2 Helping students to understand a text while they read it
Giving students a pre-reading activity helps them prepare for what they are going to read. Giving students time to read silently on their own (Figure 1) may also help them to understand – and enjoy – their reading. In the following, you will look at activities that you can give your students while they are reading silently to help them understand what they are reading.
In order to help your students understand what they read while they are reading silently, it is important to give them some focus for their reading. Looking for answers to questions, for example, gives your students a purpose for reading a text and helps them to focus on the meaning of what they are reading.
Giving your students questions to answer while reading will also help you to assess how much the students understand. Students will read at different speeds, and will understand different things. Walk around the classroom as your students read. Note which students are having problems answering questions and which students find the activity easy.
Activity 3: Try in the classroom – using silent reading to help your students to understand a text while they read it
Follow these steps to try silent reading in your classroom:
- Select a text that your students haven’t read yet (perhaps the next one in the textbook). It can be any kind of text – prose, poetry, a play or a newspaper or report. It could be the same text that you used in Activity 1.
- Before class, read the text. Think of four or five questions that you can ask about it. If it is a long text, think of questions you can ask about one section of it. Make sure that the questions are about the meaning of the text and what happens in it (for example, ‘What advice does the writer give?’), and not about the language used in it (for example, ‘What does “doth” mean?’). See Resource 1 for an example of a text (a letter) and some questions you could ask about its meaning. You can learn more about asking questions in the unit Whole-class reading routines.
- In class, give students your questions about the text. You could write these questions on the board, or dictate them. Do this before students read the text.
- Tell students to read the lesson or text. If it is more than two or three paragraphs, ask them to read just one part of it. Ask students to read silently and find the answers to the questions. Tell them it’s not important that they understand every word. Give them a time limit. As students read, walk around the room to check that everyone is reading and to deal with any problems or questions.
- When the time limit is up, ask students to answer the questions. You could elicit responses from the whole class, or they could work in pairs to compare their answers. They can use their home language if they are having trouble saying what they want to in English. Try to help them – or have them help each other – if they are struggling to express themselves. Resist the temptation to answer the questions yourself. Be patient and allow the students to answer.
- Ask your students what else they learned from the text or found interesting in it, and ask them to give reasons why.
- After this activity, or in a following class, you could move on to look at the text and the language used in it in more detail if you feel like students haven’t understood it well.
 Pause for thought Here are some questions for you to think about after trying this activity. If possible, discuss these questions with a colleague.
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Time limits are important because some students will read faster than others, and some will understand more than others. Nonetheless, all students will have been able to read at least some of the lesson in the time you set, and will have some understanding of the content. If some students finish before others, they can read the lesson or a section of the lesson again.
When they read silently, your students will not understand every word. They don’t need to, and this is quite normal the first time they read something. What is important is that they understand the most important information, or the message of the text. The questions that you ask them should help them to find that message. With practice, students will become better at reading on their own.
For most people, it is easier to enjoy and understand a text when reading silently. In the English classroom, however, students are often asked to read texts aloud – or teachers read texts aloud to their students. Reading aloud can be a useful technique. However, doing it all the time can hinder students’ progress in learning to read independently.
1 Preparing students to read