POST-READING ACTIVITIES

Post-reading activities help students understand texts further, through critically analyzing
what they have read and these are carried out after you have implemented successfully Pre-
Reading Activities and While-Reading Activities. Post or After Reading activities help students
use the newly learned words and promote the use of the language in creative ways.

Examples of Post-Reading Activities

Remember that post-reading activities are freer activities that tend to focus mainly in two
skills:speaking and listening.

1. Creative Writing

Ask students to choose 10-15 words from the text. You can provide categories for the words
e.g. the most interesting words / the most important words. Students then write a text using the
words. This text could be a story/ poem.

2. Creative Discussions

Prepare four or five simple questions and ask students to talk about those question for 3 minutes
and after that ask one member of each pair to go and talk to another person of the group.

3 Quiz Your Classmates

Ask your students to prepare 5 questions about what they read, once they have them ready, you
can tell the students to make groups of 4 and then they can ask those questions to each other.

4 Finding Related News

After students have finished reading, they can browse on the internet for news related to
something they read, for example: if they read something about moral and values, they can find
examples of altruism on the web and they can share that information with their classmates.

5. Prepare a Survey

Students can prepare a survey about the information they just read,:What would you do if you
you were in his/her situation? What would you do if you had to make such a decision? They
can prepare the survey in class and ask the survey to their classmates.

6. Questions from Pictures

Teachers shows a collage and ask student to look at the collage carefully and how some of the
pictures relate to the reading they did.They can organise the picture to recreate the plot.

7. Character Analysis

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If you read a story, there must be one or two characters involved, analyze those characters and
prepare a set of question that you would like to make them. When all classmates have prepared
their questions, ask them to give you their answers and then as a group try to answer the
questions.

8. A Graphic organizer

Also known as a concept map or mind map is usually a one-page form with blank areas for
learners to complete with ideas and information which are connected in some way.’
Encourage students to use graphic organizers to help them visualize concepts and key
relationships between ideas from their readings. These should be started right after students
have completed a reading, whereas revisions and additions can be done after class
discussions.It's a good idea to show students several examples of graphic organizers and explain
which ones work well with different text patterns:

How can Graphic Organizers Improve Learning?

1. can help convey large chunks of information concisely.

2. encourage strategic thinking: describing, comparing and contrasting, classifying,
sequencing, identifying cause and effect,etc
3. can be used to aid reading comprehension, students can brainstorm around a topic,
summarize texts and do other learning activities, such as organizing and storing
vocabulary, planning research, writing projects, etc
4. are easy to use with all levels and ages
5. are non-linear and thus allow for multiple connections between ideas

9. The End of the Story

Another post-reading activity is asking learners to change the end of the story or to continue
the story.

10.Summary Writing

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Ask students to write a summary of the main points of a text or passage. Figuring out what to
include in a summary is often a difficult task for students, so passing out a handout with the
criteria for a good summary can serve as a reminder to students.Modeling the process of good
summary writing during class is also helpful. For example, when students have finished a
portion of text, begin a discussion of the most important points from the text. Write all the
points that students suggest on the board. Discuss which ideas should be included in the
summary. In addition, show how ideas can be paraphrased and written in the student's own
words.Remember to emphasize that minor details, specific examples, and opinions should not
be included in a summary of a text.

A good summary should be comprehensive, concise, coherent, and independent. These

qualities are explained below:

 A summary must be comprehensive: You should isolate all the important points in
the original passage and note them down in a list. Review all the ideas on your list, and
include in your summary all the ones that are indispensable to the author's development
of her/his thesis or main idea.
 A summary must be concise: Eliminate repetitions in your list, even if the author
restates the same points. Your summary should be considerably shorter than the source.
You are hoping to create an overview; therefore, you need not include every repetition
of a point or every supporting detail.
 A summary must be coherent: It should make sense as a piece of writing in its own
right; it should not merely be taken directly from your list of notes or sound like a
disjointed collection of points.
 A summary must be independent: You are not being asked to imitate the author of
the text you are writing about. On the contrary, you are expected to maintain your own
voice throughout the summary. Don't simply quote the author; instead use your own
words to express your understanding of what you have read. After all, your summary is
based on your interpretation of the writer's points or ideas. However, you should be
careful not to create any misrepresentation or distortion by introducing comments or
criticisms of your own.

Procedures: How to prepare for a summary

1. Understand the text.

2. Underline the sentences which are important for the summary.
3. Divide the text into paragraphs.
4. Find headings for the different paragraphs.
5. Write down key-words (not more than 20) which are important for the summary.
6. Learn the vocabulary and the structures you need for the summary
7. If necessary transform direct speech into reported speech
8. Write the summary in your own words using conjunctions, relative clauses
or participle constructions.