Teaching Reading & Writing

Teaching Reading & Writing
Latricia Trites, Ph.D.
Academic Advisor
Fulbright Yilan Project 2008-2009
An outline of the material from chapters 20-21: Brown, H.D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An
interactive approach to language pedagogy (3rd ed). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
Terms and Concepts related to
Teaching Reading
• Bottom-up processing
• Top-down (conceptually driven) processing
• Schema Theory (background knowledge)
– Content Schema
– Formal Schema
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Strategic Reading
Extensive Reading
Fluency and reading rate
Role of Vocabulary
Role of affect and culture
Genres of Written Language
• In other words, how many different types
of reading do we encounter?
Characteristics of Written
Language vs. Spoken Language
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Permanence
Processing Time
Distance (time and space)
Orthography
Complexity
Vocabulary
Formality
What do Good Readers Do?
Reading Comprehension
Strategies
1. Identify purpose for reading
2. Use graphemic rules and patterns to help with
bottom-up decoding
3. Use silent reading to improve fluency
(intermediate/advanced)
4. Skim
5. Scan
6. Use semantic mapping
7. Guess meaning
8. Analyze vocabulary
9. Distinguish literal/implied meanings
10. Use discourse markers
Types of Classroom Reading
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Oral
Silent
Intensive
Extensive
Tips for Teaching Reading
• Balance authenticity with readability
• Encourage the development of reading
strategies
• Include both bottom-up and top-down
techniques
• Use SQ3R method (Survey, Question,
Read, Recite, and Review)
• Use Prereading, During reading, and Post
reading phases
• Build Assessment into reading instruction
Tips for Teaching Vocabulary
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Prepare class time for teaching vocabulary
Teach vocabulary in context
Minimize the use of bilingual dictionaries
Help develop vocabulary learning
strategies (guessing meaning)
• Encourage “unplanned” vocabulary
teaching
Reading Tasks
• Imitative
– Reading aloud
– Copying (reproducing in
writing)
– Multiple choice recognition
– Picture-cued identification
• Selective
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m/c grammar/vocabulary tasks
Contextualized m/c
Sentence-level cloze
Matching tasks
Grammar/vocabulary editing
Picture-cued tasks (choose
among…)
– Gap-filling (sentence
completion) tasks
• Interactive
– Discourse level cloze
– reading comprehension
questions
– Short answer responses
– Discourse editing tasks
– Scanning
– Re-ordering (sequencing)
– Responding to charts, graphs,
diagrams
• Extensive
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Skimming
Summarizing
Responding in essay format
Note taking, highlighting, etc.
Outlining
Break-out Activity
Terms and Concepts Related to
Teaching Writing
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Composing vs. Writing
Process vs. Product
Contrastive Rhetoric
L1 vs. L2 Writing
Authenticity of Writing (real vs. display)
Responding to Student Writing
Voice and Identity
Types of Written Language (refer to reading
segment)
• Characteristics of Written Language (refer to
reading segment)
Types of Classroom Writing
Performance
• Imitative
• Intensive
– Controlled
– Guided
– Dicto-comp
• Self-writing
– Journals
– Dialogue journals
• Display
• Real
– Academic
– Vocational/technical
– personal
What do Good Writers Do?
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Focus on Writing Goal (main idea)
Gauge audience
Take time to plan
Let their ideas flow onto paper
Follow general organizational plan as they write
Get and use feedback
Are not fixated on a particular surface structure
Revise their work (willingly & efficiently)
Make as many revisions as needed
Tips for Teaching Writing
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Teach effective writing strategies
Balance both process and product
Allow for cultural and literary backgrounds
Connect reading and writing
Provide many opportunities for authentic writing
Use prewriting, drafting, revising stages
Provide opportunities for interaction (pair/group
work)
• Respond to writing sensitively
• Provide clear instructions on rhetorical and
formal conventions of writing
Assessing Writing
• USE A RUBRIC
• Create a checklist to ensure that you
FAIRLY evaluate the strengths and
weaknesses of the writing, not the
character or attitude of the writer.
Writing Tasks
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– Handwriting letters, words,
punctuation
– Keyboarding
– Copying
– Listening cloze
– Picture-cued writing exercises
– Completing forms/questionnaires
– Converting numbers and
abbreviations to words
– Spelling tasks
– One-word dictation
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Imitative
Intensive
– Dictation of phrases/simple
sentences
– Dicto-comp
– Grammatical transformation
exercises
– Picture descriptions
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Responsive
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Use vocabulary in a sentence
Ordering task
Short –answer tasks
Sentence completion tasks
Paraphrasing
Guided writing (question/answer)
Paragraph construction
Responding to a reading or
lecture
Extensive
– Essay writing tasks
– Task in different types of writing
(narrative, description, argument,
etc.)
– Tasks in genres of writing (lab
reports, opinion essays, research
papers
References
• Brown, H.D. (2007). Teaching by
principles: An interactive approach to
language pedagogy (3rd ed). White Plains,
NY: Pearson Education.
• Richard-Amato, P.A. (2003). Making it
happen: From interactive to participatory
language teaching theory and practice
(3rd ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson
Education.