Unit 5.

READING.

GEIKHMAN, Y. (2019). Reading Skill. Retrieved from https://images.app.goo.gl/ET3VxFvL6pQxhNHq9

    The book “The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3” has many units, and of them is unit five which talks about Reading. To read using our knowledge of the language and our knowledge of the world since it will help us to understand better. And that some reading skills and ways of reading will depend on the type of text we are going to read. Also, in this blog, we will answer the questions: What can one learn from this unit? And, How can teaching reading be useful in a real-life classroom?

     Before to start, one has to know that Reading is a receptive skill meaning that it will receive information rather than producing it. With that in mind, what does it mean to understand a text, sentence or word by using our knowledge of the language and the knowledge of the world? Basically, to understand the meaning of the text, sentence or word. And its connections between each other and our knowledge of the world, in other words, what discourse is. According to Sparks, (2012) discourse is to establish connections with the combination of information from prior grammar and vocabulary, as well as from our prior knowledge, in order to have coherence and cohesion.

     Reading also includes using different reading skills and ways of reading depending on the text one might want to read. According to the “TKT” book (Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, 2011) some reading skills may include Scanning, Reading for detail, Skimming, Deducing meaning from context, Inferring, Predicting, etc. It is also considered Extensive reading and Intensive reading as ways of reading. For example, extensive reading is reading for pleasure. And intensive reading is when you read to know how language is used.

     To conclude, what one can learn from unit five “Reading”? You can learn that reading is a comprehension process. First, you have to understand the discourse of it. And, once you understand it, you will know which reading skill or way of reading would be best to apply. Now, how can teaching reading be useful in a real-life classroom? Here are some tips you might find useful.

1.      Make this comprehension process more bearable. How? Teach reading with activities in a process (before-reading, while-reading, and after-reading). For example, the book “HOW TO TEACH READING LIKE A PRO” (BusyTeacher, 2013) gives you lots of activities for this matter as in how to teach reading with fairy tales,  poetry, etc.

2.     Practice the reading skills with reading passages. You can give students a reading text, passage, or paragraph depending on the level of the students, and teach them to identify the meaning from context, etc. The book “MORE READING POWER 3” (Jeffries & Mikulecky, 2011) will help you to select from a wide variety of reading passages all of them previously selected to help you teach reading in the best way possible.
 

For further reading:

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 (Second). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139062398.003

BusyTeacher. (2013). HOW TO TEACH READING LIKE A PRO. Hamilton, ON, Canada. Retrieved from http://www.pasco.k12.fl.us/library/esol/how-to-teach-reading-like-a-pro.pdf

Jeffries, L., & Mikulecky, B. S. (2011). MORE READING POWER 3. (Pearson Education ESL, Ed.) (Third). Pearson Education ESL.

Sparks, J. R. (2012). Language/Discourse Comprehension and Understanding. Choice Reviews Online, 5. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_1005 

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 (Second). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139062398.003