Principles of Teaching Reading

24 1 Before you read In this part, teachers should spend some time introducing a topic, encouraging skimming, scanning, predicting, and activating schemata. Students can bring the best of their knowledge and skills to a text when they have been given a chance to ―ease into‖ the passage, Brown, 2001: 315. 2 While you read In this part, teachers should give students a sense of purpose from reading rather than just reading because they are ordered to do that, Brown, 2001: 315. 3 After you read The focus of this part is a form of activity appropriate for post-reading. The activity can be in the form of studying vocabulary, identifying the author‘s purpose, discussing the author‘s line of reasoning, examining grammatical structures, or steering students toward a follow up writing exercise, Brown, 2001: 315. In line with Brown, William in Al – Issa 2006: 44 identifies three phases in teaching reading. They are pre-reading phase, reading phase, and post- reading phase. The teacher should be able to build students‘ background knowledge in pre-reading phase. In reading phase, the students may read about the subject, while in the post-reading phase, the teacher may check students‘ comprehension related to the text. Based on Brown‘s and William‘s arguments, pre-reading phase or ―before reading‖ phase is the best phase to activate students‘ background 25 knowledge. In line with Brown and William, Moreillon 2007: 19 says that understanding the importance of background knowledge to comprehension is critical because we connect new information with prior knowledge before we integrate and organize the new information. Such activities as introducing a topic, encouraging skimming, scanning, predicting, and activating schemata may happen in this phase. Furthermore, Willis 2008: 131 – 132 proposes four activities that may happen in pre-reading phase. Those activities are: 1 Building interest and attention The teachers may ask questions about the topic that attracts the students‘ interest. Reading a surprising or intriguing passage from the book can be the start of a discussion that allows students to give opinions as to what it might mean and in what context. This discrepant event builds insights that they can use later in prediction activities. 2 Exploring Key Words Exploring key words here is closely related to building students‘ vocabulary. Such ways as connecting with prior knowledge, creating examples, using visualization and illustrations, using real objects and realia, and using semantic mapping may be conducted in this phase. 3 Building Connection and Background Knowledge To bring all students up to the level of background knowledge needed, consider the suggestion of Vygotsky that learning always proceeds from the known to the new. When teachers provide background knowledge before 26 reading, story comprehension improves. Consider classroom activities that connect their real life or experiences to the book they read. 4 Establishing Reading Goals Even after students get the big picture, it is motivating for them to know why the text is important enough to be worth their effort. In addition to the real world interests and connections they develop during big picture activities, consider how each student in the class can develop personally meaningful goals to keep him or her engaged and focused during the reading. When part of their goals includes finding information to support their predictions or to answer their questions, students approach the reading with more motivation. Their goals can give them a purpose for reading, encourage them to monitor their comprehension, and stimulate active thinking as they read. Considering the activities in pre-reading phase proposed above, activating background knowledge becomes one of the important parts in pre – reading phase. It relates what the students already had in their head with the new information in the text. It helps them to prepare themselves in facing a new text and to comprehend an English text easily. Teachers should follow the reading lesson sequences in the teaching and learning process of reading in order to make it become successful. One of the steps in the sequences, i.e., pre-reading phase is considered as the most important step in the teaching and learning of reading. It is because in pre- reading step, the teacher must be able to attract students‘ attention toward the