Course: Reading Comprehension in the English Class

Year: 2017

Virtual hours: 60

Rationale

A lot has been said and written about the difficulties students present when developing Reading comprehension
skills in their mother tongue. Although at first sight the development of these skills in a second or foreign language
may seem an extra demand, studies point out that the skills developed in one language reinforce and maximize
competencies in another. This is why the role of English teachers in the development of reading strategies is crucial
for this transfer to take place. It is the teacher that selects (that is adopts, adapts or rejects) a text and designs or
re-formulates activities which are suitable to the cognitive and linguistic level of their students to encourage
reading comprehension as a true instance of communication between writer and reader. Informed decisions and
conscious planning of reading lessons can help students approach a variety of text types more autonomously
every time.

Aims:

 To reflect on our role as readers.

 To understand the theoretical assumptions underlying Reading comprehension as a communicative event.
 To explore different types of texts, strategies and approaches intervening in the reading process.
 Select suitable material and design significant activities to increase learner autonomy.

Contents

 Types of Reading, their purposes and standing in the teaching of foreign languages.
 Types of texts, their characteristics and reading purposes. New text types in the digital age: text and
hypertext.
 Different reading strategies. The role of schema and scaffolding. Top down and bottom-up processing.
Skimming and scanning.

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 The process of reading: pre, while and post reading activities. Different types of questions and exercises.
 Criteria for the selection of adequate text and the design of suitable activities.

Structure of the course

Lesson Topics
Lesson 1 The role of the reader.
What is reading comprehension?
Reading as a communicative event.
Lesson 2 Schema theory and scaffolding: their place in the teaching of reading.
Pre-reading activities.
Lesson 3 Top-down vs bottom up approaches to reading.
Reading strategies: skimming, scanning.
While-reading activities.
Compulsory Designing pre-reading activities for a given text.
assessment activity 1
Lesson 4 Different types of texts: their characteristics and reading purposes. Post-reading
activities.

Lesson 5 Different types of knowledge and cognitive demand intervening in the reading
process.
Suitability of a variety of exercise types: questions, true-false, fill in the blanks.
Compulsory Designing while-reading activities for a given text.
assessment activity 2
Lesson 6 Reading in the digital age: screen vs. paper. Challenges and implications for students.
Characteristics of a digital text. Annotation.
Final Project Brief guided revision towards the final Project.
Rubric: Design a lesson plan for the teaching of reading comprehension taking into
account their own teaching-learning context (students’ age, interlanguage level,
aims of the lesson, etc. Include the rationale for text selection and activities.

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Activities

The activities types participants will be involved in include anticipation, reading and understanding, reflection, and
application of the concepts developed.
● Reading of material selected in relation to the topics.
● Analysis of a variety of reading comprehension activities.
● Selection of activities that teachers commonly use in the classroom, to be shared with other participants.
● Analysis and assessment of the reading material of the course.
● Design of reading activities: theory in action.
● Reflection on the implementation of the activities.

Course requirements and criteria for evaluation

To pass the course, participants will be required to:

● Pass the two compulsory activities, complying with format and deadline.
● A minimum of one participation in each forum and the wiki.
● Pass the final project
Criteria for evaluation:

During the course

● Provide constructive comments in the forums and wiki.

● Adequate application of contents in both compulsory activities.
For the final project

● Appropriate selection of a text taking into account the teaching context, the level, age of the students
and the objectives of the lesson.
● Observe thematic development and progression of difficulty along the activities that are planned in the
Reading comprehension lesson.
● Suitability of activities in line with the objectives of the class.

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 ● Appropriate justification of the choices made throughout the lesson.

Bibliography

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Effective Reading Instruction: An Overview of What We Know and How We Know It”. Retrieved from:
http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/onreading (Accessed December 2016)

McCaw, Donna (2003). “Traits of Good and Struggling Readers”. Retrieved from
http://www2.bakersfieldcollege.edu/erodacker/traits-of-good-and-struggling-readers---page-2.html

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http://www.nwlincs.org/mtlincs/opi/reading/worksheets/Reading%20Behavior%20of%20Good%20and%20Poor
%20Readers.pdf (Accessed December 2016)

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Gilakjani, Abbas and Seyedeh Ahmadi (2011). The Relationship between L2 Reading Comprehension and Schema
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Parviz Ajideh (2003) Schema Theory-Based Pre-Reading Tasks: A Neglected Essential in the ESL Reading Class.
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Zhang, Chao (2010) The Teaching of Reading Comprehension under the Psychology Schemata Theory. Journal of
Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 457-459, July at
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(Accessed December 2016)

Cassany, D., Gloria Sanz y Marta Luna (2007) Enseñar Lengua. Retrieved from
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gua&hl=es&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-
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Accessed January 2017

Prensky, Marc (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, retrieved from

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-
%20Part1.pdf

Rogers, Catherine. The digital native – de-constructed. University of Sussex. Retrieved from
https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=reading-technologies-and-their-effect-on-the-
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Singhal, M. (2001) "Reading Proficiency, Reading Strategies, Metacognitive Awareness and L2 Readers", The
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