I stumbled upon some new reading strategies while observing my colleague, AJ Ferris. Typically I spent about 15 minutes on a reading activity – and I watched him teach the same reading over *gasp* 45 minutes!

To quote AJ as he spoke with students, “we are used to doing everything fast. Technology gives us instant gratification. But we are going to interact with this reading slowly – as a result you will increase what you understand”.

Here are some of his techniques and a few of my own for novice L2 learners to approach reading in the target language:

  1. Have the kids glance over the reading for stand out words. Share/write on board.
  2. Teacher reads the article/reading to the students S-L-O-W-L-Y. While I did this:
  • Students have highlighters to highlight words they KNOW or we can figure out together (cognates).
  • I had the reading on the smartboard and WROTE what kids share for the tough words
  • I did not translate every word/sentence, only the key words that may have blocked comprehension

3. In small groups, students broke up the reading and read it out loud in target language.

4. In small groups, students answer comprehension questions. At my level (novice), they did this in English.

*Students needed SEVERAL reminders NOT to start the questions until they were told 

Another approach I saw AJ use:

  1. Look over the text for main idea
  2. Students independently highlight COGNATES only
  3. Students independently highlight WORDS THEY KNOW only
  4. Students independently highlight WORDS THEY CAN FIGURE OUT
  5. Teacher reads to class
  6. Students answer comprehension questions

This technique is also known as Embedded Reading (see here for more), But, I recognized it as a version of the CLOSE READING associated with the COMMON CORE from a decade ago.

As a result of this style of scaffolding, I found my students had much higher success in the comprehension questions than my previous methods. However, I found it difficult to do this S-L-O-W activity 5 times in a row! I run fast paced and I really needed to tell myself to slow down, the kids weren’t bored.

Reading Groups

Thank you AJ Ferris for inviting me into your room. This observation was to help me as my school transitions to a Block schedule from 40 minutes.