Unit 5 "Reading"

Starting from this unit and in the following 3, we will talk about the different skills that English Language has. So let´s start with reading. This is one of the two receptive skills so it involves responding rather than producing and this involves the sense of written text. Into a text we will find series of sentences as in a letter that connected by grammar and vocabulary referring to as discourse.  

This important skill has subskills that help to develop a better understanding;

1.- skimming; 2.- scanning; 3.- reading for detail; 4.- deducing meaning from context;5.- understanding text structure; 6.- inferring; 7.- predicting

At the moment to read, we can find those subskills in some examples of written text types like articles, letters, stories, poems, postcards. So, we can say that skimming (read to look the general idea or well known as read for gist) , scanning (read to look specific information) for example read the newspaper article. Also, the ways of reading can start with read for pleasure that is called extensive reading, or make students focus on how language is used that is called intensive reading.

Into the class, this skill helps students to develop comprehension and encourage them to use subskills unconsciously. 

For us the best way will be teach them vocabulary related to the topic using realia. If the students have a story to work on, they will need to feel motivated at the moment to read, so we as teacher can implement lead-in activities. Finally, we invite you to watch the following video to get a better idea about reading.

References

• Ontesol (2013) Tesol Teaching Reasing Skills [Video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBslJMq4LAg
• Gower, R., Philips, D., & Walters, S. (2008). Teaching Practice: A handbook for teachers in training. Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
• Harmer, J. (2007). How To Teach English. Harlow: Pearson Education.