Teaching Reading in Junior High School
1 Principle 1: Reading is not a passive skill.
To be successful in reading, the students need to work actively, like understanding what the words mean, working with the grammar and structure, seeing the pictures if
provided, and understanding the arguments. 2
Principle 2: Students need to be engaged with what they are reading. This will give benefits if the students pay a lot of interests on what they are reading.
3 Principle 3: Students should be encouraged to respond to the content of a reading text,
not just to a language. The students should be given chances to give comments about the topic. The focus of
the reading activity is not only the language, but the content as well. 4
Principle 4: Predicting is a major factor in reading. Hints are needed before the students read. The hints can be from the book covers, the
photographs, the headlines or from the teacher. 5
Principle 5: The teacher should match the task to the topic. The teacher should design a challenging and interesting task to the students so that
they will not get bored with the activity. 6
Principle 6: Good teachers exploit reading texts to the full. The follow-up to the tasks is a discussion about the text. The discussion can be about
the favorite characters in the text or the most interesting things in the text.
The principles above should be considered by the teacher when teaching reading to junior high school students. Those principles should be a consideration in designing the
materials, media, and activities in the classroom.