Thongsook College BA TESOL Teaching Tips

Helping students to become comfortable with reading faster.

"In repeatedly reading passages out loud very quickly to students, they begin to gain confidence in reading faster than they would have experimented on their own. More importantly, if they can see a measure of success, they will begin to appreciate that they can, depending on the reading selection and exercises that follow, read quite quickly."

-Timothy Cornwall, PhD

Extensive reading plays a vital role in improving language skills as it provides exposure to vocabulary, increases background knowledge, and helps develop reading fluency. However, if students lip-read and use a finger or a pencil when reading, both their reading speed and comprehension will be limited as they will be reading each individual word and not grouping of words. In short, they will be reading way too slowly to be able to undertake, enjoy, and benefit from extensive reading.

For example, the first sentence in this article has 22 words. Often, if students read word-by-word, by the time they get to the end of the sentence, they will have forgotten how it started. 

However, if they only use their eyes, the sentence should be divided into small sets of words (7 in this case), ensuring that by the time they finish reading this sentence, there is a much stronger possibility they will remember how it started, how it was put together, and its general meaning: Extensive reading / plays a vital role / in improving language skills / as it provides / exposure to vocabulary / and helps / to develop reading fluency.

To help students gain confidence in reading faster and to increase their success with extensive reading, I like to provide them with proof that they can read quickly while keeping comprehension at a level expected with extensive reading.

Selecting a reading passage

Many classroom textbooks include reading selections throughout the book. I look ahead through the material and select a decent length reading passage I have not covered in class. The length and difficulty will vary depending on the level being taught and should match their abilities while including as few new vocabulary items as possible.

Reading aloud

I begin by explaining that I am going to read aloud and mention how boring it is when someone does this in English. If possible, I will get students to agree that this is also true in their language.

I let them know I plan to read as quickly as I can and that when I am reading aloud, I want them to follow the text using only their eyes. I make it clear that I do not want to see any fingers or pencils near books and that I do not want students to read aloud with me.

I then provide a basic or general introduction about the topic or content. Pre-reading questions in the text could prove helpful and will save preparation time. If I do not like the questions provided, preliminary questions of my own are usually enough to ensure students are ready to listen to the reading and have drawn on their background knowledge to a certain extent.

With students ready, I read the selection as quickly as I can without sacrificing pronunciation. When I finish, I have students think about it for a minute and then reread it at the same speed.

Asking questions

Once I have finished reading aloud two times, I ask them to close their books and answer post-reading questions. At this point, most students must be able to answer most questions. While it might be tempting to include questions and exercises provided in the book, the key to success with this exercise is to ensure students can answer questions suited to extensive reading.

For example, if the selected reading is fiction, ask about the story. Did you like the story? Why did you like it? Did you like characters A or B? What would you do?

If the choice is non-fiction, ask about the content. Is it interesting? Why did you like it? Do you want to read more about this topic? 

While there will be comprehension questions they cannot answer, I will deal with these when the selected reading is reached later in the course, with the goal being to practice different reading skills.

Finally, I discuss whether they felt I had read too quickly and whether they had been able to keep up with the speed. If they answer that it was too fast, which is likely, I remind them about their answers concerning their language being read aloud and the fact that they were able to answer the questions asked based on a reading completed at extensive reading speed. The key is to have them recognize that with extensive reading, they can read quickly and that it is not necessary to remember every detail or be able to answer questions related to specific points in the reading. These needs are better suited to intensive reading, which is another and vastly different reading skill.

Dr Tim Cornwall has been teaching EFL for over 45 years. He is currently a faculty member of the Thongsook College International Program BA TESOL. He can be reached via email at dr.tim@thongsook.college.

Thongsook College

Faculty of International Programs

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Thawi Wattana, Bangkok, Thailand

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