JAYAKARAN MUKUNDAN, ABDOLVAHED ZARIFI

AND SEYED ALI REZVANI KALAJAHI

6. DEVELOPING READING MATERIALS

FOR ESL LEARNERS

INTRODUCTION

This chapter discusses the issue of material preparation for a language reading
course. It elaborates on some of the important elements that material developers
should take into account in selecting and presenting the reading materials.
Provision of materials is discussed in terms of the topics to be included and the
vocabulary components of the content materials. More specifically, it discusses
such topic-related issues as reader interest, needs, and schema that have been found
as key success in reading activity. It also deals with the selection and presentation
of vocabulary items that have proven to significantly affect reading performance.

SELECTION OF READING TOPICS

Reading is undoubtedly one of the most salient and dominant activities in any
language learning program. Not only does reading serve as a source of information,
but also as a means of increasing and consolidating one’s knowledge of the
language itself. That is why the ability to read is considered a valuable asset as it is
considered highly important for personal, social, and academic achievement.
In a pedagogic context, reading goals are varied. It might range from reading for
language learning to reading for comprehension. While reading for language is
usually practiced in the early stages of language learning, reading for
comprehension remains as the ultimate goal of most reading courses. In reading for
meaning, readers not only take meaning from but also bring meaning to the printed
material. It is even argued that in reading comprehension, reader contributes more
information than the print on the page. He brings to the reading task a valuable
body of background knowledge, experience, interests, emotions and culture. He
makes meaning out of the printed materials largely because of the efficient
interaction between his world knowledge and linguistic knowledge.
As Hoover and Gough (2011) argue, success in reading comprehension depends
not only on language comprehension but also on decoding skills. In other words,
readers should be able to both construct meaning from the language in which the
text is written and to identify and process the words and phrases in the reading
material.

M. Azarnoosh et al. (Eds.), Issues in Materials Development, 65–73.

© 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
J. MUKUNDAN et al.

Therefore, appropriate selection and effective presentation of the materials appear

to be the key for reader’s success.
With a wide variety of reading materials available to course developers, deciding
upon the topics and contents that would be really responsive to the needs, goals and
reading abilities of the reader is, in fact, a daunting task. There are, however, a
number of significant factors such as reader’s interest, background knowledge,
variety, relevance and authenticity of materials, etc. that developers should take into
account in preparing appropriate reading materials.
With the new approach to reading as a complicated process of interaction
between reader and material, interest in reading has gained noticeable attention
from the experts as it is often claimed that, in the absence of interest to read, very
little or perhaps no reading will take place. On the other hand, if the reader is
interested in the topics assigned, he will be ready to do his best to continue reading
and recreate meaning from the print. As a result, it lies with the material developers
to effectively design reading activities to generate interest and confidence in reader
and meet his objectives.
Reader will, naturally enough, take more delight and interest in reading the
topics that are closely related to his individual interest. It should not only be
interesting enough in terms of the reader preferences for certain subject matters or
topics (Individual interest) but it should also be interesting enough to be appealing
to the reader in terms of text characteristics such as novelty, importance, relevance,
ease of comprehension, triggering emotional reactions, variety and so on
(Situational interest). There is a massive body of research evidence supporting the
facilitating role of interest in enhancing the tendency to read more and benefiting
from reading activity. Reader is likely to have a better performance on high than
low-interest passages. High-interest passages tend to make reader read better,
attend more and work harder. For instance, interest, whether individual or
situational, has been shown to cause persistence in reading and result in increased
attention, better text processing, more recall of main ideas and deep comprehension
of the materials (Clinton & van den Broek, 2012; Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000;
Krapp, 1999; Schiefele, 1998). Interest in reading topics and topics of high interest
tend to build more confidence in reading ability as well.
In a similar way, if the reader fails to find any relevance of the reading materials
to the real world he is or will be experiencing, he becomes grossly reluctant to go
on with the task. Therefore, reading developers should attempt to develop materials
that develop the reader’s interest in the materials and correspond in one way or
another to his goals for reading. The ability to read effectively should be achieved
by carefully selecting the type of materials that enable students to read with ease
and pleasure. Throwing readers into materials that are not of any interest to them or
quite irrelevant to their present of future life experience results in their reluctance
and loss of confidence.
The reading content should be relevant to reader’s needs and mirror the language
materials that he is likely to encounter outside of the classroom as well. Reader
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