Module 3: Reading

Not Saved
Reading is extremely important in learning a new language and requires a lot of effort from new English
language learners. To be able to read fluently, students need to be able to recognize sounds and patterns,
comprehend the words they read, and understand how the words work together in a sentence to convey
meaning. In this module, we will break down reading into smaller parts so that you can help your students
successfully find proficiency in the skill. In doing so, we will cover how to work on beginning reading
skills, how to transition into more difficult decoding, and how new readers can gain meaning from what
they are reading. The ultimate goal is to help your students understand the language so that they can not
only read and understand words in English but also understand how they work together to convey true
meaning.

Module 3: Reading

3.1 Developing reading skills

3.2 Auditory and visual discrimination

3.3 Forming associations

3.4 Decoding

3.5 Reading for purpose

3.1 Developing reading skills

Imagine that teaching a student to read in a new language is like building a house. You
cannot start off by building the attic; you have to work your way up from the bottom. As we
discuss how to help students develop reading skills, we will start with the basics, move on
to lower-level reading skills, such as comprehension, and eventually discuss such higher-
level reading skills as identifying purpose and intent.

3.1.1 Beginning to read

As you begin to approach reading with your students, it is important to remember that all
of them may be coming from different backgrounds and therefore may need different
levels of instruction. For students whose original language does not share the English
alphabet, that is where you need to start. For students from all native languages that share
an alphabet with English, though, it is important that you go over the way words are
sounded out because even if the students are familiar with the English alphabet, the
sounds of this new language will likely be unique and somewhat foreign.

Phonemic awareness: We discussed phonemes in detail in the previous module when we

reviewed linguistics, but it is important to also mention phonemic awareness here because
it is such an important part of the reading process. To help your students improve their
phonemic awareness, you will expect your students to be able identify, understand, and
manipulate phonemes. Helping your students gain phonemic awareness will give them the
ability to break down and learn new words by themselves.

 Phonemes are unique to each language, so your students may have difficulty
adjusting to learning new ones. They will likely need help understanding the
structure of new phonemes and understanding how to sound them out.

 Your students may naturally think of the phonemes in their native language, which
could be in direct contrast with English phonemes. If you are aware of phonemes in
your students’ native languages, you can use this to your advantage. Otherwise, it
may be a good idea to try to train them to avoid this kind of thinking.

 Making the process of improving phonemic awareness more fun and active is an
effective way to increase engagement and understanding. Try activities that turn
phonemic awareness into a game or require your students to get up, move around,
and be active.

3.1.2 Beginning to read

Phonics: The concept behind phonics is that students can begin to see and understand
patterns in how phonemes relate to each other. Once they recognize these patterns,
students can more easily sound out words that are foreign to them. This can also help
them understand meaning when they begin to see patterns in root words, prefixes, and
suffixes. English is notorious for straying away from patterns, however, so while phonics
can be a helpful tool, it certainly has its shortcomings.

Learning the alphabet: Some of your students may not need to learn the alphabet because
the English alphabet is the same as their native language’s alphabet. However, if your
students do need to learn the alphabet because it is very different from how their native
language is structured, you cannot skip this step. This makes learning the alphabet difficult
if you have a heterogeneous group of students. You can combat this obstacle by
differentiating your instruction, which requires more preparation but provides more
individualized instruction for your students. We will discuss differentiation in more detail in
a later module.

Letter/sound correlation: We will discuss this in more detail later in the module,
but whether or not your students are familiar with the alphabet, learning the correlation
between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) is extremely important because
sounds are unique to a language. Many of these sounds and combinations of sounds will
be difficult for your students to get used to, so make sure you practice a lot.
Concepts of print: Some of the concepts of print we discuss here will be relevant to
students who come from different backgrounds, but some of these concepts will only be
relevant to students who are learning to read for the first time. It is possible to have a
student who knows a native language but has never learned to read. Your task is a little
more difficult in these cases because this adds another layer to what you need to
accomplish.

 The English language is read from left to right.

 The English language is read from top to bottom.
 Letters and words convey messages.
 When you get to the end of a line (on the right), you need to return to the beginning
of the next line (on the left).
 The illustrations in a book correspond to the words written there.

Decoding: We will discuss decoding in much more detail in a future section, so we will only
briefly touch on it here. Once your students have built up their phonemic awareness, their
knowledge of the alphabet, and their letter/sound correlation, decoding helps them put
everything together to pronounce new words.

3.1.3 Advanced reading skills

Once your students have built up confidence with the basics of reading, your next step is to
help them develop proficiency in more advanced reading skills.

Summarizing: Summarizing is an extremely important skill because it helps your students

bridge the gap between understanding the words they are reading and understanding the
meaning that those words are trying to convey. The skill of summarizing requires students
to understand enough of what they have read to explain what the text is about in their own
words. To help your students learn how to do this, you may want to layer your summary
instruction, having them read text in English but allowing them to summarize it in their
native language. Eventually, though, you should move on to having the students
summarize in English. Scaffolding your instruction like this will definitely help your students
ease into true understanding of English texts.

Finding the main idea, important facts, and supporting details: While summarizing usually
requires a student to understand the main idea of a text, it is still important to discuss this
separately. Once students have summarized the text, you can ask questions that get to the
main idea, for example, “What is the point that the writer is trying to make?” Such questions
allow students to move from summarizing the entire text to pinpointing what is important.
The next step can be to ask follow-up questions, such as “How do you know that is the
point the writer is trying to make?” That requires a strong understanding of not only the
overall meaning of the words in a text but also how the different ideas in a text relate to
one another.
Sequencing: Sequencing asks students to take a step beyond summarizing the text.
Whereas summarizing the text concerns itself with simply understanding what happened,
sequencing requires students to label, categorize, and compartmentalize what happens in
the text. Students look at textual features to try to identify the important aspects of the
text, for example, the setting, the sequence of events, and the larger context of the text,
identifying how all of the parts of the text fit within the whole.

Relating background knowledge: It is always helpful when working with students who are
trying to learn a new language that you relate what they are learning to their background
knowledge. There are a couple of different ways that you can do this. As we mentioned
earlier, you can use cognates and your students’ native phonemes to help them
understand English root words and sounds. Another way is to help your students connect
thematically to the text, asking them to try to relate what is going on in the text to personal
experiences they have had. While this won’t necessarily directly help them learn the
language, it will help them make a stronger connection with it and therefore make it more
accessible.

3.1.4 Advanced reading skills

Making inferences: Once your students begin improving in their ability to understand
English text, the next step is to help them improve their ability to make inferences. Making
inferences means reading between the lines and accessing meaning that is not explicitly
stated. For example, if a man were to walk into the room, closing an umbrella, you would
infer that it was raining outside. No one specifically told you that it was raining, but you
were able to use context clues to draw that conclusion. Once students are more
comfortable understanding what they read, working on their inferential thinking will help
them learn how to see the meaning in a text that is not explicitly stated.

Drawing conclusions: This idea goes hand-in-hand with inferential thinking. To be able to
accurately draw a conclusion, a student needs to be able to understand the literal meaning
of a text and how that literal meaning can lead to a conclusion.

Comparing and contrasting: Comparing and contrasting is the next step along the line of
textual analysis. To compare and contrast two texts, a reader needs to understand the
purpose of the text as well as the strategies that a writer uses to convey meaning. This skill
can be extremely useful, as it easily lends itself to having students identify which text is
more effective.

Distinguishing between fact and opinion: As part of the evaluative process of reading,
distinguishing between what is fact and what is opinion can be an incredibly nuanced task.
It requires your students to really understand what the text is saying to evaluate whether
the text is based on opinion or fact. This can be difficult, especially when the text is
opinionated, with a speaker who presents his or her opinions as fact.

Self-questioning: As your students get more comfortable with reading texts on their own,
it is time to get them into the habit of reading actively. People tend to think of reading as a
passive activity because it is done quietly, but to really understand a text, you need to
constantly question what is going on. Having your students use annotations to express
their self-questioning will help them get into the habit of asking questions as they read.
This is also helpful because they can go back to text they have previously read and easily
point out the important information.

Problem solving: While problem solving is a cognitive skill, asking our students to solve
problems in English can be complicated even for students who are natural problem
solvers. Problem solving requires true comprehension, understanding beyond the explicit,
and the ability to think critically while working with a foreign language.

3.2 Auditory and visual discrimination

Both auditory and visual discrimination refer to our ability to perceive and distinguish
between different elements. The best way to understand these two concepts is by looking
at each one individually.

3.2.1 Auditory discrimination

Auditory discrimination refers to our brain’s ability to organize and categorize sounds,
thereby allowing us to make meaning of what we hear. While auditory refers to sounds and
reading is typically done silently, the ability to distinguish between different sounds
(phonemes) can affect our ability to sound out and identify vocabulary. The inability to
effectively access one’s auditory discrimination can impair someone’s reading
tremendously, especially when students are asked to read out loud. If someone has
trouble with auditory discrimination, they will have trouble:

 Understanding phonemes and how they are different. This is especially true with
phonemes that are similar, as we can see in the words “forty” and “fourteen.” The
subtle changes in the structure of these words may be difficult for someone who
has poor auditory discrimination to perceive.

 Learning to read. As we have already discussed, many of the early reading strategies
rely heavily on a student’s ability to understand and distinguish between different
sounds. This can add an extra hurdle for a new English language learner.
  Sometimes, struggles with auditory discrimination can affect students’ ability to
focus on what they are reading because they have difficulty blocking out
background noise.

Just because someone suffers from an auditory discrimination disorder, however, does not
mean they cannot learn a new language. Such a disorder simply provides a surmountable
obstacle on the path to success.

3.2.2 Visual discrimination

Visual discrimination refers to an individual’s ability to distinguish between letters, shapes,

numbers, and objects. While both are important, visual discrimination is much more
impactful on an individual’s ability to read than auditory discrimination. Auditory
discrimination affects an individual’s ability to sound out words, but visual discrimination
affects an individual’s ability to recognize which letters he or she is seeing. While it can be
difficult to identify when a student has a visual discrimination deficiency because it can
mask itself as just typical difficulties that students might have reading a new language, here
are some signs that you can look for:

 The student has trouble identifying letters and learning the alphabet. The difficulty will
be in recognizing the letters rather than being unable to remember what they are
called.
 Difficulty telling the difference between similar letters (e.g., b and d), similar numbers
(e.g., 6 and 9), and/or similar shapes (e.g., circles and ovals).

 Difficulty differentiating between words that have similar beginnings or endings.

Visual discrimination issues, just like auditory discrimination issues, can be overcome, but
reading is much more difficult for people with visual discrimination disorders. Here are
some potential classroom exercises that you can use to help students who struggle with
visual discrimination disorders or deficiencies.

 Using visuals that are bright and colorful to help students work on distinguishing
between clear shapes and colors.
 Using digital tools such as a laptop or tablet that can help make working on visual
discrimination fun for the students.
 Make learning about visual discrimination fun by using games or puzzles that
require the student to differentiate shapes or letters.
3.3 Forming associations

Very early on in the process of learning to read, students need to learn to form associations
between sounds (phonemes) and letters/words. This process is paramount to a student
understanding how English speakers turn sounds into words and how English words
convey meaning. Regardless of the age of your students or their native language, you will
need to help them learn typical English letter/sound associations. Here are the basic
principles behind teaching a student how to form strong letter/sound associations:

 Assessment: Every student is different, and you don’t want to assume that all of
your students are in the same place. Some students are coming to the English
language with a native language that shares many of the same sounds, while others
could be coming from a native language that uses none of the same sounds as
English. By properly and consistently assessing the letter/word association abilities
of your students, you can tailor your lesson planning to directly target deficiencies
and differentiate your instruction to address all skill levels.

 Sequential and systematic instruction: While pedagogy often dictates that you let
students guide their own learning, a skill like this needs to be taught systematically
and sequentially. In many ways, basic skills like these work best with old-school
instruction, which means you teach a concept, assess for that concept, teach
another concept, assess for both concepts, and continue with this process.
Continually build on the skills and knowledge that your students are attaining, and
keep returning to the basics to make sure they don’t forget them.

 Teach explicitly: Sometimes, it can be cool to lead a student to meaning without

the student really knowing where the lessons are going. When teaching letter/sound
associations, though, it is important to be explicit about your teaching. That means
you are clear with your students about what you are teaching them, what they are
learning, and why they are learning it. The more you get the student to accept the
process, the more success you will have.

 Do not focus just on reading: Learning letter/sound associations is not just a

reading skill; it is multisensory. Therefore, you should treat your instruction of the
skill as a multisensory skill. Use whatever resources you have available to help
students make the necessary associations. Use flashcards, pictures, digital games,
and any other modes of learning you can think of to get the job done. In this way,
you will help your students in more than just their reading.

3.4 Decoding

Once you have helped your students form strong associations between letters and sounds,
the next step is to work on decoding, which refers to displaying those associations by
rapidly turning the written word into speech. This is an essential part of language and is
most easily displayed when your students read aloud.

3.4.1 Common questions about decoding

Why is decoding important?

Decoding is important because it is the basis for most reading comprehension skills. An
inability to decode words leads to an inability to identify and understand vocabulary, a
difficulty building fluency, and difficulty with overall reading comprehension.

How can you tell if a student is struggling with decoding?

Students who are having trouble decoding often believe they are stuck or that reading is
something they just don’t do well. Here are some of the symptoms to look out for to
identify students who are struggling with decoding:

 The student feels stuck when they need to read a lot of words because they cannot
focus enough on any one word. This is common and manifests in students who can
decode single words when they are presented but have difficulty decoding those
same words if there are too many words at once or the words are coming at them in
quick succession.

 Students spend so much energy trying to decode the words they are reading and
say them properly that they are not comprehending what they read. In these cases,
students might not seem to be struggling too much when they are reading (though
they would not show complete fluency), but they would not have much of an idea
what they read when questioned.

 The student complains that he or she simply “does not know” how to sound out
words. This is usually a sign of frustration at the energy it is taking for them to
decode the words that are being presented to them.
 The student can identify letters and sounds and even the relationship between the
two but struggles putting them all together in a short amount of time.

Remember that these observations can reflect anything from a student struggling a little
with a new skill to a student having a learning disability that is inhibiting their ability to
decode words.

3.4.2 Common questions about decoding

How do I teach decoding to my students?

Here are some simple ways that you can help your students improve their decoding skills:
  When you are teaching a sound, use visuals to prompt the students to reinforce
their knowledge of sounds, and ask the students to say the sound out loud as
practice. This will help the students improve the speed at which they can decode
and also stimulate more of their senses as they learn, making it more memorable
and effective.

 Use phonics to drill the students and give them more and more practice with
sounding out phonemes and building to sounding out words.

 Use relevant reading and writing assignments that relate to what you are teaching.
If you are teaching the students a particular sound, find a written piece that really
highlights that sound so that the students can practice it in a practical manner.

 Don’t be afraid to use methods that will ask students to use their hands. Using
manipulatives is a great way to help students learn on a higher level and ensure that
the information you are teaching makes its way to the students’ long-term memory.

Try grouping your student homogeneously so that you can address specific problems
or struggles in pockets of students and make your job a little easier. This leads to
more individualized instruction and ensures that all of your students are growing
and not that the children who understand the material are constantly waiting
around for the others to catch up. 3.5 Reading for purpose

Now that your students have learned and mastered the basics of reading, it is time to move
towards higher-level thinking, which means reading for purpose. Up until this point, the
purpose for reading was comprehension, but there is so much more to being a strong
reader. Strong readers do not just understand the literal meaning of what they are reading;
they also understand the implicit meaning of what they read. Let’s take a look at some
simple strategies that will help your students read with purpose more effectively.

 Teach your students to be reflective about their own reading. Reading is an active
skill, not just a passive occurrence. If a child loves playing basketball, he cannot
expect to just sit on the court and let basketball happen; he needs to try. The same
principle applies to reading. Encourage your students to be aware of their reading,
what works for them, what helps them, and then to have the follow-through to do
what they need to do to read more effectively.

 Make sure that your students understand the purpose for which they are reading
something. If you take a passage completely out of context, it is not going to make
much sense, so give your students some context whenever you give them
something to read. Ask them to look for something specific, give them guiding
questions, or even just let them know why the piece is relevant to the curriculum.
  Invite the students in on the process of setting a purpose. Encourage them to
question the text and really delve into it to get meaning. Then encourage them to
identify their own purpose (with proper guidance, of course). When students have a
role in the planning process, they tend to be more invested in lessons.

 Model active reading for your students. So many teachers like to tell their students
to annotate a piece but don’t like to show them what that means. A good way to do
this is to take the first section of whatever you are going to have them read and go
over it as a class. As you go, show them how you would annotate the piece, what
kinds of questions you would ask, and when you would underline or highlight
words, phrases, or sentences. This will help them visualize what they are supposed
to do.

If you are able to take a student who does not know English from sounding out letters to
reading actively and fluently, you’ll know you have been successful.