Southern Leyte State University

College of Teacher Education

Graduate Studies

Innovative Strategies in Teaching Reading

NAME: Jessel Ann C. Navos

TASK 1

1) Discuss the Place of Reading in terms of the following:

a) As a human’s incredible achievement

 Reading is essential and serves as a basic building block for
learning regardless school language, be it language, arts, or even
math. It is an incredible achievement for someone to read. Reading
allows us to communicate across both time and space. The magic
of reading allows us to witness history on how it is made, be there
to magical worlds, gain wisdom and knowledge and keep in touch
with out love ones when we are a miles apart from them. This,
reading is amazingly a great accomplishment.

b) As a skill to be learned
 Reading is more than a fundamental skill. Learning to read is a
complex cognitive skill. A child needs support, encouragement, and
a lot of motivation to master reading. Unlike any other macro-skill,
reading is a crucial skill for me. Listening, speaking, and writing
were innate to us and naturally will come out to us as we develop
our cognitive skills, except if we have disabilities that will hinder us
to possess those skills. But reading takes a lot of time, effort,
motivation and patience for us or learners to achieve it. It should be
well-founded. Child cannot learn if no one is teaching him. Reading
is a skill learned through conscious effort and process learning
usually starts in our L1in the beginning of our formal education.

c) As an empowering skill
 Reading is a powerful tool that will help us to acquire language
subconsciously, when we read we focus on the meaning. When we
focus on the meaning we will involuntarily acquire language. As a
proficient reader in just one language is enormously empowering,
and having an ability in having more language increases it more.
2) Explain the concepts on
a) Purpose of Reading in Second Language (L2) Contexts
 The more you use your brain to learn new skills, the more your
brain's functions work. Learning a new language pushes your brain
to get familiar with new grammar and vocabulary rules. The primary
purpose of reading in second language contexts is to develop
language knowledge ( building vocabulary range) and
skills( reading fluency). In terms of developing language
knowledge, this could involve consciously looking out for and
exploiting the learning opportunities a text offers or may rely simply
on the benefits of exposure to target language.
b) Types of Reading in Second Language Contexts
 In second language contexts, they have intensive and extensive as
types of reading. Intensive reading essentially another term for
detailed reading, reading carefully to understand, and make use of
relatively short texts that are at the limit of comfortable intelligibility
for learners. Extensive reading on the other hand, is usually
associated with the reading of longer texts outside the classroom
and is principally for pleasure.

3) Compare and Contrast First Language (L1) and Second Language (L2)
Reading
 There are a lot of differences between learning to read in a first
language and second language. An L1 learner at around school
starting age will already know several thousand words and will have
an implicit understanding of how words are formed and go together.
While L2 learner will frequently be starting reading with a very
limited knowledge of lexis and grammar. The lack of such basic
linguistic knowledge as not knowing the meaning of a high
proportion of the words in a text is a major obstacle to successful
L2 reading.
 L2 reader has some knowledge of at least two languages. The L2
reader is likely to draw on knowledge from the first language,
perhaps looking for similarities in word forms, or anticipating text
structure. This resource is not available in L1 readers and the
success of such strategies will vary according to the background
language of the learner.
 Another key difference between L1 and L2 reading is the
environment in which happens. In many L2 settings, learners have
very limited opportunities to read, whereas in L1 readers will
typically be surrounded by text in their day-to-day lives and
activities. L1 readers will probably be motivated to learn to read as
it is a social expectation, key to life chances, and a stated
government educational goal. The L2 readers may see less reason
to read and may perhaps be motivated by the text types with which
they are presented in classrooms, particularly where they are
accompanied by anxiety-raising comprehension tests.