By Puan Yong Wai Yee

SISC+ English
PPW Bangsar Pudu
"A book is like a garden, carried in
the pocket." Chinese Proverb

"Reading should not be presented
to children as a chore or duty. It
should be offered to them as a
precious gift." Kate DiCamillo
PRESENTATION STAGE
PRE-READING ( PRESENTATION)
* to introduce and stimulate interest in the topic
* to motivate students by providing a reason for reading
* to provide language preparation for the text

WHILE-READING ( PRACTICE)
* to clarify content and vocabulary of the text
* to help students understand the writer's purpose
* to help students understand the structure of the text

POST-READING ( PRODUCTION)
* to consolidate and reflect upon what has been read
* to relate the text to the students' own
knowledge/interests/views
* to provide a stimulus for other language activities

THE THREE PHASES IN A READING LESSON

Research demonstrates that the instructors role in reading is more crucial
before students read than during or after the reading. Helping students
access and organize what they already know before they read improves
their comprehension during the reading. The use of pre-reading strategies
is critical to the success of understanding reading and should therefore
precede the actual reading.

From Judith Longfield Metacognition and the Reading Process.
http://www.indiana.edu/~e328long/doc/reading&metacog.doc



PRE-READING ACTIVITIES
ACTIVITY 1: PRE-READING ESSENTIALS
WHAT IS PRE-READING?


The pre-reading stage of a reading lesson

serves as a preparatory activity before the students engage in
the reading task.

prepares the students to actively engage with the text and is
critical for comprehension to occur.
WHY IS PRE-READING NEEDED?

The different contexts, experiences,
biases, and background knowledge of
the students will influence how they
read and how much they learn from
the text that they read.

By knowing what students bring to
their reading, teachers can provide
them with bridges, or scaffolds,
between what they already know and
what is in the text.
Pre-reading activities are usually
intended to achieve one or more of the
following.

Activate students prior knowledge to help
them connect their existing knowledge to new
information in the text.
Build the background knowledge that is
necessary to help students comprehend the text.
Pre-teach vocabulary which students require to
understand the text.
Establish a purpose for reading by fostering
student expectations about the reading and
arouse their interest to read.


Why teachers are not in favour of
pre-reading activities?

1. Pre-reading takes too much time away from
reading.

2. Boring!

3. Pre-reading commonly focuses on the
wrong information
4. Previews can ruin the reading experience.
5. Previews are rarely purposeful
A POINT TO PONDER

This is one teachers view about pre-reading
activities:
A lot of the comprehension difficulties that
students encounter when reading a text are
caused by either inadequate, or often times
a complete lack, of pre-reading activities.

Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Justify your answer.

A POINT TO PONDER

Pre-reading activities are most important at lower
levels of language proficiency and at earlier
stages of reading instruction. As students become
more proficient at using reading strategies,
teachers may reduce the amount of guided pre-
reading and allow the students to do these
activities themselves.

1. Speak to children about the environment around them,
teaching the vocabulary of everyday objects. You may want to
label items in your classroom environment so that they can see
the words every day (map, pencil, etc.)

2. Choose a picture out of a magazine or unfamiliar book and have
the child tell you a story about what is happening in it.

3. Make a rhyming basket with several small objects that rhyme.
Have children match rhyming items, like this one I made for my
daughter, by placing them next to one another. The items are,
from left to right: pan/fan, jug/mug, cat/hat, fish/dish, and
clock/block.

4. Play the I Spy game to practise beginning
letter sounds. Start the game by saying
something like, I spy something that begins
with b (using the letter sound). Later, you
can expand the game to include pre-spelling
skills by saying I spy something that begins
with w and ends with e in the sea
(whale).
Task 2
The activities in the exemplars above represent only some of the varied activities for
pre-reading. Here is a list of other possible activities.
Asking questions about the title
Making predictions based on previewing the text title, headings, illustrations, etc.

Identifying text structure

Reading the introduction and conclusion of the text and making predictions

Using the title, subtitles, and divisions within the text to predict content and
organization or sequence of information

Skimming to find the theme or main idea and eliciting prior knowledge

Reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures

Reading the comprehension questions to focus attention on finding that information
while reading

Constructing I Think maps (a graphic arrangement of concepts or words showing how
key ideas are related)


HELP BOX

When devising your pre-reading activities, ask yourself these
questions:

What do the students know or not know about the topic?

What do the students know about the type of text?

What do the students know about people, relationships, or
motivation?

What vocabulary items might pose problems to the students?


( PRACTICE STAGE )
HUNT FOR INFORMATION

READERS THEATRE

WATCH N WRITE ( W&W )

Get into groups
Read the questions
Walk around the classroom
`Hunt, read and write down your answers


The winning team will be based on the most number of correct
answers in the shortest time taken to complete the task.



IS THIS ACTIVITY DO-ABLE?

HOW CAN YOU ADOPT AND ADAPT THIS
ACTIVITY TO SUIT YOUR LOW ENGLISH
PROFICIENCY PUPILS?

The use of Readers Theatre can offer a different
context in which students are exposed to texts
focusing on poetry, science, social studies, or
other content-related topics.

Readers Theatre is another way to enhance
comprehension of text, as well as to create
interest in and enthusiasm for learning.

The Readers Theatre format provides an
opportunity for students to develop fluency
through multiple readings of the text by using
expressiveness, intonation, and inflection when
rehearsing the text.
Readers theatre is a joint dramatic reading
from a text, usually with no memorization,
no movement and a minimum of props. It
involves children in oral reading through
reading parts in scripts.
enables students to bring a text to life

offers less confident readers support from
peers and provides a genuine social purpose
for attentive reading.

also provides students with models for
creating 'the voice behind the page' in their
own silent reading.
First an appropriate text is selected.
several narrators can be allocated,
characters can be assigned to students who
read their speech
reading characters may sit, stand or use a
mask
Perform without the need for props,
costumes, or a set!
Get in groups of 4
Each group will be given a text
Read the text once
Organise and allocate characters

Each group will `perform their text.
Good luck!!! Attractive prizes to be won.
IS THIS ACTIVITY DO-ABLE?

HOW CAN YOU ADOPT AND ADAPT THIS
ACTIVITY TO SUIT YOUR LOW ENGLISH
PROFICIENCY PUPILS?

WATCH AND WRITE

1. READ THE GAP-FILLING PASSAGE GIVEN
2. WATCH A SHORT VIDEO BASED ON A TEXT IN
YEAR 4 CALLED. THE GREEDY CROW
3. WATCH THE VIDEO AGAIN.
4. FILL IN THE CORRECT ANSWER IN THE
PASSAGE GIVEN





IS THIS ACTIVITY DO-ABLE?

HOW CAN YOU ADOPT AND ADAPT THIS
ACTIVITY TO SUIT YOUR LOW ENGLISH
PROFICIENCY PUPILS?
PRODUCTION
Post-reading activities help students
understand texts further, through critically
analysing what they have read.

In your groups, discuss at least one post-
reading activity for all the three while-
reading activities, namely Hunt for Info,
Readers Theatre and W & W
OTHER SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES FOR THE THREE STAGES OF A READING
LESSON
MODEL FOR TEACHING READING TO LOW
ENGLISH PROFICIENCY PUPILS