DO WE TEACH

READING?

Supervisor:Mr.Kamal
Zghari
Trainee:Mohamed
oubedda
 QUIZ
Answer the following
questions and get a prize.
What is the first and last word
of Surah ” AL Alaq“?
How much (in terms of time
and number of books) do
Arabs read in comparison to
other nations of the planet?

 Quiz answers
Read__________________come close.

6mn___________________12000mn.

1/4page_________________11 books

www.alarabiya.com
 objectives
1. Reflect on the way we deal with
reading comprehension in our
classrooms.
2. spot and identify the problems
and challenges that face reading
teachers for the sake of
overcoming difficulties.
3. Celebrate and share successful
practices and by implication
eradicate less successful ones.
 outline
 Warm-up
 Objectives
 Outline
 The importance of reading
 Assumptions and misconceptions
 Reasons for teaching reading1
 Concept defining
 Models/approaches to reading
 Teaching reading in the Moroccan
context: state of the art
 Implications for classroom procedures.
 conclusion
 THE IMPORTANCE OF
READING
“To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point
of vantage which gives a view over wide
terrains of history, human variety, ideas,
shared experience and the fruits of
many inquiries.” A C Grayling.
“A capacity and taste for reading gives
access to whatever has already been
discovered by others.” Abraham Lincoln.
“Read in order to live.” Gustave
Flaubert
“Once you learn to read, you will be
forever free.”
Frederick Douglass
 Assumptions and
misconceptions
 Here are some assumptions about the
nature of reading. Do you agree with them?
Disagree? Agree; but with reservation?
 We need to understand all the words in
order to understand the meaning of a text.
 We gather meaning from what we read.
 Our understanding of a text comes from
understanding the words of which it is
composed.
Penny Ur(1992)
 Defining reading
“….reading is now generally understood
to be an active, purposeful, and
creative mental process in which the
reader engages in the construction of
meaning from a text, partly on the basis
of new information provided by that text
but also partly on the basis of whatever
relevant prior knowledge, feelings, and
opinions that reader brings to the task of
making sense of the words on the page”
Eskey (2001)
What good readers do
when they read?
Good readers are active readers
From the outset they have clear goals in
mind for their reading
Good readers typically look over the text
before reading ;noting such things as the
structure of the text and text sections that
might be most relevant to their reading goals
Make predictions about what is to come.
They read selectively –making decisions
about what to read carefully ;what to read
quickly;what not to read;what to reread and so
on.
 What good readers
do(cont)?
Good readers read different kinds
of text differently
when reading narrative;good
readers attend closely to the
setting and characters.
 when reading expository text
they frequently construct and
revise summaries of what they
have read
 REASONS FOR TEACHING
READING
 There are many reasons why people
have to read:
 For their careers.
 For study purposes.
 Or simply for pleasure
 In the TEFL context, reading is useful
and even necessary for language
acquisition. It has a positive effect on
students’ general language proficiency.
Krashen (1993) claims that
students who read frequently,
"acquire, involuntary and without
conscious effort, nearly all of the
so-called “language skills” many
people are so concerned about.
They will become adequate
readers, acquire a large
vocabulary, develop the ability to
understand and use complex
grammatical constructions,
develop a good writing style, and
become good (but not necessarily
perfect) spellers (p: 84).
 Approaches to Reading
Comprehension
1. Bottom-up approach:
 This model conceives of reading as a
linear process through which the
meaning is constructed by the
recognition of letters, associating
them to words, then to phrases and
sentences.
Bottom up processing
Starting from
sounds and letters
to make meaning
Identifying words
and structures
Focus on
vocabulary,
grammar,
organization
2. Top-down approach
 Reading is not a sequential conversion
of the graphic input and phonological
input; rather it is a psycholinguistic
game, through which the reader makes
predictions and anticipates meaning.
 While reading, the reader summons up
his knowledge of the word and his
experiences with the patterns of
language to interprete the message of
writer.
Top down processing
Comprehension
resides in the
reader
Reader uses
background
knowledge and
makes predictions
Teacher focus is on
meaning-generating
activities (Anderson
2008)
3. Interactive model (s):

 The interactive models are a reaction against the

bottom-up and top-down conceptions of the
process of reading. The interactive approaches
suggest that reading is not a linear process, but
an interaction of different skills and mechanisms.
 According to Grabe (1991), there are two
complementary interactive models of reading :
 The first holds that reading is an interaction of
both bottom-up (decoding) and top-down
(interpretative) skills.
 The second assumes that the process of reading
implies an interaction between new information
contained in the text and prior knowledge
brought by the reader and this is the model of
Schema theory.
 Reading terminology:concepts
defined
Task:

READING
 TEACHING READING IN THE
MOROCCAN TEFL CONTEXT:STATE
OF THE ART

 Task :
To what extent do you agree with the following
statement?
“Even if the teaching of reading is well-
articulated in the official guidelines
(2007) and also given paramount importance
in the exams, there seems to be a big
discrepancy between what is stated in that
document and what actually takes place in
most of our classrooms”. Anonymous.
1. Official guidelines.
 Why reading?
 Standards.
 Competencies.
 Procedures for teaching reading
(practical tips and activities).

2. Classroom reality.
 What’s in a reading lesson
PEER/PEAR
Preparing
Executing/performing
Evaluating/assessing
reflecting
Devising a lesson plan
Stages.
Skills/subskills/
strategies.
Materials.
PREPARE STUDENTS BEFORE
READING
Explore what ss already know about
the text
Discuss ss experiences related to the
text
Build background knowledge and
motivation for reading
Have ss make predictions
Discuss any other text related to the
topic
Introduce new vocabulary:crucial to
 Prepare students before
reading through: Pre-reading
activities
While-reading activities
 Post-reading activities

 Comprehension
 Critical analysis
and evaluation
 Summarizing or
paraphrasing
 Task-based
output
 Reflection and
integrated
activities
 recommendations

Develop and maintain

motivation
REFERENCE
S
 Paul Neil Cheryl Zimmerman Bill Grabe
Nation Anderson

a. b. c. d.

1. 2. 3. 4.