Teaching L2 Reading: Sound Foundations and Effective Instructional Practices

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Teaching L2 Reading Sound Foundations and
Effective Instructional Practices

• William Grabe
• Northern Arizona University
• william.grabe_at_nau.edu

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Three Goals

• Explain the reading construct as the goal for
  reading development
• Identify implications from research for reading
  instruction
• Present curricular and instructional options for
  L2 reading development

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Defining Reading

• Reading is a complex ability to extract, or
  build, meaning from a text
• Reading is a synthesis of component skills
  including efficient processing, relevant
  knowledge bases, strategic processing,
  metacognitive awareness, and reading goals

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Component Skills and Knowledge Resources for L2
Reading

• Letter-sound correspondences
• Word recognition efficiency
• Vocabulary knowledge
• Morphology, syntax, and discourse knowledge
• Comprehension processing
• Strategic processing (executive control
  processing)
• Metalinguistic awareness
• Background knowledge
• Extended exposure to print
• Reading fluency
• Motivation

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Implications from Research What L2 students Need

• Ability to decode graphic forms for efficient
  word recognition
• Ability to access the meanings of a large number
  of words automatically
• Ability to draw meaning from phrase and clause
  level grammatical information
• Ability to combine meanings into a larger network
  of text comprehension

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Implications from Research What L2 Students Need

• Ability to recognize discourse structures that
  build and support comprehension
• Ability to use reading strategies for a range of
  academic reading tasks
• Ability to set goals for reading and adjust them
  as needed
• Ability to use inferences of various types and
  monitor comprehension for reading goals

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Implications from ResearchWhat L2 Students Need

• Ability to use prior knowledge appropriately
• Ability to evaluate, integrate, and synthesize
  information for critical reading comprehension
• Ability to maintain these processes fluently for
  an extended period of time
• Ability to motivate students to persist in
  reading use text information for reading goals

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8 Curricular Principles

• Integrate major skills instruction with extensive
  practice and exposure to print
• Use reading resources that are interesting,
  varied, attractive, abundant, and accessible
• Provide some degree of student choice
• Introduce reading skills by examining the primary
  texts used in the reading course (work with the
  texts in the textbook)

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8 Curricular Principles

• Develop lessons structured around pre-reading,
  during-reading, and post-reading
• Provide opportunities for students to experience
  comprehension success
• Build expectations that reading occurs in class
  every day or in every lesson
• Plan instruction that is built on an integrated
  curriculum framework and can support a number of
  developmental goals

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Promote Word Recognition Skills

• Read in every class lesson
• Read for fluency in class
• Reread texts for multiple purposes (recycling)
• Practice word recognition exercises (matching
  activities and word lists)
• Use flash cards and computer word-recognition
  activities
• Engage in extensive reading

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Build a Large Recognition Vocabulary

• A practical theory of vocabulary learning (Velcro
  theory of vocabulary learning)
• Procedures for selecting words to focus on
• Techniques for introducing new words
• Ways to practice using words
• Activities to build word learning strategies

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Build a Large Recognition Vocabulary

• A vocabularyrich environment to support learning
• Activities that build student awareness of words
• Activities to help students collect words
• Ways to build motivation for word learning
• Activities that recycle texts and vocabulary
• Extensive reading

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Build a Large Recognition Vocabulary

• A text example Trans Fat in Trouble
• Choosing key vocabulary
• Finding useful vocabulary from context items
• Recognizing text structure signaling words
• Word listing, sorting, matching
• Mature words

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Practice Comprehension Skills

• Support knowledge of basic grammar for text
  comprehension
• Activities to identify main ideas in the text
• Strategic processing with more difficult texts
  (connecting main ideas to supporting ideas)
• Discussions about text information (questions on
  how to understand the text)
• Extensive reading

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Build Awareness of Text Structure

• Preview texts and highlight key words that signal
  text structure
• Determine main idea sentences, explain why
• Highlight a paragraph decide its function in the
  text
• Fill in a table, chart, graph, timeline, tree,
  graphic organizer, etc.
• Find patterns of discourse organization in a text
  (cause-effect, comparison-contrast)

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Build Awareness of Text Structure

• Talk about how a text is organized and why
• Reorganize scrambled paragraphs and sentences to
  reassemble a text or to make a good summary
• Remove wrong sentence from a summary or a
  paragraph
• Match main ideas and supporting information
  across two columns
• Extensive reading to build text structure

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Build Awareness of Text Structure

• A text example Trans Fats in Trouble
• What is the problem and where do we find it?
  (problem signals)
• What are trans fats, how are they made, why are
  the so useful? (comparison contrast signals)
• What are solutions to the problem of trans fats?
  (solution signals)
• A graphic organizer for solutions

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Build Awareness of Text Structure

• Problem Solutions
• 1. Denmark, Canada restrict TF
• 2. Canada, US Mandatory Paragraph 1 TF
  labels on food
• (cause and effect) 3. NYC TF ban in restaurants
• 4. Tiburon, CA Voluntary TF ban
• 5. MA, MD, CA. VT consider bans

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Becoming a Strategic Reading

• Plan and form goals before reading
• Form predictions before reading
• Reread as appropriate
• Monitor reading continuously
• Identify important information
• Fill in gaps in the text through inferences and
  prior knowledge

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Becoming a Strategic Reading

• Make guesses about unknown words
• Use text structure information to guide
  understanding
• Build main idea summaries
• Evaluate the text and the author
• Attempt to resolve difficulties
• Decide if reading goals are being met

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Teaching Strategic Reading

• Introduce a strategy, talk about how, when, and
  why to use it. Add strategy to a class list
• Verbalize strategies in combination so students
  see strategies being used
• Model strategic reading, provide scaffolding,
  give extensive practice, and encourage
  independent use of the strategies by students
• Focus discussions and questions on text
  comprehension

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Teaching Strategic Reading

• Promote comprehension monitoring
• Strategy instruction is a part of everyday
  instruction, and not separate lessons
• Eventually automatize strategy use for fluent
  reading
• Engage in extensive reading

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Teaching Strategic Reading

• A text example Trans Fats in Trouble
• Teacher modeling of strategy uses

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Practicing Passage Reading Fluency

• Reread texts used in class for multiple purposes
• Read with the teacher as the teacher reads aloud
• Timed reading activities
• Paced reading activities
• Rereading practice with a text used for a class
  unit.
• Extensive reading

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Rereading and Recycling

• Skim text as pre-reading activity to note or
  recall main idea
• Reread text carefully in class (or at home)
• Reread text quickly to begin post-reading
  discussion
• Work with a graphic organizer
• Do a dicto-comp for part of a text
• Read to make a summary or fill in an outline
• Read 3-4 times as oral rereading fluency practice

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Rereading and Recycling

• Read text while taking a different position from
  author
• Read to look for text structure signals
• Read to look for signals for main ideas
• Read to connect to a previous text
• Read to create a radio report or readers theatre
• Do paired reading, echo reading, or buddy reading
  fluency practice
• Read to find 5 words you still dont know and
  will collect

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Passage Reading Fluency Guidelines

• Keep passages between 70 and 200 words long
• Students should read texts they have already
  worked with or texts with at least 95 vocabulary
  knowledge
• Students can ask for word meanings at the outset
• Students can read a whole passage timed or they
  can read for a set number of seconds (40, 60, or
  90 seconds)

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Passage Reading Fluency Guidelines

• Student can usually work with a reading partner,
  but they can also read with a tape recorded
  version, read with a teacher, or read by
  themselves with a clock or watch
• When students make fluency progress, they should
  move to another text
• Students who have great difficulty should be
  given easier texts

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Passage Reading Fluency Guidelines

• A text example Trans Fats in Trouble

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Passage Reading Fluency Guidelines

• Many possible variations exist for repeated
  reading activities
• Pronunciation is not the issue for repeated
  reading unless the word is not intelligible
• Reading the same passage three-four times is
  usually the limit for a session
• Students should keep a record of how well they do

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Developing Extensive Reading

• Provide many attractive reading materials have a
  good class library
• Provide time for free reading in class
• Explain goals of extensive reading and long term
  benefits of extensive reading
• Create many opportunities for all kinds of
  reading, including the Web

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Developing Extensive Reading

• Read interesting material to students
• Talk about what you read and why talk about why
  you like to read
• Find out what students like to read and why
• Let students read magazines, comics, newspapers
• Have students share and recommend reading texts

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Motivating Students to Read

• Talk about what interests you and why
• Have students share their interests
• Increase expectancy of success
• Have good lead-ins for major texts and tasks
  build initial interest
• Build expertise in topics of readings
• Give students some choices within the curriculum
• Engage in extensive reading with interesting texts

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Promoting Flow

• Reading is an optimal experience for skilled
  readers (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)
• Readers are motivated when reading skills match
  reading challenge
• Tasks must have a reasonable chance of being
  completed
• The task has clear goals
• The task provides immediate feedback
• Involvement in the task precludes worries and
  frustrations from ordinary life

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Promoting Flow

• The person is able to exercise a sense of control
  over his/her actions
• A concern for self disappears
• A sense of duration of time is altered
• A sense of accomplishment is felt in task
  completion
• An increase in intrinsic motivation results Flow
  experiences lead readers to seek more Flow
• Ability improves for tasks at higher levels of
  complexity

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Language and Content Learning for Reading
Development

• Begin from curricular goals and great text
  materials
• Teach component skills for reading within an
  integrated coherent curriculum
• Develop various language skills and resources
  (much as other curricular models would)
• Create opportunities for extended reading and
  recycling of prior texts in class
• Build motivational learning experiences

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Language and Content Learning for Reading
Development

• Create increasingly complex tasks growing
  challenges to match growing skills
• Incorporate project-based learning
• Generate needs to interpret, integrate, and
  evaluate information from multiple texts (good
  EAP tasks)
• Incorporate extensive reading
• Read every day and read a lot

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Teaching L2 Reading Sound Foundations and
Effective Instructional Practices

• William Grabe
• Northern Arizona University
• william.grabe_at_nau.edu