Teaching Reading 💫

Reading comprehension plays an important role when we read. When we read we don't just memorize the important acts in a story. We can involve the imagination where our students will be able to visualize some scenarios that appear in the story, like places, people, or things, through a description. 

When we are reading, we have two models: button-up and top-down 

Button-up focuses on the language, paragraphs, and word-by-word, however top-down is the opposite. In this model, the reader understands stories without focusing on words or paragraphs. Readers can predict the general idea of the story or information through the title or by watching a picture. 

Reading skills and strategies 

 

• Extensive reading: Refers to when the readers read because a story is interesting for them. They read because they enjoy that story, not out of obligation. In this kind of reading the students choose their own book.  It suggests that the kind of books that readers can read are graded readers books. Graded readers are books created specially for people who are learning foreign languages. These kinds of books have different levels from beginner to advanced, some characteristics of graded readers books are the complexity, the vocabulary, and the grammar structure. Besides, some of these books contain pictures, exercises of reading comprehension, the meaning of the words, or even the audio of the book. 

• Intensive reading: In this kind of reading it is important that the reader understands the story in depth. The reader needs to understand the meaning of the text with the purpose of answering questions.

• Skimming: Refers when you read quickly and you catch the gist (main ideas) by only watching the title, subtitles, some words, and pictures if it's possible.

• Scanning: Refers when you explore the reading moving your eyes to look for specific information. 

• Comparing and contrasting: It's considered a strategy for reading comprehension but at the same time is considered one of the first abilities that help our students improve their comprehension and enjoy the stories when they read or hear. It allows students to develop abilities of critical thinking, pay attention to the details of the story, and help to retain information while students are reading. All of these help the students to reinforce, think clearly, and effectively express ideas. One of the most effective ways to teach the students this strategy is through a Veen diagram, which is a useful tool for understanding the similarities and differences.

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