything you have learned today (the assignment will guide you through the steps & a bookmark) 

Homework

Watch the clips in which you see a teacher apply:

• previewing and predicting
• activating background knowledge
• annotation
• graphic organizers 
• post-reading strategies

so you can do it yourself the next lesson

Did you know that...

• Reading is more than just glancing over the text
• It is an active process

--> In the next few weeks you learn a set of strategies that help you to read more actively to enhance your understanding, but also your memorization of the text 

Now practise yourselves:

Exam 2011-I: text 6

Apply prereading and while-reading techniques.

Make sure to annotate whilst reading. 

Finally answer the questions that go with the text. 

Correct the answers yourself on www.examenblad.nl and let me know how many you got right and how you're going to improve your reading skills.