The content of teaching reading

Reading is one of the main skills of mastering a foreign language at school. Through reading learners enrich their knowledge of the world around them, get acquainted with the countries where the FL language is spoken.Reading develops pupils’ intelligence, memory, will, imagination and critical thinking.

Reasons for reading:

1. reading for pleasure

2. reading for practical usage (reading outside the classroom - reading of letters, signs, e-mails, etc.)

3. reading for study - reading is not only an aim in itself; it is also a means of learning a FL. When reading, learners review sounds and letters, vocabulary and grammar, memorizes the spelling of words, the meaning of words and word combinations. Reading gives models of sentence, paragraph and text construction, it links written and spoken language.

Kinds of reading:

1. Extensive – reading for pleasure. It develops reading skills and increases vocabulary.

2. Intensive – reading and doing study activities (what kind of text it is, details of meaning, vocabulary and grammar, etc.)

Types of texts for reading:

Authentic texts- texts which are not written especially for language learners. Beginners can read only simple authentic texts (menus, signs, timetables, etc.)

Simplified (adapted) texts – texts for graded readers.

Reading skills:

Skimming –learners read to get an idea of what it is about. Pictures, title help to catch the gist of the text.

Scanning -learners search through a text for a specific details (e.g. looking for the telephone number) and ignore everything else.

Reading for detailed comprehension – learners read more slowly to look for detailed information or to give examples of the language usage (grammar, vocabulary items).

Reading principals:

1. Encourage learners to read as often and as much as possible (support of extensive reading).

2. Learners should be interested in what they are reading (selection of interesting, according to the age, level and interests of learners, up-to-date, real-life, easy enough for comprehension material).

3. Encourage pupils to respond to the content of a text (learners should show their feelings about it), not only concentrate on its construction.

4. Learners should predict in reading (teacher should pay learners’ attention to book covers, headlines, pictures to guess what they are going to read about).

5. Match the task to the topic (when using intensive reading texts)

6. Good teacher uses reading texts to the full (uses integrated tasks based on learners’ level to revise and practice grammar and vocabulary, to develop writing and speaking skills, uses visual aids – pictures, mime, voice, cards with new vocabulary, etc.)

7. Develop learners’ abilities to read accurately and fluently with correct pronunciation, stress, intonation, pause and articulation of voice.

Difficulties in reading:

1. Linguistic -reading in the English language is one of the most difficult things because there are 26 letters and 146 graphemes which represent 46 phonemes. It is necessary that learners should know how this or that vowel, vowel combination, consonant, or consonant combination is read in different positions in the words.

2. Comprehensive - the most difficult thing in learning to read is to get information from a sentence or a paragraph on the basis of the knowledge of structures and meaning of words. Learners often ignore grammar (syntax) and try to understand what they read relying on separate words. It is sometimes difficult for learners to find topical sentences in the text which express the main ideas.

Ways of reading:

1. Aloud - the aim is to improve learners’ reading skills.In reading aloud the teacher uses:

1) Diagnostic reading (learners read and he can see their weak points in reading).

2) Instructive reading (learners follow the pattern read by the teacher or the speaker).

3) Control (test) reading (learners read the text trying to keep as close to the pattern as possible).

2. Silently -the aim is toimprove learner’s comprehensive abilities, to develop learners’ abilities of making lexical and grammatical analysis, guessing of new words.

In teaching a foreign language in school both ways should be developed.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-10