Reading

What are some student-centered approaches or techniques for reading?
Sources:
 * Learning to Read: If you encounter a child who is struggling to learn how to read, try and find out what that child is passionate about and seek out books that deal with that topic. Kyle may be fascinated by trains - he will likely want to read about them. Similarly Noreen may love baby animals - learning to read with the adventures of a puppy or a kitten will likely be more motivating to her.
 * Running Dictation: This is always a fun activity for reading and helps students with many other skills as well. Make a copy of the text and post it in two or three places around the room. Put students in pairs or groups of three. Assign or have students choose a “runner”. The "runner" will go to the text on the wall and quietly or silently read a small section. Depending on the student and the text, this may be one or two words, or it may be a whole sentence. Then the “runner” will return to his partner, the “writer”. The runner will tell the "writer" what to write. Then the runner should repeat this process several times, traveling back and forth between wall and partner with information. After a couple minutes, have students change roles. The writer becomes the runner and the runner the writer. In a group of three, students can rotate.
 * This can be done with a focus on accuracy or spelling. There are many options, and it ensures that students are reading, speaking, listening, and writing, not to mention it is fun! A variation of this is Pair Dictation, where students stay in their seats and read to their partners.
 * To use technology with this technique, give the students laptops or iPads. One student will type what the other student can see. This will allow students to become more adept at typing and manipulating a Word Processing program.
 * Sometimes reading requires many pages to be completed in a short amount of time. This can cause a quite grueling pace with little time to reflect or discuss if each student has to do each page alone. As a solution, assign pair work for reading text and completing questions. For example, with eight students and two readings, four students can read one text and answer the questions, the other four students can read the second text and answer the questions. After a given amount of time, the pairs can turn and talk to create small groups, two students from text one and two students from text two. This activity has many different variations. It can also work pairs to pairs, one student from text one and one student from text two, which increases the responsibility of each individual student. Pairs to groups helps build confidence and also allows for an odd number of students. This idea is loosely based on "Jigsaw" (Interactive Learner-Centered Instruction, n.d.).
 * Using a journal while reading can help students keep track of their thoughts and feelings about the materials which they are reading. Depending upon the grade level, this can be something as simple as allowing kids to make bookmarks which are themed after the subject of the book and then righting down on the back of the book things which they find interesting or things which are challenging to them. Older students can do the same but in a spiral bound notebook. In either case, students can then break off into groups in order to discuss the things they found interesting or challenging.
 * Group discussion can also be used to make reading assignments more relevant. An excellent example of this is given by the Bridge TEFL group, they write, " People can react to Poe’s “The Raven” by describing strange sounds they have heard at night while alone in the house."(Bridge TEFL, 2015). The idea is to give students an opportunity to make the reading relevant to themselves and their world. Whether this activity is done in small groups or with the class as a whole would be up to the individual instructor.
 * When you have a long or complex passage for students to read, many if not all will benefit from "chunking". This means breaking down the task by: breaking up the long passage into a series of smaller ones; checking words the students do not know and either looking them up or investigating how the meaning might be found from context and perhaps finding known or understandable synonyms for those words; underlining key phrases and concepts (perhaps with a system of different color highlighters). Chunking may also involve reading pieces of text out loud and/or having students provide a paraphrase of key parts of the text. It can then involve class discussion of the highlighted activities before, finally, the students engage in the culminating activity such as writing an essay or commentary (Teaching Strategies).
 * Designing student-centered activities after reading motivates English Language Learners to read and write on all levels. There are many suggestions for the classroom, but these don't replace work on reading subskills, but actually build bridges  to meaningful speaking and writing.  Imagine what's possible when working with a longer reading.  Because identity and names form an important part in some English language books for these students, students discussed and wrote about their own origins and names after reading some new English books their teachers read with them.  They found both connections to other students (named for grandfathers, etc...) and ways in which their naming was unique to themselves as well. Here is a general approach to personalize ANY reading:  1) Look for the reading's underlying themes. 2) Choose a topic that connects the reading to the current lives or personal histories of your students  3) Design an activity in which students use English to express who they are and connect with others.  These activities could takes forms as discussions, role-plays or student-designed plays, debates, drawings, surveys, research and reports, and the list goes on!  In these classrooms, reading work is about more than skill building.  It's a jumping off place for social and expressive language activities!  Even though this was ESL related, I believe the assignments on the readings provided excellent activities for the children to break apart the hearts of the books.

BRIDGE TEFL; Cloud, N, Lakin, J & Leininger, Erin (2011) Learner-Centered Teaching: The Core of Effective Practices

Bridge TEFL. (2015). Reading Techniques for Learner-Centered Instruction. TEFL Insider. Retrieved from http://www.bridgetefl.com/reading-techniques-for-learner-centered-teaching-part-i-thats-just-like-my-cousin/

Cranage, Stephanie. (2015) Reading Strategies. ''A Teacher Inquiry. ''Retrieved from https://www.ed.psu.edu/pds/teacher-inquiry/2008/cranages.pdf

Interactive Learner-Centered Instruction (pdf). n.d. On Course Workshop. Retrieved from http://www.lavc.edu/profdev/lernercentered.pdf

Teaching Strategies, Facing History and Ourselves Website retrieved from https://www.facinghistory.org/for-educators/educator-resources/teaching-strategies/chunking