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Research has proven that it is impossible to say that one technique is completely adequate in teaching
and learning the English language. It is wrong to use merely one technique at all stages. Therefore,
what we provide in teaching reading is the different techniques or strategies from which, learners can
choose from, depending on their level and comfort.

BEEReads is a reading program which focuses on enhancing the English Language learners reading skill
while exploring their interests. We capitalize on strategy training. By this, the program aims to give
direct teaching of strategy.

STRATEGY 1 : DISCOVERY STRATEGIES

Discovery strategies includes several determination strategies and social strategies. A learner may
discover a new words meaning through guessing from context, guessing from an L1 cognate, using
reference materials (mainly a dictionary), or asking someone else (e.g. their teacher or classmates).
There is a natural sense that almost all of the strategies applied to discovery activities could be used as
consolidation strategies in the later stage of vocabulary learning (Schmitt 1997)

1. Guessing through Context

Context clues are hints found within a sentence, paragraph, or passage that a reader can use to
understand the meanings of new or unfamiliar words. Learning the meaning of a word through its use in
a sentence or paragraph is the most practical way to build vocabulary, since a dictionary is not always
available when a reader encounters an unknown word. A reader must be aware that many words have
several possible meanings. Only by being sensitive to the circumstances in which a word is used can the
reader decide upon an appropriate definition to fit the context. A reader should rely on context clues
when an obvious clue to meaning is provided, or when only a general sense of the meaning is needed
for the readers purposes. Context clues should not be relied upon when a precise meaning is required,
when clues suggest several possible definitions, when nearby words are unfamiliar, and when the
unknown word is a common one that will be needed again; in these cases, a dictionary should be
consulted

Clarke and Nation (1980, cited Nation 2001) present an inductive five-step approach to guess, including:

Step 1. Find the part of speech of the unknown word.

Step 2. Look at the immediate context of the unknown word and simplify this context if
necessary.
Step 3. Look at the wider context of the unknown word. This means looking at the relationship
between the clause containing the unknown word and surrounding clauses and sentences.
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Step 4. Guess.
Step 5. Check the guess.

There are several ways to check the guess:

1. Check that the part of speech of the guess is the same as the part of speech of the unknown
word. (Whether the missing word is a verb, noun, adjective or adverb)
2. Break the unknown word into parts and see if the meaning of the parts relate to the guess.
3. Substitute the guess for the unknown word. Does it make sense in context?
4. Look in a dictionary. (Nation & Coady 1988, p.104-105)

These techniques help students get the meaning of words or at least narrow the possibilities. If
need be using the dictionary should be the last resort to fine tune the understanding of a
vocabulary item.

Example 1 :

It had been raining hard through the night so the ground was saturated.

What does 'saturated' mean?

You may already know, but if you do not, you should be able to have a good guess from the rest
of the sentence.

It had been raining which means the ground must be wet. It was raining 'hard' so this means the
ground is probably very wet.

saturated = completely wet

By doing this you are guessing meaning from context and you should try and use this technique
for words you do not know.

It may not always be clear from the actual sentence and you may have to look at other
sentences around the word.

However, only do this for words that seem important for an understanding of the
text. If it looks like they are not, then leave it and move on with the reading.

EXAMPLE 2

When you try to guess the meaning of an unknown word, you use the text surrounding
the word- the context
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Some of the trees in Redwood National Park are truly gargantuan, and in fact they are
the tallest trees in the world.

(You can guess from the last part of the sentence that gargantuan means very large)

EXAMPLE 3

Read the following sentences and guess the meaning of the word misogynist

1. Many realized that Mr. Ashman was a misogynist soon after she started working as
his assistant
2. It is difficult for a woman to work for a misogynist. She is never sure if his criticism is
based on her work or on the fact that she is a woman
3. Mary knew that no woman would ever go to a top-level job in a company run by a
misogynist

From these sentences we know that a misogynist is a man ( Mr. Ashman). From sentence b, we
learn that a misogynist may sometimes criticize a woman just because she is a woman.Then
from C we may understand that a misogynist may not be fair to a women. From these
sentences we can infer that a misogynist is a man who dislikes a woman

Exercises:

MCQ

http://scc.losrios.edu/~thomasb/ESLR%2050%20Context%20Handout%201.pdf

Articles

http://www.englishworksheetsland.com/grade8/language/7/1sci.pdf

http://www.englishworksheetsland.com/grade8/7paragraph.html

http://www.mdc.edu/kendall/collegeprep/documents2/context%20cluesrev8192.pdf

http://www.ereadingworksheets.com/free-reading-worksheets/reading-comprehension-
worksheets/context-clues-worksheets/

http://www.ldonline.org/article/61511/
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2. DICTIONARY USE

The dictionary is used as a reference material in a receptive or productive skill in language

learning.

3. WORD PART ANALYSIS

A large number of English words have derivational forms by adding prefixes or suffixes to the
word base. Some studies confirmed the frequent, widespread occurrence of derivational affixes
, which makes it worthwhile learning word parts from the point of view of the cost/benefit
analysis. Nation (2001) contends that:

A knowledge of affixes and roots has two values for a learner of English: it can be used to help
the learning of unfamiliar words by relating these words to known words or to known prefioxes
and suffixes, and it can be used as a way of checking whether an unfamiliar word has been
successfully guessed from context

The word par t strategy involves two steps.

1. Learners need to be able to recognize prefixes and suffixes so that they may break the
unknown words in parts.
2. They need to relate the meaning of the word parts to the dictionary meaning of the word.
To achieve this goal, learners have to know meanings of the common word parts and
to be able to re-express the dictionary definition of a word to include the meaning of its
prefix and, if possible,its possible,its stem and suffix . ( Nation 2001. P 278)

CONSOLIDATION STRATEGIES
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TECHNIQUES FOR GUESSING

Texts are often full of redundancy and consequently students can use the relation between
different items within a text to get the meaning. Our prior knowledge of the world may also
contribute to understand what an expression means.

Synonyms and definitions:

Kingfishers are a group of small to medium-sized brightly colored birds

When he made insolent remarks towards his teacher they sent him to the principal for being
disrespectful

Antonym and contrast

He loved her so much for being so kind to him. By contrast, he abhorred her mother

Cause and effect

He was disrespectful towards other members. Thats why he was sent off and penalized.
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Parts of speech

Whether the word is a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb, functioning as a subject, a

predicate or a complement.

Examples

Trojan is an example of a computer virus

Word forms (the morphological properties of the word)

Getting information from affixes (prefixes and suffixes) to understand a word. Examples: dis-
(meaning not), less (meaning without)

General knowledge

The French constitution establishes lacit as a system of government where there is a strict
separation of church and state.
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Strategies for pre-reading ( intentional vocabulary learning)

Under the semantic approach, we offer the following strategies for pre-reading, the use of which will
depend on the types of learner:

1. Accessing prior knowledge

2. Writing your way into reading (writing about your experience related to the topic)
3. Asking questions based on the title
4. Semantic mapping
5. Making predictions based on previewing
6. Identifying the text structure
7. Skimming for general idea
8. Reading the introduction and conclusion
9. Writing a summary of the article based on previewing.

A. Strategies during reading

1. Use a bilingual dictionary

2. Study atleast just a paragraph or two a day.
3. Keywording
4. Mimicking ( make the student listen to his teacher as she reads
5. Storytelling

B. Post-reading strategies
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1. Retelling/summarizing
2. Sequencing of events
3. Identifying the signal words

Every reading material should be read at maximum of 3 minutes. The student shall be made
to understand paragraph by paragraph. We should look for transition words to help us tell
whether the sentence is about to begin with another idea.

I. THEMATIC APPROACH
PRE-READING STRATEGIES
1. Making predictions
2. Asking questions
3. Surveying text
4. Activating prior knowledge
5. Writing prompts

READING STRATEGIES

1. Reading rate
2. Re-reading
3. Asking/answering questions
4. Text formats
5. Text marketing
6. Skimming
7. Scanning
8. Vocabulary skills

POST- READING

1. Summarizing and responding

2. Writing
3. Retelling
4. Analyzing meaning
5. Connecting to purpose
6. Answering questions

VOCABULARY STRATEGIES

1. Working with context

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2. Direct instruction
3. Bilingual dictionary
4. Written repetition
5. Verbal repetition
6. Study a words spelling
7. Taking-notes in class
8. Making connenctions
9. Word parts and root meanings

II. CONTEXT CLUING APPROACH

STRATEGIES http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/literacy/7-strategies-using-context-
clues-reading/

How to study using context cluing?

How is this going to be fun for learners?
Make a step-by-step instructions on how to do context cluing

How do students READ at Beereads and become worddict?

First, we send the student the appropriate pre-reading activity which stresses on vocabulary learning.
A copy of the vocabulary wordmap will be attached to his page before the lesson.
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Afterwhich, we download the material on the student's page together with the audio material.

The student then fills up the vocab map. After finishing the wordmap, he listens to the audio of the
reading material.

Once the student is done, he then takes the call of his teacher via skype and start brainstorming what
he has done with the voca map.

After the voca map is accomplished, the student starts to demonstrate his reading skill by imitating
the audio of the reading material as much as he can.

The teacher then actively listens and engages himself throughout the period of reading. After a 2-5
minute reading, the student and teacher then work on comprehending the article and applying the
voca strategy learned.