Why

Teach Reading?
Benefits to reading include:
Learning about learning (how to read)
Immersion in the second language
Modeling for improved writing in English
Improved vocabulary
Increased cultural background knowledge
Transfer of some first-language reading skills

Students learn new strategies and thinking processes best when consciously
aware they are doing so. (Brown, Armbruster & Baker, 1986)
Always tell students overtly about the aim of your reading lesson. (E.g. Today we will learn about
skimming and scanning. This helps you find information quickly without having to read every word
on the page.) Once they are conscious of the processes, students can monitor their comprehension
and apply appropriate strategies (e.g. guessing a words meaning from the context without relying
on their dictionaries).
At the end of the tutoring session, always review with them what was learnt.

Encourage students to talk about or make sense of a text:

Expressive: How did you like the story/book?

Factual: Who is the main person? Where did the story happen?
Informational: What was it all about?
Experiential: Did anything like that ever happen to you?
Affective: How did that make you feel?
Relational: Did you ever hear of anything like this in your country?
Critical: Do you think this could really happen?
Predictive: What do you think will happen next?
Stylistic: Do you think the writer did a good job in making that character seem real?
Sequential: What happened next?
Cause/Effect: What made X happen?
Summarizing: Can you tell the whole story in just a few sentences?
Speculative: What would this story be like if X was telling the story instead of Y?
Inferential: Why do you think the character(s) did this?

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Benefits of talking about readings:

You get to know your tutees better.

Tutees have the opportunity to relate readings to their own lives and past experiences.
Tutees can speak their minds and express feelings about important or personal issues.
Tutees may be able to speak in English about something on which s/he is the expert, and for
second language learners, that is highly motivating.

Essential Reading Skills

In order of most to least important:
Skimming
Finding main ideas
Scanning
Understanding unknown words

Most Problematic Reading Skills

In order of most to least difficult:
Understanding unknown words
Looking for main ideas
Skimming
Scanning

When Planning Lessons on Reading

Focus on one reading skill at a time.

Explain the purpose of each exercise and how the skill is important for effective reading.
Do a sample reading exercise with your tutee. Model aloud your own thinking process
as you complete the reading exercise.
When the student has completed the exercise, discuss it with him/her. Ask how the student
arrived at his/her answers: Why do you think that? or How do you know?.
Focus additional reading exercises on the same skill, gradually increasing the complexity of the
tasks.

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Using a Reading Text

Sources

Parrish, Betsy. Teaching Adult ESL: A Practical Introduction.

Bentson, Marilyn, and Elisabeth Mitchell. Talk Time Handbook: Conversation Sessions for
Volunteer Facilitators and Limited English Speaking Participants.

Pre-Reading: Getting Students Ready

In any situation, we bring prior knowledge and expectations that are based on our cultural background,
education, and life experiences: we have "scripts" in our mind about how events in the world unfold.
Schema theory suggests that prior knowledge shapes our expectations and understanding of what we
hear. The closer our "script" is to the content of what we hear and read, the easier it will be for us to
understand.
The first thing a language teacher needs to do is to tap into learners' prior knowledge about the theme
through pre-listening/pre-reading activities. These activities will aid your student in comprehending
what they are going to hear and talk (and read and write) about.
In a lesson on What do you do?, for example, the tutor could start with questions such as:

Guiding questions:

How do people find jobs in your country?

How do you decide if this is the right job for you?
What kind of training do you need to get the right job?

Cross-cultural comparison:

Why do people work?

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Reading with Your Students

Here are some possible ways of reading with your student(s):
1. Tutees all read silently to themselves, at their own speed. This way, they can go back and
read a sentence again if they dont understand it. Silent reading is a skill learners need to
develop because most of the time they are reading English without any help in everyday life.
However, learners tend to slow down too much (losing the reading context), and the tutor has
less control.
2. The tutor reads aloud, while the tutees follow or repeat. This can help learners to make
the connection between sound and spelling (recognizing letters and words). It also speeds up
the learners reading pace since they need to follow the tutor.
3. If you have multiple tutees, you can have your tutees read aloud in turn or in unison.
Student attention is focused on pronunciation, not on understanding the text. Because students
usually read slowly, it can take up a lot of time for them to read aloud. Also, if only one student
is reading, the others are either not listening at all, or are listening to a bad model. In fact, this
is a difficult activity, because even native speakers stumble when reading their own language. So
if you want tutees to read aloud, leave it until the final activity of reading a text.

Strategies for Developing Reading Skills

Previewing and Predicting: Look at the title/pictures.

o

E.g. What do you think this story is about?

Skimming: Read quickly without stopping, or read just the first sentence of every paragraph to
get the main idea.
o E.g. What is this story about? Who are the people in the story?
Scanning: Read quickly and pick out specific information.
o E.g. What kind of jobs does this story talk about? How many hours do people work each
week?

Guessing Unknown Words: Use contextual clues to determine the meaning of new words
without looking them up.
o E.g. Children cannot cook and work. Parents take care of them until they grow older.
What do parents do for their children?
Transferring Knowledge (Follow-Up/Post-Reading): Give further practice using the content
of the text. While true or false statements about the text are a good way to check
comprehension, you should also provide opportunities for tutees to state their opinions/ideas
about the text they have just read.
o E.g. Rose said, I have to pay my own medical bills. Its been really hard for me in
America, but its worse at homeI never learned to read and write any language. Im
very glad to be learning. At home, I would never have this opportunity. Do you agree
with Rose? Why or why not? What are some opportunities you have here in America?
What are some things you missed about your home country? Tell me more.

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Teach Writing
Product-Oriented vs. Process-Oriented Writing
Writing takes on many forms in our lives, from jotting down phone messages to writing college essays.
The processes we use to write vary greatly depending on the purpose of our tasks. There are two
approaches to writing instruction: product-oriented and process-oriented.

Product-Oriented

Process-Oriented

Focus on getting it right

Controlled tasks following models
Final product evaluated

Focus on the steps that go into writing

Giving and receiving feedback and creating
multiple drafts
Focus on ideas/content

Working With Beginning-Level Writers (And Beyond)

Street

s_reet
s_r_et
s _ _ _ et
_ _ _ _ et
_____t
______

Vanishing Letters
Copying words, making lists, or labeling objects has great
benefits for beginners: the practice helps learners build
confidence in writing words on their own. Learners begin by
copying a complete word. Then the teacher removes one
letter at a time until the student can write the word on their
own. This technique works equally well with sentences or
short paragraphs.

Scaffolded Writing
Many everyday writing tasks that involve simple text (for example, writing a note to the school or
leaving a message for a co-worker) can be developed by providing students with a sample text with key
information left out:

Date: ______________________
Dear ____________________,
_______________________ needs to leave school early today because ________________________
_______________________. I will pick her up at ________________________________________.
Sentence
Starters
Thank you.
They
provide
Yours
truly,a framework for writing such as this:
_______________________.
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My name is _________________________________. I come from _________________________.

_____________________________________ is in _____________________________________.
In my country, people _____________________________. We usually _______________________
_________________________________________________________________________. We eat
___________________________________ and we like to ________________________________.
The sentences generated through this task can then be combined to develop simple paragraphs, and/or
used as your reading text for the next lesson.

Dictation
Provided that the content of the sentences or passages being used is meaningful and related to the
content of instruction, dictation is an excellent way to help learners build confidence in their writing,
and to check their ability to transfer what they understand orally to writing. Dictation is usually done in
pairs, making it an interactive task for tutors and tutees as well.
Here are a few ways to make dictation meaningful:
In a lesson on making calls, dictate names and phone numbers (for beginners) or a brief
message (for higher-level students).
Dictate phone numbers or addresses to practice pronunciation of 13 vs. 30, 14 vs. 40, etc.
Dictate vocabulary words that have been covered during the lesson for review and to practice
spelling.
Implement dictation into cloze (fill-in-the-blank) activities. Even difficult passages can be made
more manageable if they are done as cloze exercises.

Dictogloss
Choose a passage from a text with interesting vocabulary that will not overwhelm students. Be sure it is
not so long that students will become frustrated.
Read the passage at normal speed, without stopping at every word or sentence as in a traditional
dictation.
Students need to listen and take notes, writing down as much of what you say as possible.
Next, students get together in pairs or small groups, and attempt to reconstruct the passage. Encourage
them to highlight problem areas so that they can listen for them the next time you read the text.
Read the text again, and give the group another chance to fill in the passage and discuss their ideas.
Repeat this process as needed, giving one final reading after most of the passage has been
reconstructed to check listening and accuracy.
You can make use of this activity in a variety of ways. You can ask students where they had trouble
understanding the passage: sometimes it is a vocabulary word or phrase they didnt understand (in
which case, you can discuss said vocabulary), and sometimes it is an issue of reduced/linked/altered
pronunciation (in which case, you might repeat the word/phrase, have students reconstruct it, see if the

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reconstruction makes sense, and then get students to repeat the word/phrase slowly and in the same
way you said it).
Regardless of how you choose to use the activity, the pair/group work is what makes this exercise a
great one: students must share ideas, disagree, persuade, ask for help, give help themselves, and teach
each other, all during the process of recreating the text. This is where real communication and learning
takes place.

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Using Student Writing

Use your students background knowledge and experience with first-language writing. Build on
similarities and exploit differences for learning potential and awareness.
Make students conscious monitors of their own writing. Start by asking them the questions you would
ask when reading any other text:

Expressive: How did you like your story?

Factual: Where did the story happen?
Informational: What was it all about?
Affective: How did that make you feel?
Relational: Did this ever happen to anybody you know?
Critical: Do you think this was a good thing or a bad thing for you?
Sequential: What happened next?
Cause/Effect: What made X happen?
Summarizing: Let me try to tell the whole story in just a few sentences. Can you correct me if I

dont tell it right?

Speculative: What would this story be like if X was telling the story instead of you?

Inferential: Why do you think X did this?

Details, Details, Details

When working with your student on his/her writing, tell your student to show, not tell. (E.g. If your
student writes, I want to speak good English, ask them, What is good? Does the word good mean the
same thing in good dog, good husband, good city, good house, good job?)

Use Reading to Support and Extend Student Writing

Choose reading themes that students can relate to and/or find interesting. For example:
The immigrant experience in the U.S
The English learning experience
Aspects of American culture and everyday life (holidays, food, shopping)
Current events
Once you know what topics are of interest to your tutee, you can collect articles/readings about the
topics and use them as reading materials during your lessons. Have the student first reflect on the

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reading and talk about it during your session, then assign a writing activity as homework. This writing
activity can then be used as reading material for your next tutoring session.
Remember, your student learns writing from editing and revising what theyve written!

Ways to Include Writing in Your Tutoring Sessions

After reading a story or article, have students copy down a sentence or two. You can guide
students to choose sentences that they agree/disagree with, or sentences that they want to talk
more about. Students then write a reaction to the sentences.
Writing letters on social or community issues. whether real or hypothetical.
o E.g. BCNC has decided not to hire non-native English speakers as teachers on principle.
Write a letter advising the organization to change their decision, and give reasons why.
Writing summaries: one of the best tools for assessing reading comprehension, but you must
explicitly teach students how to summarize first.
Journaling. (You might want to check whether your students are already doing this in class first.)
Possible writing topics:
o My first day in Boston
o My earliest memory as a child
o My favorite place
o The past (e.g. Two years ago, I was)
o The future (e.g. Two years from now, I hope to)
o My favorite time of day
o A time when I felt ____
o A strange thing about living in the U.S.
o My worst experience at work
o A funny thing that happened to me
o My favorite food
o If I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would
o If I could take any vacation in the world, I would

When Teaching ESL Writing

Give varied kinds of assignments.

Give varied kinds of feedback on assignments. (Not just on grammar!)
Make writing mean more than assessment.
Let students practice high-stakes writing in low-stakes settings.
Assume nothing.
Teach students what they need to know in order to improve their writing.

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Teach students to think not only as writers, but also as readers.

Teach students to be independent self-editors.
Let students tell you how theyre doing and how youre doing!

Remember: think as a writer, not just as a teacher or as a tutor!

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