Reading Comprehension: Strategies and Activities
1. Sounding Out vs. Reading with Understanding
Sounding out involves recognizing graphic words without comprehension. Reading with understanding means grasping the meaning of the text.
2. Importance of Prior Knowledge in L1
Students benefit from prior reading strategies learned in their native language (L1) before starting to read in a second language (L2).
3. What is “Word Attack”?
“Word attack” is a strategy to help children learn new vocabulary and phonetics. It aims to consolidate phonemic, phonological, and morphological awareness. For example, group activities where one member has vocabulary on paper and others connect the words from different perspectives.
4. How Functional Print Aids Reading Instruction
Functional print involves using alphabet friezes, flashcards, posters, song lyrics, and signs to decorate the classroom. Teachers can use published materials or create their own, including labels for equipment.
5. Initial Reading Stage Activities
Introduce pictures first, then pictures and words together as flashcards.
Gradually reduce visual support as pupils gain confidence, but visual aids remain important.
Use color-coding for words with similar sounds (e.g., bed, head, guess) or words in a lexical set (e.g., table, chair, lamp).
Use activities like filling in the gaps, sequencing letters, and using flashcards with pictures or words to introduce vocabulary.
6. Interconnection of Listening and Reading Skills
Listening and reading are both comprehension skills. Reading requires other skills for understanding the written message, as it integrates them.
7. The While-Reading Stage
The while-reading stage refers to what children do while reading a text. Activities include asking questions about the title, involving children in the story, and using pictures or bold words for clues. After reading, ask general or specific questions. Activities: identifying characters, situations, and events.
8. Activities Focused on Meaning (DARTS)
Activities focused on meaning are called DARTS (Directed Activities Related to Texts). They focus on the processes and outcomes of reading. DARTS include reconstruction and analysis activities.
Reconstruction activities: The teacher modifies the text, and pupils match parts of sentences, fill gaps, or match speech bubbles to characters.
Analysis activities: Pupils find specific information and organize it, such as underlining parts of a text in different colors.
9. Developing Syntactic Awareness
Encourage language awareness by having pupils notice similarities and differences between alphabets or count letter occurrences. Introduce older pupils to the notion of genre or text type, such as greetings, cards, menus, comics, brochures, manuals, and advertisements.
10. Purposes of Listening for Initial and Later Learners
Listening helps with understanding and reinforces that reading serves various purposes. It helps learners notice similarities and differences between alphabets, such as the absence of accents or tildes. Counting letter occurrences, like the letter “e” in English, is also beneficial.