Designing Effective Reading Activities

1. Designing Effective Reading Activities Jennifer Bixby Joe McVeigh

2. Selecting appropriate reading materials

7. Intensive and extensive reading

8. Vocabulary Development • Using a dictionary • Recognizing word forms • Identifying affixes and roots • Understanding collocations • Guessing meaning from context

9. Checking on the vocabulary level Use a vocabulary profiler such as this one at the English Centre at the University of Hong Kong http://ec.hku.hk/vocabulary/profile.htm

10. Vocabulary Profiler Results FrequencyPercentage 1 - 1000 words 703 92.1% 1001 - 2000 words 42 5.5% AWL words 5 0.6% Off-list words 13 1.7%

11. Vocabulary Profiler Results • 1 - 1000: a about accept addition after agree agreement allow also always an and are as at bad be because bills both broke brothers build business businesses but buy by car cared carried change child children college color could couldn counting course day describe didn difficult dollars done each easy enjoy enjoyed enough escape even every everything expected fact families family. . . • 1001 - 2000: afford arguments baby clothes customer customers ducks during dusting exactly fun hated holidays hungry ice lesson lessons lot lots lucky nice parents proud rabbits restaurant salary shelves shop sweeping worried • AWL: adult appreciate communicate eventually jobs • Off-list: budget chutney dusty feeding london menu pakistan shy talents teenager untrained woodworking yelling

12. General guidelines and principles for activities

13. Teaching vs. testing

14. Teaching vs. testing

15. Bottom up processing • Starting from sounds and letters to make meaning • Identifying words and structures • Focus on vocabulary, grammar, organization

16. Top down processing • Comprehension resides in the reader • Reader uses background knowledge and makes predictions • Teacher focus is on meaning-generating activities (Anderson 2008)

17. Schema building to activate background knowledge Pre-teaching new vocabulary words Help students comprehend discourse structures Underline a grammar structure or verb tense Skip over vocabulary words you don’t know Write the number of a paragraph where you find the answer Top down or bottom up?

18. Comprehension vs. strategy development

19. Strategies • Skim for ideas; scan for specific info • Find the main idea • Locate topic sentences • Adjust reading rate relative to purpose • Read and interpret tables, charts, maps… • Make inferences about content • Differentiate between fact and opinion

20. What’s on the menu?

21. Completing a table Sorting or grouping Finding information in a reading Answering questions Writing a reflection Multiple choice Fill in the blank True-False Matching Sequencing Completing a graphic organizer Activity and Response Types

22. What makes an effective activity?

25. Motivating and engaging – sack race

28. Pump slide

29. Pre-reading activities • Schema building • Previewing • Predicting • Skimming • Identifying genre • Learning key vocabulary

30. Schema building This reading is about the invention of the telephone. What do you know about the topic? List anything you know about the invention of the telephone. What do you want to know about the invention of the telephone? Write questions. After you read, you will fill in the chart with what you learned. • What I know… • My questions: • I learned…

31. Previewing Preview the reading. Answer these questions. • How many paragraphs are in the reading? How long will it take you to read? • How many sections are there? What are the titles? • Look at the photographs and read the captions. What new word is explained?

32. Predicting The author of the next reading has a negative opinion about reality TV shows. What issues do you think the author will discuss in the reading?

33. Identifying genre Look at the magazine article. How is the format different from the newspaper article on page 17? What other kinds of differences are there?

34. Learning key vocabulary Read the sentence. Choose the best definition for the bold word. 1. Company signs come in a variety of colors. a. different kinds b. small choice c. unusual order

35. Activities while reading • Keeping questions in mind • Taking notes • Filling in a graphic organizer • Monitoring comprehension • Developing fluency

36. Keeping questions in mind As you read, keep these questions in mind. • What were three steps in the design process? • What was the most difficult problem for the architects?

37. Underlining As you read, use a pencil and lightly underline important information. Only underline two points in each paragraph. Don’t underline complete sentences.

38. Filling in a graphic organizer As you read, fill in the T-chart.

39. Monitoring comprehension As you finish reading each section, answer the question. Section 1: Who conducts the survey for the most livable city? Section 2: Which city was the most livable city in 2009? Why? Section 3: What three factors make it a great city to live in?

40. Reading fluency • Timed readings • Word recognition exercises • Capacity building

41. Post-reading activities • Comprehension • Critical analysis and evaluation • Summarizing or paraphrasing • Task-based output • Reflection and integrated activities Photo:

42. Comprehension Answer these questions. Re-read the story if you need to. • Why was the narrator afraid of the old man? • What indications are there that the narrator is mad?

43. Critical analysis and evaluation In which lines of the reading does the author give factual information? In which lines does the author give her opinion. How do you know?

44. Summarizing or paraphrasing Write a paragraph in which you summarize the reading. Write one sentence for each paragraph. Be sure to use your own words. Do not quote directly from the text.

45. Task-based output Go back to the section describing how to make a paper airplane. Take a piece of paper and follow the instructions. Show your airplane to your classmates. Did everyone’s come out the same way?

46. Reflection and integrated activities Do you agree with the author that technology is bad for human relationships? Write a paragraph giving your opinion. Use quotations from the text to help focus your argument.

47. Putting it all together

48. Putting it all together Directions: • Read the text at the end of the handout. • With a partner or in a small group, select two activities for either the pre-, during, or post- reading portion of the lesson. • What activities would you choose? How would you design each activity? What would the students need to do to complete these tasks? How long would each task take to complete?