Teaching Reading and Writing Strategies

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Teaching Reading and WritingStrategies

• Lore Tulasiewicz
• let202_at_exeter.ac.uk

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Vocabulary Strategies

• We can often understand the main points of a text
  even when we dont understand every word.
• Strategies
• Leave out unimportant words
• Try to guess the meaning of an unknown word from
  the context.
• Use the dictionary only when nothing else works

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Skipping Words(Leaving them out)

• School Lunches Around the World
• We usually have stew or some other kind of meat
  and mashed potatoes.
• Do your students know what a stew is?
• Do they know the meaning of mashed?
• If not, does it matter?

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Guessing Strategies

• When I was a child we were very poor. But my
  father had a few things he was very proud of. His
  greatest fastam was a watch he becked from his
  grandfather. He kept it in a dimp in his desk and
  only brought it out on tachial days.

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How can you work out the meaning?

• His greatest fastam
• must be a noun grammar knowledge
• the father was proud of it/must be something
  special knowledge of the world
• becked
• must be a verb
• he got it from the grandfather/ to inherit
• A dimp noun/part of a desk drawer
• tachial before a noun/adjective - special
  days

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• To guess unknown vocabulary a reader uses
  knowledge of the world top-down processing
• grammar/word knowledge bottom-up processing

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Reading is an active process

• When reading a text a reader is constantly
  changing between top-down and bottom-up processes

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How can we help students to use these strategies
to understand a text?

• Pre-reading Tasks to activate prior
  knowledge/introduce keywords
• Preview Look at title/pictures
• Reading Tasks
• skimming/scanning
• Not just questions complete a table/reorder
  pictures

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Pre-reading tasks

• To activate knowledge
• Create interest
• Activate language - Keywords

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Questions before reading the textActivate world
knowledge

• 1. Where was Jane walking?
• 2. What did she hear behind her?
• 3. What was the necklace made of?
• 4. What did the thief steal (two things)?
• 5. What did the thief do next?

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The story

• Jane was walking down the street. It was late and
  very dark. Suddenly she heard footsteps behind
  her. She was afraid. It was a thief. He took her
  gold necklace, her bag and ran away.

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PicturesWorld knowledge and vocabulary

• Preparing a text about healthy living

What does he usually eat? What does he like doing?
What does he usually eat? What does he like
doing?
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Keywordsactivate vocabulary

• Pet shop
• Pets
• Happy
• Excited
• Scared

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Pre viewing
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Pre viewing
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Reading of the Text Tasks - Questions

• Next week John and his family are going to go to
  Australia. They will sleep in a hotel. They are
  going to go swimming and sightseeing.
• 1. Where is John going to go next week?
• 2. Where will he sleep?
• 3. Are they going to go swimming?

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Do all questions check understanding?

• They saw the zickish gambilong flabling in the
  rista.
• What was the gambilong like?
• What was he doing?
• Where was he doing it?

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Reading Tasks - ScanningIf a task is easy text
can be more difficult

• What time does Jenny get up?
• What time does she go to bed?
• Why is her mother worried?
• Jenny wants to do well in school and she is
  working very hard. She hopes to go to university
  and study medicine. Her days start at 5 oclock
  in the morning and finish at 12 midnight, every
  day, seven days a week.

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World Records

• Read and complete the table

The woman with the longest hair lives in Guangxi
Province China. Her name is Xie Qiuping. When
her hair was measured in 2004 it was 5,62 m
long. Her hair has not been cut since 1973, when
she was 13 years old.
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Reading Task - Skimming
Friday

• a) On Saturday afternoon Mr Smith had to do a lot
  of shopping.
• b) Monday morning Mr Smith was back in his
  office. He was very tired.
• c) Friday, 5.15 oclock at last. Mr Smith went
  home.
• d) Saturday morning Mr Smith was washing the car.
• e) Sunday afternoon Mr Smith was working in the
  garden.
• f) Sunday morning he washed the dishes. His wife
  watched TV.

Monday
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Writing Product or Process?

• Traditional Writing Tasks
• Grammar/Vocabulary exercises
• Answering questions
• Homework

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Product Writing

• The teacher is interested in the output
  grammar/spelling
• The student maybe mainly interested in the mark.
• For example
• He go to the store. 1
• They buys a role toilet paper. 0
• They eat chipps. 1
• 2/6

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Process Writing

• Create interest communicative tasks
• Pre-writing tasks
• Help while writing students can learn
  strategies/what good writers do
• Mark not just grammar, also communication

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Process Writing Tasks

• In real life
• We write for a reader
• We have a reason for writing/a purpose

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Process writing taskscommunicative

• Students have a map and decide where they live.
  Then they write a letter to a friend inviting
  him/her to a party at their house. The task is to
  describe the route so that the partner can find
  their house.

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(No Transcript)
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Other communicative Tasks

• Write a description of an alien/a monster ask a
  partner to draw it
• The aliens name is Aldi. He is small. He has two
  big eyes. His body is green. He likes eating
  grass.

Aldi
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Pre Writing Taks

• Help with
• Ideas
• Structure
• Language

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Mindmap
Food
Date
Spring Festival
Cleaning
Family
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Model
She has big eyes.
She looks serious
She has medium length hair
He has short hair.
She is wearing a red jacket.
He is wearing a blue school uniform.
I think he is funny.
He has small eyes.
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Poetry - Chinese Poems

• HSÜ KAN
• A wifes thoughts, III
• Since you, sir, went away,
• My bright mirror is dim and untended.
• My thoughts of you are like flowing water,
• Will they ever have an end?
• The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse

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I like poem

• Pattern

Icecream I like chocolate. I like strawberry. I
like vanilla, but I dont like banana
I like . I like . I like .. But I dont
like ..
From Writing simple poems V.Holmes/R.Moulton Camb
ridge 2001
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Writing in Class

• Group writing Jigsaw writing

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Marking for communication

• Dear Mark,
• We come Londen Mondey. Very tired.
• Whether rein. See meny things, casle,cherches.
  Fud not so well. Sosages and potates. Go back
  nekst wik. Bye, bye
• Peter