Teaching Reading

for Academic Purposes

Chapter 13

Jimin Park, Iuliia Rychkova

What is involved in reading for academic
purposes?

Students need to:

• Identify main ideas and details;
• Distinguish between fact and opinion;
• Draw interferences;
• Determine author’s stance and bias;
• Summarize, synthesize, and extend textual information to
new task (class project, oral presentation, etc.)
Skilled reading requires
• Decoding graphic forms for efficient word recognition;
• Accessing the meaning of a large number of words automatically;
• Drawing meaning from phrase- and clause-level grammatical information;
• Combining clause-level meanings into larger networks for text comprehension;
• Using reading strategies for a range of academic reading tasks;
• Setting goals for reading and achieving them;
• Using inferences of various types;
• Drawing on prior knowledge as appropriate;
• Evaluating, integrating, and synthesizing information for critical reading
comprehension;
• Maintaining these process fluently for extended periods of time;
• Sustaining motivation to persist in reading.
7 Principles for effective IAP reading
1. Use reading resources that are interesting, varied, attractive, and
accessible.

2. Connect readings to students’ background knowledge.

3. Give students some choice in what they read.

4. Provide students with opportunities to experience comprehension

success.
7 Principles for effective IAP reading
5. Build expectations that reading occurs in every lesson.

6. Structure lessons around pre-,during, and post-reading tasks.

7. Plan instruction around a curricular framework that integrates goals

for development of reading abilities.
Objectives at the pre-reading stage
Objectives during reading
Objectives at the post-reading stage
 Promote word recognition effectively
• Word and phrase recognition exercise (+ timer)
 Promote word recognition effectively
• Lexical access fluency exercise (+ timer)
Matching of the key words with their synonyms or definitions under
timed conditions.
 Build a large recognition vocabulary
• Concept-of-definition map introducing vocabulary
 Build a large recognition vocabulary
• Creating vocabulary-rich classroom environment
 Create opportunities for comprehension
skills practice
• Questioning the author approach
 Create opportunities for comprehension
skills practice
• Elaborate interrogation
 Develop the strategic reader and promote
strategic reading
 Develop the strategic reader and promote
strategic reading
• KWHL chart
 Build students’ reading fluency
• Rereading
 Build students’ reading fluency
• Repeated reading
 Motivate students to read
Future trends
• The need to read well, strategically, and for different purposes will
remain vital for academic success.

• The authors hope to see a greater commitment to reading in

language curricular in addition to the teaching (rather than the
testing) of comprehension.

• They also hope the teachers will ask their students to read in and
outside class because students cannot become skilled readers unless
they read – and read a lot.