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Reading Topic-based reading lesson plans

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Jackie McAvoy provides a range of practical materials for teaching reading skills, covering a wide variety of topics to appeal to students around the world.

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Reading lesson plans and practical teaching tips

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Reading skills and tasks

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December 1, 2015 · 3:00 pm

When we talk about reading skills, what usually comes to mind? Prediction, reading for gist, reading for specific information and skimming and scanning?

If you'll forgive the clickbait style title of this post (I couldn't resist), the fact is that there's a lot more to the skill of reading than this.

Let's start by looking at these commonly referred to skills, and then look at what else we could (and should) be teaching our students.
Prediction
Students are very often encouraged to use the title of the text, or any accompanying pictures to make predictions about the content. There are good reasons for teaching students to do this; the idea is to activate whatever students may already know about the topic and help them to start creating a context. Without context, comprehension is much harder. Think about those moments when you turn on the radio and have no idea for a few moments what is being discussed. It only starts to make sense once you realise what the basic topic is.
Reading for gist
This doesn't mean telling the students , 'read the text to get a general idea of what it's about'. That is never a very helpful task because it doesn't give the students any reason to read, or any orientation to the topic or context. A gist question should mean that the students have to read the whole text, though not necessarily very thoroughly, in order to answer the question. For example, students might choose which title or picture most closely matches the content of the text. The idea is for students to get an overview of the text, which can help them when they return to the text to find more detailed information.
Reading for specific information
In contrast, reading for specific information means setting questions or a task which require the students to read the text much more carefully. This isn't really a skill so much as a way of testing comprehension.
Skimming and scanning
These two words sound nice together, and make a memorable pair, but most people are a little vague about what they actually mean. Skimming has some crossover with reading for gist, because they are both about getting an overview. However, I would suggest that skimming and scanning are more properly called strategies rather than skills. They were originally both methods of speed reading. Skimming strategies are often taught as part of EAP (English for Academic Purposes) because these students have to read a great deal of content in English. So students may be taught, for example, to read just the first line of every paragraph, as this is often the topic sentence, which contains the main idea of the paragraph.

Scanning is a way of reading text quickly by only looking for specific bits of information, and not reading everything. For example, looking at the index or contents page of a book to find a specific topic you're interested in, or picking out the figures in a text to see what the results of a piece of research were. Again, this strategy can be particularly useful in academic contexts.

Understanding that we read different texts in different ways, using different strategies, is very important for learners. The way we read a novel on the beach is very different from the way we read a legal contract. We probably read the novel much faster, with more of a skimming/gist approach, whereas we are likely to read the contract carefully and slowly, checking that we understand the details. Students reading in a second language often fail to transfer these different ways of reading across from their first language.
Teaching reading skills
However, while looking at different ways of reading, and different reasons for reading, is important, to what extent are these traditional reading activities actually helping students to read more effectively or fluently? Aren't we mostly just giving them practice and/or checking their comprehension?

A reading lesson usually goes something like this:

1. Set the scene/pre-teach vocab/elicit predictions.

2. Read for gist (hopefully by setting a suitable gist question)

3. Read again to answer for detailed comprehension questions.

4. Discuss the content/focus on language in the text.

By encouraging students to predict and to read for gist first, we are perhaps helping them to develop their top-down skills- using context and their previous knowledge to make sense of what they are reading. However, there is a lot more to the reading skill than this.

According to Grabe and Stoller (2011:23) in each and every two seconds of reading fluent readers:

'1 focus on and access 8-10 word meanings

2 parse a clause for information and form a meaning unit

3 figure out how to connect a new meaning unit into the growing text model

4 check interpretation of the information according to their purposes, feelings, attitudes and background expectations as needed

5 monitor their comprehension, make appropriate inferences, shift strategies and repair misunderstanding, as needed.

6 resolve ambiguities, address difficulties and critique text information, as needed.'

Fluent reading means that readers must be able to carry out all of these reading comprehension processes simultaneously and very quickly. Just like driving a car, some of the processes taking place simultaneously must be automatized. If the reader is struggling to decode the words, or understand how the words fit into the sentence, or how the sentence fits into the discourse as a whole, their working memory will become overloaded, and they won't be able to hold onto the overall meaning of the text.

So helping students to develop their reading skills must, I believe, include specific and conscious work on bottom up or decoding skills as well as top down skills, such as predicting.
Decoding skills
Whereas top down skills start from the reader and what the reader already knows or understands, bottom up or decoding skills start from the text. At the lowest level, students need to recognise alphabetic letters and then the words formed from these letters. Clearly, recognising and understanding written words is a key part of reading, even though we would usually deal with it under the heading of vocabulary. According to Paul Nation, in order to understand a written text without any assistance, students need to comprehend 98% of the words. So, if we want to work on developing reading skills (rather than using the text as a way of introducing new language) it is important that students aren't getting stuck on too many unknown words.

Assuming that students recognise and understand enough of the vocabulary, the next layer of difficulty comes in putting those words together, understanding sentences, how those sentences fit together, and how what we are reading links with what we've already read. This is an area where there is huge potential to help students, and yet, outside academic reading courses, it is rarely a focus.

This is why I was so excited to work on Oxford University Press's new series, Navigate. In this series, there is a clear syllabus and focus on these kinds of decoding skills. At lower levels, this might be understanding conjunctions or pronoun reference. At higher levels, we also focus on understanding complex sentences, ellipsis, paraphrasing and so on.

If we don't focus on these kinds of skills, we are only teaching students part of what they need to know in order to improve their reading skills, and most of our focus is on testing comprehension rather than teaching.

Other posts on reading:
Learning vocabulary through reading A lesson from my great-grandfather's ELT coursebook- extensive reading and vocabulary Developing meaning-building skills in reading Repeated reading- some activities to build reading fluency Listening while reading: can it actually help develop reading skills? What kind of reading tasks might be worthwhile? Creating effective reading tasks Should we pre-teach vocabulary before reading, and if so how?

Filed under classroom ideas, Materials development, Reading, Teaching methodology, Uncategorized

Tagged as decoding, efl, elt, ESL, esol, reading activities, reading tasks

April 12, 2012 · 12:39 pm

In my previous post, I looked at the whole idea of reading tasks and the arguments for and against using them. One conclusion I came to is that, ideally, tasks should bear some relation to the kinds of processes we would use when reading in real life contexts.

There are some quite simple task types which will work for a lot of texts. For example, setting up the topic (using pictures perhaps, or the title) and then asking students think of questions that they would like answered about the topic. Alternatively, ask them to write down what they expect to learn and then read to check their ideas. This kind of approach has the obvious advantage of no preparation, and is very close to what we would do in the real world.

Similarly, with different kinds of texts, particularly factual ones, we can set tasks which require students to scan and find particular bits of information. Classic examples are small ads, tv listings etc.

More typical comprehension questions,such as we see in EL exams, tend to test what the question setter sees as the main points of the text. Of course, in real life, we are able to decide for ourselves what the main points are, which means that pre-set questions are intrinsically somewhat inauthentic. The format of typical question types can also be rather inauthentic, of course. While at IATEFL this year, I saw John Field, talking about listening, and he made the very valid point that when carrying out multiple choice questions, we are asking students to do something much more complex than simply listen for information. As well as listening for the information we require, they also have to pick up on the distractors and discount them, a sophisticated process.

Some traditional question types are closer to real world reading than others. For example, multiple matching, which is becoming a very popular exam type question. This is a task type which can work very well with short texts. In a comment on my last post, ESL Notes, asked about a possible reading task for these very short tasks (death by twitter). I think multiple matching is ideal for these kinds of texts. For example, for theseparticular texts, you could ask 'Which text is about a fuel related tragedy?' 'Which text tells us about a possible miracle?' (maybe a rather depressing lesson though? 😉 )

Form completion, note completion and summary completion can also be quite realistic, depending on the students' context. Form completion is important in an ESOL context, note and summary completion are skills needed by students studying in the English medium.

Other tasks are not necesssarily realistic, but do have a definite value in terms of the skills they teach. For example, matching headings or summaries to paragraphs, which encourages students to read in such a way as to grasp the main point of each paragraph. Incidentally, although it isn't foolproof, it is worth pointing out to students that the main point is often in the first sentence of the paragraph (the topic sentence).

I am also quite keen on tasks where students have to put in missing sentences or even paragraphs, as these really help develop awareness of how texts are constructed. However, they are quite difficult to construct as you have to make sure that there are very clear clues which guide them to the right answer.

This is the first part (there is more text and more gaps) of an example from Real Life Advanced, an Upper Secondary book, published by Macmillan. The original article is here.

Mark Boyle, 31, gave up using money in November 2008. He lives in a caravan that he got from Freecycle, an organisation which matches people who have things they want to get rid of with people who can use them, and so keeps usable items out of landfills. His caravan is parked at an organic farm near Bristol, where Boyle volunteers three days a week. He grows his own food, has a wood-burning stove and produces electricity from a solar panel (it cost £360 before the experiment started). He has a mobile phone for incoming calls only and a solar-powered laptop. Boyle, who has been vegan for six years, set up the Freeconomy in 2007, an online network that encourages people to share skills or possessions and now has 17,000 members. His book, The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living, is out now. 1_______________My friend and I were talking about all the problems in the world, such as sweatshops, global warming, factory farms, animal testing, wars over resources. I realised they were all, in their own way, connected to money. 2_______________I sold my houseboat in Bristol and gave up my job at an organic food company. I made a list of everything I bought and tried to figure out which I could get in another way. For toothpaste I use a mixture of cuttlefish bone and wild fennel seeds. Things like iPods you just have to knock off the list, but birds in the trees around my kitchen have become my new iPod. Everything takes more time and effort in a moneyless world. Handwashing my clothes in a sink of cold water, using laundry liquid made by boiling up nuts on my rocket stove, can take two hours, instead of half an hour using a washing machine. It was meant to be just for a year but I enjoy the lifestyle so much that I'm just going to keep living like this. 3________________
I had a very normal childhood. I think at first my parents wondered what on earth I was doing. But now they totally support me and they say that they may even try it themselves.
A I've never been happier or fitter.

B Just being a vegan cuts down the number of women I'm compatible with, never mind being moneyless.

C It all started in a pub

D My girlfriend isn't that keen on my lifestyle though.

E Sometimes it is frustrating trying to socialise with no money

F I decided to give up cash.

The answer to the first gap is 'C'. This is clear if you understand how narratives work- that we start by giving the background- where he was, what he was doing. The second gap is 'F'- this relates back to his conversation- it was the result- and to the fact that he realised that the problems were all caused by money (relates to cash). It relates forward to the impact of his decision. The third gap is 'A' and relates back to what he says about enjoying his lifestyle. ('D' might also be possible here, but it is clear from the rest of the text that he doesn't have a girlfriend).

Multiple choice and true/false are perhaps the most artificial task types. True/false also has the disadvantage of being pretty easy to guess. However, they are also the most common in exams, which many of our students will need to take, so it is perhaps worth giving them practice in these task types for that reason alone. Some tips for writing these types of questions:

True/false

Don't use the exact language in the text- paraphrase.

Make sure there is only one idea in each statement, so that students aren't likely to think it is partially true. For this reason, keep statements short.

Make sure there is roughly an equal numbe of T/F answers, and be careful not to create a pattern (e.g. T then F then T)

Multiple Choice

Paraphrase as above.

Make sure all the choices are plausible and can't be guessed or answered through general knowledge (for example, a well known piece of ESOL material which asked largely Muslim students about what Ramadan is)

Don't make the distractors (the wrong answers) too complex. You are testing what's in the stem (the first part of the question).

Make all the choices a similar length if possible, and don't make the correct answer the longest or shortest.

Make sure the answer isn't always 'C' etc.

Whatever task type you use, in the spirit of demand high teaching, I think it's always a good idea to devote some time to exploring why students have chosen particular answers. What in the text led them to that conclusion? This will not only prevent guessing, but will, I think, actually go some way towards developing their ability to tackle texts.

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reading tasks Archives - elt-resourceful

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December 1, 2015 · 3:00 pm When we talk about reading skills, what usually comes to mind? Prediction, reading for gist, reading for specific information and skimming and scanning? If you'll forgive the clickbait style title of this post (I couldn't resist), the fact is that there's a lot more to the skill of reading than this.

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The above lessons are my most recent lessons. If you would like to see more of my free downloadable lesson plans, then have a look in my Lesson Archives.

I also have more lessons available on Facebook, so if you would like to be notified when I add new lessons, please follow me on Facebook, at Englishisapieceofcake :)

Here you will find some great, free reading lesson plans. These are filled with reading and comprehension exercises, new vocabulary and idioms, speaking exercises, discussion topics and other fun activities. They can be used for English conversation classes and one on one lessons. My lessons are focused mainly on upper intermediate, advanced and proficiency levels. I have indicated before each lesson plan which level they are most appropriate for.

I love reading books and keeping up to date with the latest news and current events around the world. I spend much of my time reading articles on the internet and in topical magazines and newspapers. I see English lessons not only as an opportunity to learn a language, improve our communication skills, grammar and vocabulary, but also as a chance to widen our general knowledge on a wide range of subjects. The resources I choose to use for these lesson plans are the best and most interesting articles that I find, covering a large range of subjects, including travel, history, famous people, countries, politics, photography, food, current events and much, much more.

Although I have indicated which levels these reading lesson plans are most appropriate for, they can be adapted for lower levels if required. You can do this by changing the vocabulary in the exercises, and by making the comprehension questions more general. Remember that the students don't have to know and understand every word in the text in order to understand the general gist. The reading exercises can then be used as a springboard for further discussion.

If you want to adapt the lesson further, then feel free to look through my hints and tips on vocabulary revision, ideas on what to give for homework, and how to design your own lesson plans.

Free Reading Lesson Plans
Teenagers Seeking Shelter
If you are looking for some more lessons, try some of my Business English lesson plans, which are also suitable for general English lessons.

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The above lessons are my most recent lessons. If you would like to see more of my free downloadable lesson plans, then have a look in my Lesson Archives. I also have more lessons available on Facebook, so if you would like to be notified when I add new lessons, please follow me on Facebook, at Englishisapieceofcake :) Here you will find some great, free reading lesson plans.

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Stages of a reading lesson

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Are you interested in how to teach ESL?

Including texts and interesting articles is an important part of any ESL class, as it exposes the students to authentic texts, provides interesting topics for discussion, and helps them to extend their vocabulary. Reading lessons can also provide a great springboard for other interesting activites. Here are some guidelines on the essential elements that should be included in reading lessons in order to make the most of the material. You will find a description of each element that needs to be included after the list. At the bottom of the page you will also find some extra hints and tips.

How to Teach ESL
Stages of a Reading Lesson

Warmer - Set the Context

It's always possible to tell the students what they will be reading about and then climb straight into the reading. But you don't want to do that. No. Definitely not. You want them to practise a bit of talking first, and get them interested in the subject. Here are some examples of ways you can do this:

Give the students a quiz about the subject e.g. for a lesson about how elephants communicate, give them a multiple choice quiz about basic facts about elephants

Get the students to tell you anything they know about a subject e.g. if discussing the lastest movie about Abraham Lincoln, ask the students for anything they may already know about him.

The students can have a discussion whereby they need to resolve a problem presented in the text e.g. the increase of plastic bottles in a Nature Reserve .... they are on the committee responsible for maintaining the Reserve

Give the students some information, so that they have to guess the remainder of the information e.g. you can give the students the title, and they have to guess what the article is about. When teaching about the Goodle Ngram, tell them that Google have digitized 5 million books, and ask them what they would propose to do with the information.

Pre-teach Essential Vocabulary

It's always possible to teach some new vocabulary from the text after the students have read it. This is especially useful for the busy and less prepared teacher.

But it's generally better to teach some vocabulary before they read the text, because then they will have more exposure to the word, will immediately see it, understand it in context, and therefore have a higher chance of remembering it in the long run. Of course it will also help the students to understand the text! When deciding which words to choose, bear the following in mind:

choose words that are appropriate for the students' level

don't teach more than 8 words

choose words that will help the students to understand the listening

As a follow on task from teaching the vocabulary - if the vocabulary is appropriate, you can get the students to guess what will be in the listening on the basis of the new vocabulary.

Gist Task

There are 2 types of reading that you want the students to practise .....

skimming - to get the general idea of the text (reading for gist)

scanning - to get specific information from the text (reading for detail)

The first time the students read a text, they will be doing it for gist. Before they start reading, do the following:

give the students 2 or 3 general questions which will check their overall comprehension of the text

give them a specific timescale, so they know that they have to read it fairly quickly without stopping to check the detail

give them the text ONLY when they have to read it, otherwise they will start to read it while you are talking to them

some possible questions can include ..... the students drawing illustrations of the story, the teacher preparing illustrations which the students have to put in the correct order, choosing an appropriate title, choosing the correct summary, simply answering straight forward questions

First Reading

The students need to read through the text in the allocated time given. As an alternative to getting the students to read through the text, you can do the following:

read the text to them (this will help mix up the skills in the lesson by adding listening)

give the students the text, but leave out every 10th word (or 9th, or 8th, depending which works better - make sure it's not too difficult), which the students have to fill in as they go along. Obviously check they have the correct answers before getting them to read the text for the second time e.g.

A baby girl in the US born 1)_________ HIV seems to have been cured after very early treatment 2)__________ standard drug therapy, doctors say.

The Mississippi child 3)___________ now two-and-a-half years old and has 4)_________ off medication for about a year with no signs 5)__________ infection.

More testing needs to be done to see 6)________ the treatment - given within hours of birth - would 7)_______ for others. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21651225)

Feedback

After they have finished reading, get them to give feedback on the answer. This can be done either straight back to the teacher as individuals for smaller classes, or they can discuss the answers in pairs or small groups (in larger classes) before feeding back to the teacher.

Reading for Detail

The students now need to read the text for a second time, but this time looking for more specific detail and information. Give the students the questions in written form (either written on a hand out, or written on the board). Once again, give them a specific timescale, which should be longer this time. Questions can come in the following form:

normal questions

true/false questions

multiple choice questions

cut up the article and get the students to put it back in the correct order (if you want to do this, you have to leave out the gist reading)

information share - give different parts of the article to different students, and get them to feedback the information they have (for this one you also have to leave out gist reading)

giving titles to each paragraph of the text, or matching headings to the paragraphs

For more advanced classes, you can also get them to underline some of the words that they don't know as they read through it again. You can then go through these words with them once you have completed the reading task - however, don't feel obliged to go through ALL the words if there are too many. You can restrict the number by telling the students they can each ask about one word, or two or three (depending on the size of the class).

Second Reading

The students read through the text again in the time allocated.

Feedback

Get feedback from the class the same way as before. how to teach ESL

Follow-on Speaking Activity

After the reading, it's a fine idea to give the students some form of activity to do, which is directly linked to the text. Here are some ideas:

personalisation - the students have to discuss their own experiences relative to the article e.g. when talking about Emotional Intelligence, the students have to quiz and assess each other

roleplay - the students have to act out scenarios which could have happened in the text, or as a result of the text e.g. if discussing Cheap Travel, the students have to roleplay a trip to a Travel Agent

discussion/debate - get the students to resolve problems presented in the text e.g. if discussing pollution in the sea, what are their long term proposals to eradicate the problem

Extension Task

The text can also be used as a springboard for further activities apart from reading and speaking:

go through more vocabulary from the text (but don't overwhelm the students with too many words)

give the students words which they need to collocate with the new vocabulary (you can get some ideas at www.just-the-word.com, or www.prowritingaid.com). You as the teacher can give them the collocations (give the collocations randomly, and the students have to match them to the correct word), or for homework, the students have to find collocations

teach the students new idioms with a words/themes that are somehow linked to the article

grammar - get the students to identify a praticular grammar point in the text, which you then use to teach/revise/review a grammar point

writing - the students need to write a letter as a response to the text, or summarise the text in their own words, possibly write a conclusion to the text, they could write a story using their new vocabulary and idioms etc etc

pronunciation - get the students to read portions of the text out loud

for homework the students can do further research on a particular topic e.g. they have to choose a current movie to go and watch with theirr 12 year old cousin, or choose a last minute holiday deal to go on with their friends. If you do this, give the students specific websites to search on, so they don't waste too much time using the search engines.

How to Teach ESL
Other Hints & Tips

Choose texts and articles that will be useful and/or interesting for the students

Make sure you choose texts that are at the right level for the students. If it's too difficult, it can be very discouraging. But, if the text is difficult, make the questions easier, and make sure the students know that they don't have to understand every word

Make sure the definitions of the vocabulary you give are the same as the use of the word in the text

don't use tabloid newspapers

novels are difficult to use

if you are using a coursebook, don't feel constrained by what they've done. Feel free to add, remove or move the elements around to get them in the correct order

Very advanced classes do not need to read the text twice (gist and detail), as they will understand most things the first time. They also read very quickly

Resources you can use include .... menus, maps, metro maps, directions, textbooks, magazines, news articles, classified ads, book and movie reviews, leaflets, holiday brochures etc etc I personally love the WEEK (published in the UK, although there also appears to be an American version), which summarizes the best media each week, and therefore saves me the job. But these texts are only suitable for Upper-Intermediate and Advanced classes

how to teach ESL

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Are you interested in how to teach ESL? Including texts and interesting articles is an important part of any ESL class, as it exposes the students to authentic texts, provides interesting topics for discussion, and helps them to extend their vocabulary. Reading lessons can also provide a great springboard for other interesting activites.

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Reading for gist

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A couple of weeks ago Patrick Huang, a teacher trainer in Toronto, wrote to me: I was hoping you could help with this notion of 'gist' tasks, which I've always thought as helpful in the ESL classroom. ...

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Why learn about reading and understanding? Really understanding text means more than just reading all the words

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The ability to speed read is an important skill in today's world, where whether we are students or at work. We are often expected to read hefty amounts of materials on a daily basis. As a result, improving our speed read training technique is something each and every one of us should not only do but maintain. It is an almost instinctive reaction to think that reading faster equates with comprehending with less empirical evidence. However, seems to indicate otherwise - individuals who comprehend what they have read as those who read too fast.

Vocalization i.e., the biggest hurdle in speed reading very often, when pursuing materials

relating to improving our speed reading skills. We will see comments to the effect that vocalization is the biggest hurdle in speed reading. We'll need to overcome this practice if we want to significantly increase our reading speed. It is the basic skill for college students including foreign language learners. Reading ability generates learning power that helps students know themselves and others better as well.

The importance of ability includes three parts. First, reading ability generates learning power that helps you know yourself and others better. Second, reading power activates learning power. An individual with know-how is more worth than one without know-how. It helps you in two ways, getting a better job and succeeding on a job. Third, reading power is also yearning power, serving as a catalyst for creativity.

Skimming means pass or glance over lightly or in a superficial manner. Many students probably consider that their main problem in reading is not having a big enough vocabulary. Students who meet a word they cannot interpret are first likely to ask what it means, which is fine as long as an informant is available, but not practical as the basis for interdependent study. After that, most of the students turn to dictionaries. This is very natural and in some circumstances advisable. But in fact, one of the first things to be said about a dictionary is "Don't use it too much". Students who keep working up new words read not that effectively. Every time we break off to consult a dictionary, you slow down our reading and interrupt our thinking; it would be idiotic to ban the use of dictionaries.

We must free ourselves from dependence of a dictionary or an informant. It is essential to realize that we can cope without one, and that it is wasteful to look up every new word, but any students reading for a serious study purpose need to be able to look up new words. Dictionaries vary, so students need to be familiar with the kind of information offered by their own.

In addition, skimming allows your subconscious the chance to absorb the main ideas of a text. These are later cemented by your speed reading of the contents. The combination of these two methods allows you grater comprehension of what you are reading. Having ascertained that skimming will increase out reading speed, we now need to know how to skim read, whilst there are many different methods adopted to skim reading like read the index of a text means note that it is essential that you do this so that you get the general ideal of what the next is about.

Read the introduction paragraph of the text
Read each heading in the text
Read each subheading in the text etc.

Moreover, when skimming, try using your peripheral eye vision to identify the main idea of the text, the main dates in the text and any illustrations/graphs. Finally, when you are skimming, start at the beginning and over what you have already read before you have completed the whole text as this will defeat the purpose of your skim reading. In any event, you are going to speed read the text once more after you have completed your skim read.

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The ability to speed read is an important skill in today's world, where whether we are students or at work. We are often expected to read hefty amounts of materials on a daily basis. As a result, improving our speed read training technique is something each and every one of us should not only do but maintain.

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Skimming and scanning are two of the most misunderstood and misused skills in the whole IELTS test. Most students think they know what they are and when to use them, but many use them incorrectly or innapropriately.

In my Facebook group, lots of students ask how to improve their reading score and most of the time, other students simply state 'Skimming and Scanning'. They are important, but this simplistic approach will not really help you.

This is not the student's fault; it is mostly down to poor advice from teachers and books. Many teachers tell students that skimming and scanning are the key to success in the reading test without really explaining what they are and most importantly, when you should use them.

This article will look in detail at what they are and when to use them.

Key IELTS Reading Skills

Telling students that skimming and scanning are all you need to get a high score is wrong because there are not the only key reading skills. On top of skimming and scanning you also need to perfect the skill of 'close reading.'

I would also say that vocabulary is an even more important skill. It could be argued that vocabulary is more knowledge than skill, but the reading test is just one big vocabulary test in many ways and you need to be aware of how your vocabulary is being tested and how to deal with it on test day. For more information on vocabulary in the reading test, please click here.

Let's look at each of the skills in more detail.

Skimming

This is when you read the whole text or a large part of the text, so that you understand the general meaning. In other words, you read quickly to understand generally what it is about.

When I look at a newspaper I tend to do this, so that I can quickly understand what the stories are about and if I want to read some of them in more detail. In this way, I can read a whole newspaper in 5-10 minutes because I have not been reading every word of each story, but instead just quickly finding out what the general meaning is.

Why do we do this?

Understanding the general meaning of a text will help you scan for the correct information and decide what the correct answer is. It is very difficult to look at one sentence and decide what the correct answer is without knowing the overall context of the entire text.

Scanning

Scanning is when you look for a particular word or phrase. We normally use this skill when we are trying to locate where the correct answer is. This skill alone does not give us the correct answer, rather it tells us the correct location of the correct answer.

This skill is useful because it means we do not have to read the entire text to find the answer. In that way, it is a time saving skill more than anything else.

I use this skill when I am going to the cinema. Instead of reading every single movie and every single time, I will scan the text for the name of the movie I want. It will then tell me the location of the available times and then I can make my decision.

Close Reading

This is probably the most important skill because it is the skill that helps us decide which answer is correct. There is no point in just skimming and scanning without using this skill, because skimming gives us general meaning and scanning gives us location, neither of which give us the correct answer.

Close reading is when we understand a whole sentence or paragraph, so that we know exactly what it all means. In other words, you understand every word and the meaning of the whole sentence. It takes time and concentration and requires you to think carefully about meaning.

You will use this skill when deciding the correct answer.

I use this skill when reading an important email from someone. It is essential that I read and understand every word. If I don't, I could misinterpret something and send the wrong reply.

How Do I Use These Skills?

The most common advice is to skim for general meaning first, scan for the location of the correct answer and then use close reading to decide what the correct answer is.

So the general strategy would be:
Skim Scan Close Reading Correct answer
This is bad advice because it is too simplistic and does not take into consideration the requirements of the specific question or the ability of the student.

Every Question Is Different

There are over 10 different types of questions on the reading test and all of them require a different strategy. Doing them all in the same way will waste a lot of time and will probably result in you getting a lower score than you deserve.

I have watched many students skim the text for every question, despite them being fully aware what the general meaning of the text is. When I asked why they were doing that, they normally said 'My teacher told me that skimming was important.' The main reason why we skim a text is to establish the general meaning. If we already know it because we have already skimmed the text, then you can stop doing this.

I have also observed students scanning the whole text when they already know where the correct is. Why? 'Teacher told me to.'

Instead of skimming and scanning without thinking about the question, you should have a strategy in place for each of the different question types.

Below are some of my strategies:
Short Answer Questions Multiple Choice Summary Completion Matching Sentence Endings Sentence Completion True, False, Not Given Matching Headings Tips and Strategy Labeling a Diagram Matching Names Matching Information to Paragraphs
Think For Yourself

Every single student is different and will do the reading test in their own way. The strategies above are just suggestions. If you have a better way to find the correct answer, then use it. If you want to adjust my strategies slightly to suit your own needs, then feel free.

Do not let a teacher or a book tell you there is only one exact way to answer a reading question because that is not how the human brain works. Everyone has a different style of reading.

I have taught hundreds of students who got a Band 9 in their reading test and all of them had a different technique. Some of them would skim every text before starting the question and some of them would not skim at all. Some of them would carefully scan and locate the correct answer and some of them would carefully read the whole text and not scan at all. They key is to practice and find out the technique that suits you and your reading style.

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IELTS Reading- Skimming and Scanning - IELTS Advantage

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Skimming and scanning are two of the most misunderstood and misused skills in the whole IELTS test. Most students think they know what they are and when to use them, but many use them incorrectly or innapropriately.

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by Susan Verner 22,711 views

It's a little word that encompasses so much. As one of the core skills in learning English as a second language, you know it's important. But exactly what elements of reading should be the priority as you teach your ESL students? After all, native speakers spend twelve years in school with reading (or English) as a core subject. How do we know what second language learners really need? Well, it's not as complicated as you might think. Yes, there are lots of different skills and strategies you need to address with ESL students, but more than anything you want your ESL students to increase their reading comprehension. You want them to understand what they read. You can do this in many different ways, but the most effective generally fall into one of three categories: building background knowledge, building vocabulary, and checking comprehension frequently. Each of these items can be done in many different ways. Here are some ideas for you to incorporate into your teaching.

3 Reading Comprehension Strategies That Work

1. Building Background Knowledge

New information links to old information in the brain. That's why the more your students already know about what they are going to read, the more easily they will assimilate new information in their minds. That's also why it is extremely important to prepare your students before reading. You want all the knowledge they already have to be in the forefront of their brains so it's ready to connect with the new information students will read about. Here are some ways you can prepare your students to read by bringing up what they already know and giving them the background knowledge they will need to best understand the text.

Prepare for reading by playing a soundtrack that matches what students will read. If you are reading something that has been made into a movie, use that music. Otherwise, just choose something that has the same mood or message as the piece your students will be reading.

Look at pictures related to the piece you will read. If there are illustrations or photos included in the reading selection, use those. You might also look at pictures of the setting of a story or events in the story that students will read about.

Do a role play of a situation they will read about in the text. For example, if you were going to read the Hobbit, you might have your students role play a dinner party where the guests were uninvited.

Give a virtual tour of the text. Go through the different pieces of what students will read including the title, subheadings, table of contents, etc.

Have a class discussion on the topic of the piece you will read. Start with some discussion questions about the topic. Then ask students to share any personal experiences they have related to the topic.

2. Build Vocabulary

You can do all the preparation in the world, but if your ESL students don't understand the words on the page, they aren't going to get a full picture of what they are reading. As an ESL teacher, building vocabulary is part of every class you teach, but here are some specific ways to accomplish that during reading class.

Use picture dictionaries or illustrated stories and other visuals to help teach unfamiliar vocabulary without translation to L1.

Preteach vocabulary students will encounter in the reading selection. Give short, simple definitions of tough words so your students can understand them and don't need to look them up during the reading process.

Teach directional or signpost words like because, therefore, however, etc. Though they may not carry a lot of content, they are important for understanding the relationships between ideas in the text.

Teach students to interact with vocabulary on the page. Encourage them to highlight or underline unfamiliar or difficult words, to write explanations and make notes in the language, and draw connecting lines between unfamiliar words and context clues. The only thing you should prohibit is writing a translation of the word into their first language.

If students insist on looking up unfamiliar words in their first language, have them make a page in a reading notebook for these vocabulary words. Ask the student to write the English word on a sticky note and put it in the notebook. Then have them fold the sticky note up to make a flap under which they can write the translation. That way students won't see the translation unless they go to the effort to unfold each flap.

3. Check Comprehension Often

Have you ever gotten lost and decided to just continue on in hopes of finding the right road to turn on? And then made another turn only to find that it wasn't the right road in the first place? And then continued to make the wrong turns from the wrong roads until you were utterly and hopelessly lost? I hope you haven't because if you aren't sure where you are at the beginning, going on will just get you more and more confused. It's like that with our students and reading comprehension. If they don't understand the foundation of what they are reading, they most certainly won't understand the information that builds on that foundation. That's why the more frequently you check comprehension with your ESL students, the more certain you can be that they are making the right turns at the right time. Here are some ways you can check your students' reading comprehension.

Have students put the information they read into an Idea map or cluster map. Though we often use this strategy for coming up with ideas to write about, it also works for checking understanding, and it is fun to create and a hands on activity as well.

For something a little more formal, have students complete an outline of the passage as they read or after they finish reading a section. To make the process a bit easier for your students, give them a blank outline where they can just fill in the important ideas rather than creating their own from scratch.

Ask questions at various levels - observation (what does it say questions), interpretation (what does it mean questions), and application (what should I do about what I have read questions). Always start with observation and then move on to interpretation and application. Stop and ask these questions at several points in the reading.

Have students complete graphic organizers with the information in the reading. Some of the most helpful and simple are Venn diagrams and flow charts.

Reading is not only a pleasure.

It is also a tool and one your students should never be without. These ideas will help your students increase their reading comprehension of specific texts as well as give them the tools and strategies they need to understand what they read in the future. Now it's just up to you to give them the right directions that lead to success.

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The ABCs of A B C: Reading Comprehension Strategies That Work

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by Susan Verner 22,711 views It's a little word that encompasses so much. As one of the core skills in learning English as a second language, you know it's important. But exactly what elements of reading should be the priority as you teach your ESL students?