3 Checking understanding of a lesson after reading it

Once students have read a text, they will probably have some understanding of the most important things that have happened, or the most important things that the writer is saying. They will also have some understanding of the vocabulary and language. After reading the text, you should check how much students have understood.

Activities that you could use to check students’ understanding of a text include the following:

  • Comprehension questions: You may find these in the textbook, or you can create your own. Write them on the board or dictate them to your students. An alternative is to ask students to write their own comprehension question in groups after reading a lesson. Groups exchange questions and answer each other’s (see the unit Whole-class reading routines).
  • Discussions and summaries: Students discuss in groups what they have understood about the text. They could write a summary of what happened, or the most important points in the text.
  • Grammar and vocabulary development: Lessons in textbooks have examples of vocabulary and grammatical structures that your students can learn about and use (see the unit English grammar in action). After reading a lesson, do activities in which your students use some of these words or structures. For example, ask them to write some sentences or a paragraph using some of the new vocabulary for the lesson.

Activities in which you check how much students have understood about a text, or encourage them to use language from a passage, are called post-reading activities. They help you and your students to see how much they have understood, and they help students to use new language.

Activity 4: Planning and carrying out a post-reading activity

Think about a lesson using a text you are going to teach next week. Look at the ideas for post-reading activities and decide which you will use with your class. For more information on planning lessons, see Resource 2.

Plan and carry out the lesson using the post-reading activity. As students do post-reading activities, walk around the room to check what they have understood, and use this as part of your assessment of students’ progress in reading.

Did this activity help you to assess the students’ understanding? How will you use your assessments in planning your next lesson? For more information on assessment, see Resource 3.

2 Helping students to understand a text while they read it

4 Combining techniques