Category Archives: reading comprehension

Three Cueing Reading Method

The Three Cue method is a long-established yet increasingly controversial approach to teaching reading. We will look at the background and philosophy of this reading method in this post.

According to Ken Goodman, there are three cues people use to read, and they are listed below

Graphic cues: Examining the letters to determine the word
Syntactic cues: Guessing what kind of word it might be, such as an adjective or verb
Semantic cues: Guessing the word based on the context or what makes sense.

Goodman also made some conclusions based on his observational research of children learning to read.

Reading is not about precision but accurate first guesses
as the child improves in their reading, they use fewer graphic cues
Detailed perception of letters and words is not necessary

Background

Before Goodman’s bombshell in the 1960s, reading was taught one of two ways. The whole word approach relied on repetition and the use of pictures. A classical example of this approach to teaching reading is the”Dick and Jane” reading series from the 1930s. The assumption is that if a child sees a word often enough, they will learn how to read it.

The other major way of teaching reading has been the phonics approach, which involves learning the sounds associated with letters. One example of this approach is the McGuffey readers of the 1800s

Goodman’s Approach

Goodman took a different approach compared to whole words and phonics. If a student is struggling with reading, the teacher can have the child think (guess) a word that would work in a sentence they are struggling with. For example, suppose a student sees the word “horse” and uses the word “pony” instead. In that case, this is considered acceptable when employing this method. Even though the child never learned how to read the word “horse.”

This approach to reading allowed students to guess their way through a text. If students had an intuitive sense of what works, they could look like they were reading without developing the needed comprehension. This happens because they are not processing words, but rather, they are processing their guesses about words. With time, criticism began to arise towards the THree Cue method.

Criticism

By the 1970s, people were already beginning to find that Goodman’s method was as great as believed. REsearch at this time was finding that skilled readers could recognize words without relying on the context. Students were able to read without looking at the words! In other words, students were making up their own story guessing their way through a text without mastery.

Students would skip the arduous process of sounding out words to guess. These habits would become bad habits, and children would struggle with reading for a long time and, in some cases, would never really master it. In addition, some students learn to read no matter how they are taught. In other words, no single system can claim to be the answer all the time for learning to read.

Despite this evidence, the Three Cueing Method was highly popular. Most teachers are familiar with this method and maybe learned to read this way. The problem is not Goodman’s method. Rather the problem is relying exclusively on one method to teach anything. Different students learn in different ways, and there will always be a place where Goodman’s ideas will benefit someone.

Phonics does not work for every student, nor does the whole word. It is naive to think that Goodman’s way is the only way. A balanced approach that incorporates various reading methods is one way to reach students. After a teacher gets a sense of what works best for their students, they can focus on one particular approach and occasionally use other strategies to develop weaknesses in students.

Conclusion

When the flaws in a theory are pointed out, it is always tempting to throw them out. However, there is probably always a context or situation in which a theory will work. Goodman’s three cue method doesn’t work all the time. Yet there is evidence that this approach has helped for some of the time.

Reading Comprehension Strategies for Children

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In this post, we will take a look at some strategies to support the development of reading skills in small children. Reading is such a fundamental skill that it is important that students are provided with opportunities to develop this important talent.

Let them See You Reading

In order to establish a culture of reading in the home/school children need to see people reading. When something is common it naturally becomes an expectation in terms of behavior. Children need to know that reading is a part of being a member of a household/classroom and that everyone is expected to do this.

What is meant by reading is reading from a book. We can do lots of reading online but reading online establishes a culture of being online rather than reading a book. It is common to believe that how one reads makes no difference. However, this may not be true when applied o children.

Read with them

Nothing will inspire perseverance in learning something for a child than having an adult with them when they are struggling. It seems as if anything can be learned with support. Therefore, it is critical that parents/teachers read with children. The feedback and correction that they receive while reading one-on-one builds reading skills. Furthermore, Reading together provides accountability for young readers.

It is tempting to have a child go read only. However, given the naturally social nature of many children, coupled with their desire for attention, sending them off alone will simply make reading boring for many children.

Ask Questions

In order to develop comprehension, it is important to ask children questions about what they are reading. It is common for kids to read a text but not really know what it is about or what is going on. This can be especially true for abstract texts such as textbooks that usually lack a narrative that is found in a story.

Younger students who are learning to read, struggle so much with the mechanics of reading that they will neglect comprehension. These are just a few reasons why it is important to ask children questions when they are reading. Asking questions forces the child to be aware of what they are reading rather just on reading it. This is one example of developing thinking strategies

Answer Questions

As children get older, they often begin to have questions about what they are reading. Therefore, it is important to encourage children to ask questions and to be sure to provide answers to them.

It’s not necessary to answer the questions directly. For example, you can point the child back to the text to look for the answer or ask another question that might help them find the answer to their own question. One goal of teaching is to make students autonomous learners and this means that providing the answer to every question may not be beneficial.

Conclusion

Reading provides foundational skills for learning throughout life. Children need to be provided with opportunities to experience reading and interact with others in this learning experience.

Assessing Reading VIDEO

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Ways to assess reading

Reading Comprehension Levels VIDEO

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Levels of reading comprehension

Reading Comprehension Strategies

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Students frequently struggle with understanding what they read. There can be many reasons for this such as vocabulary issues, to struggles with just sounding out the text. Another common problem, frequently seen among native speakers of a language, is the students just read without taking a moment to think about what they read. This lack of reflection and intellectual wrestling with the text can make so that the student knows they read something but knows nothing about what they read.

In this post, we will look at several common strategies to support reading comprehension. These strategies include the following…

Walking a Student Through the Text

As students get older, there is a tendency for many teachers to ignore the need to guide students through a reading before the students read it. One way to improve reading comprehension is to go through the assigned reading and give an idea to the students of what to expect from the text.

Doing this provides a framework within the student’s mind in which they can add the details to as they do the reading. When walking through a text with students the teacher can provide insights into important ideas, explain complex words, explain visuals, and give general ideas as to what is important.

Ask Questions

Asking question either before or after a reading is another great way to support students understanding. Prior questions give an idea of what the students should be expected to know after reading. On the other hand, questions after the reading should aim to help students to coalesce the ideals they were exposed to in the reading.

The type of questions is endless. The questions can be based on Bloom’s taxonomy in order to stimulate various thinking skills. Another skill is probing and soliciting responses from students through encouraging and asking reasonable follow-up questions.

Develop Relevance

Connecting what a student knows what they do not know is known as relevance.If a teacher can stretch a student from what they know and use it to understand what is new it will dramatically improve comprehension.

This is trickier than it sounds. It requires the teacher to have a firm grasp of the subject as well as the habits and knowledge of the students. Therefore, patience is required.

Conclusion

Reading is a skill that can improve a great deal through practice. However, mastery will require the knowledge and application of strategies. Without this next level of training, a student will often become more and more frustrated with reading challenging text.

Story Grammar Components

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When people tell a story, whether orally or in a movie, there are certain characteristics that seem to appears in stories as determined by culture which children attempt to imitate when they tell a story. These traits are called story grammar components and include the following

Setting statement
Initiating event
Internal response
Internal plan
Attempt
Direct Consequence
Reaction

This post will explore each of these characteristics of a story.

Setting Statement

The setting statement introduces the character of the story and often identifies who the “good guy” and “bad guy” are. Many movies do this from Transformers to any X-men movie. In the first 10-15 minutes, the characters are introduced and the background is explained. For example, in the classic story “The Three Little Pig” the story begins by telling you there was a wolf and three pigs.

Initiating Event

The initiating event is the catalyst to get the characters to do something. For example, in the “Three Little Pigs” the pigs need shelter. In other words, the initiating event introduces the problem that the characters need to overcome during the story.

Internal Response

The internal response is the characters reaction to the initiating event. The response can talk many forms such as emotional. For example, the pigs get excited when they see they need shelter. Generally, the internal response provides motivation to do something.

Internal Plan

The internal plan is what the characters will do to overcome the initiating event problem. For the pigs, the plan was to each build a house to prepare for the wolf.

Attempt

The attempt is the action that helps the characters to reach their goal. This is the step in which the internal plan is put into action. Therefore, for the pigs, it is the actual construction of their houses.

Direct Consequence

At this step, the story indicates if the attempt was successful or not. For the pigs, this is where things are complicated. Of the three pigs, two were unsuccessful and only one was successful. Success is determined by who is the protagonist and the antagonist. As such, if the wolf is the protagonist the success would be two and the failure one.

Reaction

The reaction is the character’s response to the direct consequence. For the two unsuccessful pigs, there was no reaction because they were eaten by the wolf. However, for the last pig, he was able to live safely after his home protected him.

Conclusion

Even small children will have several of these components in their storytelling. However, it is important to remember that the components are not required in a story nor do they have to follow the order specified here. Instead, this is a broad generalize way of how people communicate through storytelling.

Ways to Comprehend Academic Texts

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In this post, we will look at some practical ways to better understand an academic text. The tips are broken down into three sections which are, what to do before, during, and after reading.

Before Reading

Read the Preface. The preface lays out the entire scope of the book. It provides the framework in which you can place the details of the chapters. This is critical in order to put the pieces together to make use of them. Almost all students skip this as it is normally not assigned reading. This step is only done before reading the first chapter of a text.

Read the Chapter titles. The chapter titles give you an idea of what the chapter is about. Again it helps you to zoom down one level to understand the subject of the book from one aspect of it. Again, most students fly past this when the chapter title provides clear clues as to what to expect in the text

Read the Objectives. The objectives tell you what you are going to visit in the chapter. They serve as signposts of what to expect and provide a framework for placing the details of the text.

Read the Chapter Headings. An academic text is broken down into chapters which are broken down into headings. Examining the headings provides more information about the chapter and the book. I also should mention that often the objectives and the headings of a book are the same with slight rewording. This seems lazy but is actually much clearer than when they two are not similar.

Look at the visuals (tables, graphs, pictures). Visuals summarize critical information. It is easy for anybody to become overwhelmed when reading a text. Therefore, visuals are created to summarize the most important information. Just like figure 1.2 above.

If you do these things you now know what to expect when you read. You are also beginning to develop an idea of what you did not know about the given subject. This leads to the next major point.

Ask Questions. After this inspection of the text, you should do the following.

Decide what you already know about this topic
Decide what you want to know about this topic and make questions

This two-step process prepares you for connecting your current level of understanding with the new knowledge within the text. You know what is a review for you and you focus on finding answers to the concepts and idea that are new for you.

During Reading

After all of this preparatory work, it is now time to read. Having done all this you already know the following

Title of the chapter
Major headings/objectives of the chapter
What you already know about this subject
What you do not know about this subject

Now you read the text and answer your questions. You also can highlight key ideas as well as write in the margins of the text. Highlighting should generally be limited to main ideas in order to reduce the clutter of highlighting everything. Writing in the margins allows you to make quick notes to yourself about key points and or to summarize a dense concept. Doing either of these is a way to wrestle with a text in an active manner which is important for comprehension.

After Reading

After you have read and answered your questions in a text. There are several things left to do.

Determine what did you learn. Write briefly a few notes to yourself about what exactly you learned. This is for you and helps to make sense of all the details in your mind at the moment.

Look at the Resources at the back of the chapter. Many textbooks have several study tools at the back of the chapter. Example this includes an outline of the chapter which is a great summary, discussion questions which help in developing critical thinking skills, and often vocabulary words are here as well. When preparing for an exam this is an excellent resource.

Conclusion

This process is not as much work as it seems. With practice, it can become natural. In addition, you need to modify this so that you can be successful as a reader. The ideas here provide a framework in which you can develop your own style.

Insights into Reading Academic Text

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In my experience as a teacher for several years at university, I have noticed how students consistently struggle with reading an academic text. It seemed as those they were able to “read” the words but always lack the ability to understand what the text was about. I’ve thought about this challenge and have been lead to the following conclusions.

Many Students believe reading and understanding are the same thing
Many Students believe they have no responsibility to think about what they have read
Many Students believe there is no reason to connect what they are reading to anything they currently know
Many Students see no point to determine how to use or apply what they have read
Many Students do not understand how academic writers structure their writing

None of these points apply to everybody. However, it is common for me to ask my students if they read something and they usually that they yes the did read it. However, as I begin to ask questions and to explore the text with them it quickly becomes clear they did not understand anything that they read. This is partially due to the problem that students read passively even though reading is active. The student never thinks of the relevance of the reading to their own life or future career.

In other words, reading is not the problem, rather it is what to do with what they have read. The purpose of studying is to use what you have learned. Few of us have the time, to simply learn for fun. Often, we learn to do something for monetary reasons. In other words, some sort of immediate application is critical to reading success.

Another important aspect of reading comprehension is understanding the structure of academic writing. Textbooks have different subjects but they all have a surprisingly similar structure which often starts with the big picture and zooms down to the details. If students can see the structure it can greatly improve their ability to understand what they are reading.

The Tour Guide Analogy

The analogy that I like to use is that of a tour guide. A tour guide’s job is to show you around a particular place. It could be an entire city or a single tourist attraction it all depends on the level of detail that he or she wants to provide you. Often, at the beginning of a tour, the tour guide will explain the itinerary of the tour. This provides the big picture purpose of the tour group as well as what to expect during the journey.

If the trip is especially detail you may visit several different places. At each place, there will be several places to see at each place that the tour guide will mention. For example, If I go to Thailand for vacation and visit Bangkok there will be several locations within Bangkok that I would visit such as Malls and maybe a museum. It is the tour guide’s job to guide me in the learning experience.

The author of an academic text is like a tour guide. Their job is to show you around the subject they are an expert in. The tour guide has an itinerary while the academic author has a preface/introduction. In the preface, the author explains the purpose of the book, as well as the major themes or “places” they will show you on the tour. The preface also explains who the book is for.

Each chapter in an academic text is one specific place the author wants to show you on the tour. Just as a tour guide may show you a museum in Bangkok so an author will show you one aspect of a subject in a chapter. Furthermore, every chapter has several headings within it. This is the same as me seeing the dinosaur exhibit at the museum or the ancient Thai instruments exhibit. These are the places within the place that you visited.

Tour guide	Writer
Expert in their area	Exepert in their area
Shows you around the tourist attraction	Shows you around a subject area
Explains what you will see today	Explains what they will share in a book/chapter
Provides details about the different sights	Provides details for the main ideas

We can break this down further about subheadings and more but I think the point is clear. The layout for an academic text is not mysterious but rather highly consistent. Having said this here are some critical ideas to remember when you read.

The Structure of Academic Writing

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“The book is boring.” This is a common complaint many lecturers receive from students about the assigned reading in a class. Although this is discouraging to hear it is usually a cry for help. What the student is really saying is that they cannot understand what they are reading. Yes, the read it but they didn’t get it.

The missing ingredient for students to appreciate academic reading is to understand the structure of academic writing. Lecturers forget that students are not scholars and thus do not quite understand how scholars organize their writing. If students knew this they would no longer be students. Therefore, lecturers need to help students not only understand the ideas of a book but the actual structure of how those ideas are framed in a textbook.

This post will try to explain the structure of academic writing in a general sense.

How it Works

Below is a brief outline of a common structure for an academic textbook.

Preface
- Purpose of the book
- Big themes of the book (chapters)
Chapter
- Objectives/headings provide themes of the chapter
Headings
- Provides theme of a section of a chapter

Here is what I consider to be a major secret of writing. The structure is highly redundant but at different levels of abstraction. The preface, chapter, and headings of a book are all the same in terms of purpose but at different levels of scope. The preface is the biggest picture you can get of the text. It’s similar to the map of a country. The chapter zooms in somewhat and is similar to the map of a city. Lastly, the headings within a chapter are similar to have a neighborhood map of a city.

The point is that academic writing is highly structured and organized. Students often think a text is boring. However, when they see the structure, they may not fall in love with academics but at least they will understand what the author is trying to say. A student must see the structure in order to appreciate the details.

Another way to look at this is as follows.

The paragraphs of a heading support the heading
The headings of a chapter support the chapter
The chapters of a book support the title of the book

A book is like a body, you have cells, you have tissues, and you have organs. Each is an abstraction of a higher level. Cells combine to make tissue, tissues combine to make organs, etc. This structure is how academic writing takes place.

The goal of academic writing is not to be entertaining. That role is normally set aside for fiction writing. Since most students enjoy entertainment they expect academic writing to use the same formula of fun. However, few authors place fun as one of the purposes in their preface. This yet another disconnect between students and textbooks.

Conclusion

Academic writing is repetitive in terms of its structure. Each sub-section supports a higher section in the book. This repetitive structure is probably one aspect of academic writing students find so boring. However, this repetitive nature makes the write highly efficient in terms of understanding giving that the reader is aware of this.

Understanding the Preface of a Textbook

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A major problem students have in school is understanding what they read. However, the problem often is not reading in itself. By this I mean the student know what they read but they do not know what it means. In other words, they will read the text but cannot explain what the text was about.

There are several practical things a student can do to overcome this problem without having to make significant changes to their study habits. Some of the strategies that they can use involve looking at the structure of how the writing is developed. Examples of this include the following.

Reading the preface
Reading the chapter titles
Reading the chapter objectives
Reading the headings in the chapters
Make some questions
Now read & answer the questions

In this post, we will look at the benefits of reading the preface to a book.

Reading the Preface

When students are assigned reading they often skip straight to page one and start reading. This means they have no idea what the text is about or even what the chapter will be about. This is the same as jumping in your car to drive somewhere without directions. You might get there eventually but often you just end up lost.

One of the first things a student should do is read the preface of a book. The preface gives you some of the following information

Information about the author
The purpose of the book
The audience of the book
The major themes of the text
Assumptions

Knowing the purpose of the text is beneficial to understanding the author’s viewpoint. This is often more important in graduate studies than in undergrad.

Knowing the main themes of the book helps from a psychological perspective as well. These themes serve as mental hooks in your mind in which you can hang the details of the chapters that you will read. It is critical to see the overview and big picture of the text so that you have a framework in which to place the ideas of the chapters you will read.

Many books do not have a preface. Instead what they often do is make chapter one the “introduction” and include all the aspects of the preface in the first chapter. Both strategies are fine. However, it is common for teachers to skip the introduction chapter in order to get straight to the “content.” This is fast but can inhibit understanding of the text.

There are also usually an explanation of assumptions. The assumptions serve to tell the reader what they should already know as well as the biases of the author. This is useful as it communicates the position the author takes from the outset with the readers trying to infer this.

Conclusion

The preface serves the purpose of introducing the reader to the text. One of the goals if the preface is to convince the reader why they should read the book. It provides the big picture of the text, shares about the author, and indicates who the book is for, as well as sharing the author’s viewpoint.

Understanding Academic Text

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Understanding academic text is possible through making some minor adjustment to one’s reading style. In this post, we will look at the following ideas for improving academic reading comprehension.

Reading the chapter titles
Reading the chapter objectives
Reading the headings in the chapters
Examine the Visuals
Make some questions
Now read & answer the questions

Read the Chapter Titles

You read the chapter title for the same reason as the preface. It gives you the big picture from which you develop a framework for placing the ideas of the author. I am always amazed how many times I ask my students what the title of the chapter is and they have no clue. This is because they were so determined to read that they never set things in place to understand.

For ESL readers, it is critical that they know the meaning of every word in the title. Again this has to do with the importance of the title for shaping the direction of the reading. If the student gets lost in the details this is where teaching support is there for. However, if they have no idea what the chapter is about there is little even the be3st teacher can do.

Read Chapter Objectives

The objectives of a chapter are a promise of what the author will write about. The student needs to know what the promises are so they know what to expect. This is similar to driving somewhere and expecting to see certain landmarks along the way. When you see these landmarks you know you are getting close to the destination.

The objectives provided the big picture of the chapter in a way that the preface provides the big picture of the entire book. Again, it is common for students to skip this aspect of reading comprehension.

Read the Chapter Headings

By now you probably know why to read the chapter headings. If not, it is because the chapter headings tell the student what to expect in a particular section of the chapter. They serve as a local landmark or a localized purpose.

For an extremely efficient (or perhaps lazy) writer, the objectives and the headings of a chapter will be exactly the same with perhaps slight rewording. This is extremely beneficial for readers because not only do they see the objectives at the beginning but the see them stated again as headings in the chapter.

Examine the Visuals

Visuals are used to illustrate ideas in the text. For now, the student simply wants to glance at them. Being familiar with the visuals now will be useful when the student wants to understand them when reading.

When looking at a visual, here are some things to look for

Title
author
date
what’s being measured
scale (units of measurement)

For an initial superficial glance, this is more than enough

Make Questions, Read, and Answer

After examining the text, the student should have questions about what the text is about. Now they should write down what they want to know after examining the various characteristics of the chapter and then they begin to read so they can answer their questions

Examine End of the Chapter Tools

After reading the chapter, many authors provide some sort of study tools at the end. I find it most useful to read the chapter before looking too closely at this information. The reason for this is that the summary and questions at the end indicate what the author thinks is important about the chapter. It’s hard to appreciate this if you did not read the chapter yet.

Knowing what is happening at the end of the chapter helps in reinforcing what you read. You can quiz yourself about the information and use this information to prepare for any examines.

Conclusion

Previewing a chapter is a strategy for understanding a chapter. The ideas a student reads about must have a framework in which the pieces can fit. This framework can be developed through examining the chapter before reading it in detail.

Teaching a Child to Read

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Learning to read is in no way an easy experience. In order to read at even the most basic level requires mastery of syntax , phonology, morphology, and semantics at a minimum. These are skills that we expect a child normally under the age of 8 to show some proficiency at.

This post will explain a process for teaching reading to small children that worked. Of course, there is no claim here that this is the way but it does provide an example. When I began this experience I had been an educator for years at higher grades but had never actually taught anybody how to read. My training and experience have mostly been in improving reading comprehension skills.

The Process

The process I stumble upon goes as follows

Letter recognition
Letter sound production
Word family phonics
Sight words
Reading stories with support from steps 3 & 4

Each step builds on the steps before it

Letter Recognition

The first step in this process was to have the child recognize the letters of the alphabet. This was done through the use of flashcards. In many ways, this was the easiest step. I thought it would take a year for a 4-year-old to learn this but it only took 3-4 months

Letter recognition relates to morphology as letters are in many ways morphemes that cannot be further divided. At this point, the learning experience is simply memory only with no application

Letter Sound Production

Once the alphabet was memorized, I exposed the student to the sounds of the letters. The student then had to reproduce the sound in addition to recognizing what letter it was.

This was much tougher. The student would either forget what letter it was or forget the sound or both. There was a lot of frustration. However, after several more months, we were ready to move on.

Letter sound production is an example of phonology or the understanding of the sounds letters make. This is a crucial step in learning to read.

Word Family Phonics

At this stage, we combine several letters and “sound” them out to produce words. Often, the words used had the same ending or morpheme such as “-ap”, “-at”, “-ad”. etc. and only the first letter would change. This helps the student to recognize patterns quickly at least in theory.

There was also an introduction to vowels and other common morphemes. Looking back I consider this a mistake as it seemed to be confusing for the student. In addition, although phonics are valuable in learning to sound out words I found them to lack context and read “cap”, “tap”, and “map” outside the setting of some story was boring for the student.

Sight Words

Sight words are words that are so common in English that they need to be memorized. Often they cannot be sounded out because they violate the rules of phonology but this is not always the case.

There are two common systems of sight words and these are Dolch and Fry respectively. In terms of which is better, it doesn’t really matter. I used Fry’s and again I think the lack of context was a problem as I was asking the student to learn words that lack an immediate application.

Reading Stories

After about a year of preparatory training, we finally began reading stories. The stories were little short stories appropriate for kindergarteners. At first, it was difficult but the student began to improve rapdily. It was much easier (usually) to get them to cooperate as well.

Conclusion

The most important point is perhaps not the most obvious one. despite my inexperience and mistakes in pedagogy, the student still learned to read. In many ways, the student learned to read in spite of me. This should be reassuring for many teachers. Even bad teaching can get good results if the aspects of planning, discipline, and commitment to success are there. Students seem to grow as long as they have some guidance.

I would say the most important thing in terms of teaching reading is to actually make them read. Reading provides context and motivation as the student can see what they cannot do. Studying all of the theoretical aspects of reading such as phonics and letters are only beneficial when the child knows they need to know this.

Therefore, if you are provided with an opportunity to teach a child to read start with stories and as the struggle teach only what they are struggling with. For example, if they are having a hard time with long “o” sound, reinforcing that with supplemental theoretical work will make sense for the child. As such, children learn best by doing rather than talking about what they will do.

Reading Assessment at the Interactive and Extensive Level

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In reading assessment, the interactive and extensive level are the highest levels of reading. This post will provide examples of assessments at each of these two levels.

Interactive Level

Reading at this level is focused on both form and meaning of the text with an emphasis on top-down processing. Below are some assessment examples

Cloze

Cloze assessment involves removing certain words from a paragraph and expecting the student to supply them. The criteria for removal is every nth word aka fixed-ratio or removing words with meaning aka rational deletion.

In terms of marking, you have the choice of marking based on the student providing the exact wording or an appropriate wording. The exact wording is strict but consistent will appropriate wording can be subjective.

Read and Answer the Question

This is perhaps the most common form of assessment of reading. The student simply reads a passage and then answer questions such as T/F, multiple choice, or some other format.

Information Transfer

Information transfer involves the students interpreting something. For example, they may be asked to interpret a graph and answer some questions. They may also be asked to elaborate on the graph, make predictions, or explain. Explaining a visual is a common requirement for the IELTS.

Extensive Level

This level involves the highest level of reading. It is strictly top-down and requires the ability to see the “big picture” within a text. Marking at this level is almost always subjective.

Summarize and React

Summarizing and reacting requires the student to be able to read a large amount of information, share the main ideas, and then providing their own opinion on the topic. This is difficult as the student must understand the text to a certain extent and then form an opinion about what they understand.

I like to also have my students write several questions they have about the text This teaches them to identify what they do not know. These questions are then shared in class so that they can be discussed.

For marking purposes, you can provide directions about a number of words, paragraphs, etc. to provide guidance. However, marking at this level of reading is still subjective. The primary purpose of marking should probably be evidence that the student read the text.

Conclusion

The interactive and extensive level of reading is when teaching can become enjoyable. Students have moved beyond just learning to read to reading to learn. This opens up many possibilies in terms of learning experiences.

Reading Assessment at the Perceptual and Selective Level

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This post will provide examples of assessments that can be used for reading at the perceptual and selective level.

Perceptual Level

The perceptual level is focused on bottom-up processing of text. Comprehension ability is not critical at this point. Rather, you are just determining if the student can accomplish the mechanical process of reading.

Examples

Reading Aloud-How this works is probably obvious to most teachers. The students read a text out loud in the presence of an assessor.

Picture-Cued-Students are shown a picture. At the bottom of the picture are words. The students read the word and point to a visual example of it in the picture. For example, if the picture has a cat in it. At the bottom of the picture would be the word cat. The student would read the word cat and point to the actual cat in the picture.

This can be extended by using sentences instead of words. For example, if the actual picture shows a man driving a car. There may be a sentence at the bottom of the picture that says “a man is driving a car”. The student would then point to the man in the actual picture who is driving.

Another option is T/F statements. Using our cat example from above. We might write that “There is one cat in the picture” the student would then select T/F.

Other Examples-These includes multiple-choice and written short answer.

Selective Level

The selective level is the next above perceptual. At this level, the student should be able to recognize various aspects of grammar.

Examples

Editing Task-Students are given a reading passage and are asked to fix the grammar. This can happen many different ways. They could be asked to pick the incorrect word in a sentence or to add or remove punctuation.

Pictured-Cued Task-This task appeared at the perceptual level. Now it is more complicated. For example, the students might be required to read statements and label a diagram appropriately, such as the human body or aspects of geography.

Gap-Filling Task-Students read a sentence and complete it appropriately

Other Examples-Includes multiple-choice and matching. The multiple-choice may focus on grammar, vocabulary, etc. Matching attempts to assess a students ability to pair similar items.

Conclusion

Reading assessment can take many forms. The examples here provide ways to deal with this for students who are still highly immature in their reading abilities. As fluency develops more complex measures can be used to determine a students reading capability.

Types of Reading in ESL

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Reading for comprehension involves two forms of processing which are bottom-up and top-down. Bottom-up processing involves pulling letters together to make words, words to make sentences, etc. This is most commonly seen as students sounding out words when they read. The goal is primarily to just read the word.

Top-down processing is the use of prior knowledge, usually organized as schemas in the mind to understand what is being read. For example, after a student reads the word “cat” using bottom-up processing they then use top-down processing of what they know about cats such as their appearance, diet, habits, etc.

These two processes work together in order for us to read. Generally, they happen simultaneously as we are frequently reading and using our background knowledge to understand what we are reading.

In the context of reading, there are four types of reading from simplest to most complex and they are

Perceptive
Selective
Interactive
Extensive

We will now look at each in detail

Perceptive

Perceptive reading is focused primarily on bottom-processing. In other words, if a teacher is trying to assess this type of reading they simply want to know if the student can read or not. The ability to understand or comprehend the text is not the primary goal at this.

Selective

Selective reading involves looking a reader’s ability to recognize grammar, discourse features, etc. This is done with brief paragraphs and short reading passages. Assessment involves standard assessment items such as multiple-choice, short answer, true/false, etc.

In order to be successful at this level, the student needs to use both bottom-up and top-down processing. Charts and graphs can also be employed

Interactive

Interactive reading involves deriving meaning from the text. This places even more emphasis on top-down processing. Readings are often chosen from genres that employ implied main ideas rather than stated. The readings are also more authentic in nature and can include announcements, directions, recipes, etc.

Students who lack background knowledge will struggle with this type of reading regardless of their language ability. In addition, inability to think critically will impair performance even if the student can read the text.

Extensive

Extensive is reading large amounts of information and being able to understand the “big picture”. The student needs to be able to separate the details from the main ideas. Many students struggle with this in their native language. As such, this is even more difficult when students are trying to digest large amounts of information in a second language.

Conclusion

Reading is a combination of making sense of the words and using prior knowledge to comprehend text. The levels of reading vary in their difficulty. In order to have success at reading, students need to be exposed to many different experiences in order to have the background knowledge they need that they can call on when reading something new.

Teaching Vocabulary to ESL Students

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Language acquisition requires the acquisition of thousands of words for fluent communication. This is a daunting task for the most talented and eager student. Fortunately, there are some basic concepts to keep in mind when teaching students vocabulary. This post will share some suggestion and help students to develop their vocabulary in the target language.

Learn Vocabulary in Context

A common technique for teaching vocabulary in language classrooms is out of context memorization. Students are given a long and often boring list of words to memorize. There is little immediate use of these words and they are quickly forgotten after the quiz.

Instead, it is better to teach new words within a framework in which they will be used. For example, students learn business terms through role play at a bank or store rather than through a stack of index cards. The context of the bank connects the words to a real-world setting, which is critical for retention in the long-term memory.

Reduce Reliance on Bilingual Dictionaries

This may seem like a surprise, however, the proliferation of bilingual dictionaries provides the definition to a word but does not normally help with memorization and the future use of the word. If the goal is communication then bilingual dictionaries will slow a student’s ability to achieve mastery.

Children learn a language much faster due in part to the immense effort it takes to learn what new words mean without the easy answer of a dictionary. The effort leads to memorization which allows for the use of the language. This serves as a valuable lesson for adults who prefer the easy route of bilingual dictionaries.

Set Aside Class Time to Deal with Vocabulary

The teacher should have a systematic plan for helping students to develop relevant vocabulary. This can be done through activities as well as the teaching of context clues. Vocabulary development needs to be intentional, which means there must be a systematic plan for supporting students in this.

However, there are also times were unplanned vocabulary teaching can take place. For example, while the students are reading together they become puzzled over a word you thought they knew (this is common). When this happens a break with explanation can be helpful. This is especially true if you let the students work together without dictionaries to try and determining the meaning of the word.

Conclusion

Vocabulary is a necessary element of language learning. It would be nice to ignore this but normally this is impossible. As such, teachers need to support students in their vocabulary development.

Discourse Markers and ESL

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Discourse markers are used in writing to help organize ideas. They are often those “little words” that native speakers use effortlessly as they communicate but are misunderstood by ESL speakers. This post will provide examples of various discourse markers.

Logical Sequence

Logical sequence discourse markers are used to place ideas in an order that is comprehensible to the listener/reader. They can be summative for concluding a longer section or resultative which is used to indicate the effect of something.

Examples of summative discourse markers include

overall, to summarize, therefore, so far

An example of summarizing discourse markers is below. The bold word is the marker.

Smoking causes cancer. Studies show that people who smoke have higher rates of lung, esophagus, and larynx. Therefore, it is dangerous to smoke.

The paragraph is clear. The marker “Therefore” is summarizing what was said in the prior two sentences.

Examples of resultative discourse markers include the following

so, consequently, therefore, as a result

An example of resultative discourse markers is below. The bold word is the marker.

Bob smoked cigarettes for 20 years. As a result,he developed lung cancer

Again, the second sentence with the marker “As a result” explain the consequence of smoking for 20 years.

Constrastive

Constrastive markers are words that indicate that the next idea is the opposite of the previous idea. There are three ways that this can be done. Replacive share an alternative idea, antithetic markers share ideas in opposition to the previous one. Lastly, concessive markers share unexpected information given the context.

Below are several words and or phrases that are replacive markers

alternatively, on the other hand, rather

Below is an example of a replacive contrast marker used in a short paragraph. Bold word is the replacive

Smoking is a deadly lifestyle choice. This bad habit has killed millions of people. On the other hand, a vegetarian lifestyle has been found to be beneficial to the health of many people

Antithetic markers include the following

conversely, instead, by contrast

Below is an example of antithetic marker used in a paragraph

A long and healthy life is unusually for those who choose to smoke. Instead, people who smoke live lives that are shorter and more full of disease and sickness.

Concessive markers includes some of the words below

In spite of, nevertheless, anyway, anyhow

Below is an example of a concessive marker used in a paragraph

Bob smoked for 20 years. In spite of this, he was an elite athlete and had perfect health.

Conclusion

Discourse markers play a critical role in communicating the finer points of ideas that are used in communication. Understanding how these words are used can help ESL students in comprehending what they hear and read.

Developing Purpose to Improve Reading Comprehension

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Many of us are familiar with the experience of being able to read almost anything but perhaps not being able to understand what it is that we read. As the ability to sound out words becomes automatic there is not always a corresponding increase in being able to comprehend text.

It is common, especially in school, for students to be required to read something without much explanation. For more mature readers, what is often needed is a sense of purpose for reading. In this post, we will look at ways to develop a sense of purpose in reading.

Purpose Provides Motivation

Students who know why they are reading know what the are looking for while reading. The natural result of this is that students are less likely to get distract by information that is not useful for them.

For example, if the teacher tells their students to read “the passage and identifying all of the animals in it and be ready to share tomorrow.” Students know what they are suppose to do (identifying all animals in the passage) and why they need to do it (share tomorrow). the clear directions prevent students from getting distracted by other information in the reading.

Providing purpose doesn’t necessarily require the students love and enjoy the rational but it is helpful if a teacher can provide a purpose that is motivating.

Different Ways to Instill Purpose

In addition to the example above there are several quick ways to provide purpose.

Provide vocabulary list-Having the students search for the meaning of specific words provides a clear sense of purpose and provides a context in which the words appear naturally. However, students often get bogged down with the minutia of the definitions and completely miss the overall meaning of the reading passage. This approach is great for beginning and low intermediate readers.
Identifying the main ideas in the reading-This is a great way to gets students to see the “big picture” of a reading. It is especially useful for short to moderately long readings such as articles and perhaps chapters and useful for intermediate to advanced readers in particular.
Let students develop their own questions about the text-By fair my most favorite strategy. Students will initial skim the passage to get an idea of what it is about. After this, they develop several questions about the passage that they want to find the answer too. While reading the passage, the students answer their own questions. This approach provides opportunities for metacognition as well developing autonomous learning skills. This strategy is for advanced readers who are comfortable with vocabulary and summarizing text.

Conclusion

Students, like most people, need a raison de faire (reason to do) something. The teacher can provide this, which has benefits. Another approach would be to allow the students to develop their own purpose. How this is done depends on the philosophy of the teacher as well as the abilities and tendencies of the students

Levels of Reading Comprehension

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Reading comprehension is a key academic skill. To comprehend a reading text means to understand what the author was trying to communicate and to share the author’s intentions along with, if possible, your own perspective on the text. Doing this is not easy at all.

In general, there are three levels of reading comprehension and they are.

Decoding
Critical literacy
Dynamic literacy

This post will discuss each of these three levels of reading comprehension.

Decoding

Decoding is the most basic level of reading comprehension. At this level, a person breaking down words into there component syllables and “sounding them out.” He or she blends the words together and reads the text. This is the experience of many people who are learning to read. The focus is on learning to read and not reading to learn.

There is a minimal amount of reading comprehension at this level. The reader can recall what they read based on memory but there is often an inability to think and comprehend at a deeper level beyond memory.

For teaching, teaching decoding normal happens either with ESL students or with native speakers in early the early primary grades. This can be taught using a phonics-based approach, whole reading approach or some other method.

Critical Literacy

Critical literacy assumes that decoding has already happened. At this level, the reader is actively trying to develop a deeper understanding of the text. This happens through analyzing, comparing, contrasting, synthesizing, and or evaluating. The reader is engaged in a dialog with the text in trying to understand it.

Developing critical literacy in students requires employing teaching and learning strategies from the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Leading discussions that require higher level thinking and or writing assignments are some ways to accomplish this.

It is important to remember that readers should have already mastered decoding before attempting critical literacy. It is easy to cause cognitive overload by trying to have a reader decode text while trying to discuss the deeper meaning of the content. As such, critical literacy strategies should be avoided until upper primary school.

Dynamic Literacy

Dynamic literacy assumes mastery of decoding and some mastery of critical literacy. Dynamic literacy goes beyond analysis to relate the content of the text to other knowledge. If critical literacy is focused only on the text, dynamic literacy is focused on how the current text of the reading relates to other books.

For example, a reader who is reading a book about language acquisition may look for connections between the acquisition of a language and grammar. Or they may be more creative and look for connections between language acquisition and music. This interdisciplinary focus is unique to what is currently considered the highest level of reading comprehension.

A more practical approach to doing this would be to compare what several authors say about the same subject. Again, the focus is on going beyond just one book or one subject to going across different books and or viewpoints. In general, dynamic literacy is probably not possible before high school or even college.

Conclusion

Many people never move beyond decoding. They are content with reading a text and knowing what happens but never thinking deeper beyond that. However, for some, higher levels of reading comprehension is not a goal. For many, reading the newspaper in English is all they want to do and they have no desire for a more complex reading experience. The challenge for a teacher is to move readers from one level to the next while keeping in mind the goals of the students

Understanding Fallacies

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Fallacies are errors in reasoning. They happen in speech and in writing. The danger of fallacies is that they can deceive people into accept false ideas and claims that can lead to serious consequences. In this post, we will look at several types of fallacies with examples.

Hasty Generalization

A hasty generalization happens when an individual makes a broad claim in a few instances. Below is an example

Throughout American history, military leaders who become president are terrible leaders. Consider the examples of Ulysses Grant and James Buchanan..

The problem with the reasoning in this fallacy is that it is not always true. There are many examples of military leaders who became excellent presidents. Examples include George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Dwight Eisenhower.

False Cause

A false cause fallacy is claiming that A caused B when there is no real connection. Below is an example.

When ice cream sales increase there is also an increase in homicide rates. Therefore, if we want to reduce homicides we need to reduce ice cream sales.

On the surface, such an argument makes sense. However, correlation is not causation. There are other factors that lead to homicide in addition to ice cream sales.

Invalid Analogy

An analogy is the comparison of two concepts or things for the purpose of explanation. An invalid analogy is the inappropriate comparison of two concepts. Below is an example.

In America, the school-year is from September to May. Since this schedule works in America it will surely work in Thailand

This analogy is comparing the American and Thailand with the idea that they can both have the same academic calendar. The problem is that both countries are radically different in terms of facilities. Most American classrooms are temperature control while many in Thailand are not. Since there is a lack of air conditioning in many Thai schools the calendar has been adjusted so that teaching does not take place during the hottest time of the year.

Bandwagon

A bandwagon fallacy is based on the premise that since so many people are doing A it serves as evidence that everyone should do it. Children are often victims of this fallacy when they try to justify why they did something. Below is an example.

The action of the administration is appropriate. The reason being because is that 70% of the faculty support the decision of coed dormitories.

The fact that the majority support something is not the only indication of whether it is right or wrong. Other factors such as religious beliefs and even culture may need to be considered as well.

Conclusion

Fallacies can serve as a major tool for confusing people on different topics and ideas. The examples in this post only serve to show some of the few ways that fallacies manifest themselves. It is important for a consumer of information to be able to identify fallacies when they are apparent.

Extensive and Intensive Reading

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Most teachers are trying to get their students to read more. The question to ask is what kind of reading are teachers trying to get students to do. In general, there are two common ways in which students read and they are extensive reading and intensive reading.

Extensive Reading

Extensive reading is having students read broadly for the sake of reading in a pleasurable way. Doing so improves students word recognition and builds overall reading ability. For many students, including adult ESL, you cannot just turn them loose and say read. Rather, it is important to develop some sort of guidelines for extensive reading.

The books students choose to read extensively should be at their reading level so that comprehension is the primary goal.
The teacher needs to provide motivation. This can be done through the use of assignments, group work, or other activities related to the books the students are reading.
There must be some mechanism in which students are required to report their opinion about a book they have read.

Extensive reading is often done outside of class or as a small part of the school day. If it happens outside of class it requires the students to have some discipline to complete an assignment on their own. If it happens in class it is often used as a cool-down after an exciting activity.

Intensive Reading

Intensive reading is serious focused reading for the purpose of achieving a study goal. A common example is reading a chapter to answer questions. This requires a slightly different scaffolding in order to have success. Below are some principles to keep in mind when having students read intensively.

Students must know why they are reading and for how long. This helps with goal-setting and self-regulation.
There must be some sort of way for students to provide feedback about what they learned. It can something as simple as a discussion, or as complex as developing a presentation.
When a discussion takes place, students must refer to the text while discussing to demonstrate their familiarity with it.

Intensive reading is often done in class. One challenge with intensive reading is vocabulary. Students often see too many words that they do not know the answer too. The constant use of dictionaries uses up all the time set aside for reading. As such, teachers need to monitor dictionary use so that they do not impede the goal of reading the text.

Conclusion

Reading is a skill that most would agree that students need to develop. Extensive and intensive reading provide different ways in which students can develop reading skills. Reading for pleasure or purpose is some of the primary ways in which adults read. As such, extensive and intensive reading are excellent strategies for supporting students in the development of their reading abilities.

The Difference Between Facts and Opinions

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One aspect of reading that my students seem to struggle with consistently is telling the difference between facts and opinions. This post will attempt to explain the often subtle difference between these two components of reading.

Facts

A fact is something that can be verified as true by someone else. This truth can be tested through observation, experimentation, experience or some other means. Below is an example of a fact.

The average temperature of the human body is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit

To test this fact, we can simply take the temperature of several individuals and see if the average temperature is the same. If our experiment matches the statement then the statement is a fact.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The opposite of a fact is not an opinion. The opposite of a fact is incorrect information. If I said that the average temperature of the body was 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Your analysis would disprove this and show that the information was incorrect. This confusion over facts and incorrect information is a common misconception of even university students.

Opinion

Opinions are statements people make about their beliefs and or judgments. They cannot be tested and verified as facts can. Below is an example of an opinion.

I believe that America is the best place to study English.

There is no real way to verify this opinion. There are many English speaking countries all over the world where a student can study English. Determining how one is better than the other is highly subjective.

One problem with the opinion statement is the word “best.” How do you judge what is best? Another problem is the phrase “I believe.” What one person believes is different from what another person believes. How do we test this?

Since opinions cannot be verified they can only be supported with additional explanation and facts. An author can build a persuasive case for their opinion through providing evidence that supports their belief. Consider the following example

I believe that America is the best place to study English. A study done by Researcher’s Anonymous found that people who study English in America learn twice as fast as those who study in other countries. In another study conducted by Student University, it was found that people who study English in America have a higher proficiency in the four skills of a language when compared internationally. Therefore, not only do people learn English faster in America, they also develop a higher proficiency from studying in that country.

In this fictitious example, the author shares their opinion that America is the best place to study English. He follows this by sharing to facts about English. The study by Researcher’s Anonymous and the study at Student University. The results of these two studies are “facts” in this example because they can be verified. The facts the author uses provide support for their opinion.

You cannot prove an opinion but you can indicate how reasonable an opinion is through the use of facts. Based on the two facts of the study, it appears that America might be a good place to study English.

Conclusion

Students struggle with facts and opinions. They often accept everything an author shares in a book as the truth when in reality the author is sharing a great deal of well-defended opinion. Understanding facts and opinions are critical in analyzing the strength of an individual’s argument.

Writing Patterns II

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In this post, we conclude our discussion on writing patterns by looking at two more types. The two types of writing patterns for this post are cause and effect and comparison.

Cause and Effect

Causes are reasons and effects are the results of the reason. Causes have an effect on something or somebody. A paragraph that uses this writing pattern indicates the reason something happened and how it has an impact. Below are some common phrases and clues that indicate cause and effect writing pattern was employed.

Cause Effect

the reason(s) thus

the cause(s) the result(s) as a consequence

because, since the effect(s) on that account

is due to [cause] the outcome [effect] is/was caused by

Here is an example paragraph using this writing pattern, The cause is bold and the effect is underline.

Dogs make good pets. Since they are friendly dogs cause people happy. In addition, because dogs love being around humans, the consequence is people often begin to love dogs.

In this paragraph, there were two cause and effect moments. The second and third sentence were both cause and effect. As you looked at the paragraph, you may have noticed that in the first example the effect came before the cause. This is common and normal in writing. The second example shares the cause before the effect. Either approach is acceptable. The goal of cause and effect or effect and cause is to show how one thing leads to another.

To determine cause and effect consider the following questions

What causes the “effect”? (The answer to this will be the cause.)
Why does “effect” happen? (The answer for this will be the cause.)
What is the reason for the effect? (The answer will be the cause.)
How can the “effect” be explained? (The answer will be the cause.)
What does the “cause” lead to? (The answer to this question will be the effect.)

From this list, you can see that it is more common to identify the effect first and then the cause. However, this is not always the case.

Comparison/Contrast

This identifies similarities, difference, or both in two or more things/concepts. Below are common words and phrases associated with compare/contrast writing pattern.

Comparison Contrast

similarly in contrast some; others

likewise however nonetheless

both as opposed to

same; alike whereas

Here is an example comparison words are bold and contrast words are underlined.

Dogs are similar to cats. Both have four legs and a tail. However, dogs and cats are different in their behavior. Dogs are much friendlier than cats are with people. Though they are different both dogs and cats make good pets.

There is not much to explain. The different words employed indicate how dogs and cats are similar and different. Paragraphs can employ this mixed approach or focus completely on comparing or contrasting. What’ is best depends on the context.

Conclusion

Writing patterns provide ways in which to communicate ideas. There is no reason another will limit themselves to such fix approaches when expressing their ideas. These patterns are for helping students to see how an author is trying to express themselves.

Writing Patterns I

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An author’s writing pattern is how they organize the information they are sharing with the reader. There are many different patterns but we will only talk about three today. The writing patterns are list, sequence, and definition.

List Pattern

In the list pattern, the author shares a group of items in a way in which the order does not matter. Some clues that the paragraph is a list pattern includes the following, such as the use of such words and phrases as also, too, another, moreover, besides and the use of such signals as a, b,c …, bullets (•), and asterisks (*). Below is an example paragraph using the list pattern.

There are three things you need to know about dogs

–They are cute

–They are friendly

–They are loyal

These are some of the reasons you should own a dog

Instead of using dashes we could have used bullets or a, b, c, or any other host of ways to indicate a list.

Sequence Pattern

The sequence pattern is the same as the list. The only difference is that the order of items matters. Some of the signal phrases/words are first, second, third…, now, then, next, finally and some other forms include 1, 2, 3, or a, b, c. Below is an example of a paragraph using the sequence pattern.

There are three steps to buying a dog.

–First decide which kind of dog is best for your environment.

–Second, consider how much it will cost to buy the dog.

–Third, find a nearby dealer who can provide the dog.

Here, the order matters in order to buy the dog.

Definition Pattern

In this pattern, the author describes or explains a term. Common signal phrases.words include is defined as, by this we mean, means or (preceding a synonym), in other words, is, is known as. In the example below, the author attempts to describe dogs by defining their characteristics.

Dogs are one of the many types of pets people can own. They are unique in that they are much friendlier than other types of animals. In addition, they are always loyal and will not often leave a good master. People need to know that dogs make good pets.

Conclusion

Different writing patterns are useful for sharing information in an appropriate way. The examples here provide some idea for determining how an other is trying to share information with a reader. Knowing the pattern can help in seeing the “big picture” of a reading passage. It helps in understanding what the writer is trying to say to his audience. As such, this is a valuable skill to develop.

Finding the Implied Main Idea

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There are at least two types of main ideas. The stated main idea, which was already discussed, is an idea that the author supplies in the paragraph. The topic of this post is the implied main idea.

An implied main idea is stated indirectly. The reader has to develop it based on the information in the paragraph. The author never provides that one single sentence that states the “point” of the paragraph. T

There are several ways to find the implied main idea. Below are just some of many strategies.

Strategy 1: Add necessary information (normally the topic) to a sentence in the paragraph that almost shares the main idea.
Strategy 2: Combine two separate sentences in a paragraph into a one sentence to develop the main idea.
Strategy 3: Summarize supporting details into one general sentence to serve as the main idea.

Below is an example and explanation of each strategy

Strategy 1: Add Needed Information

Many times, the main idea is present but the topic is replaced with another noun or pronoun. Look at the example paragraph. The implied main idea is underlined and bold for you.

–Dogs are friendly. Dogs love to play. Dogs like to eat food and run. Everyone should own one.

The topic of this paragraph is dogs. The last sentence in the paragraph above is the main idea. However, the word dog is not used in the last paragraph. The author replaces the word dog with the noun one. The word one means dog in this context. In order to develop the main idea, the reader would need to know to replace the noun one with dog.

Strategy 2: Combining Separate Sentences

Sometimes them main idea is spread over two sentences. In this case, the sentences need to be combined in order to develop the main idea. Look at the example paragraph. The implied main idea is underlined and bold for you.

–It is important that people own dogs. It is also important that people love their dogs. Consider that dogs are friendly. They love to play. Finally, dogs like to eat food and run.

This paragraph has two main points in two sentence as shown above. In order to create an implied main idea, we combine these two sentences into one. Below is the answer

It is important that people own and love their dogs.

The rest of the paragraph is supporting details that explain why people should own and love dogs.

Strategy 3: Summarize Supporting Details

In some instances, an author will develop a paragraph that is only supporting details. The author never shares nor even implies a main idea. The reader must derive the point by examining the details. Below is an example. Nothing is bold or underline because there is no answer anywhere in the paragraph.

–Dogs are cute. Dogs are funny. Dogs love to play. Dog like to eat. Why would anyone not want a dog?

In order to develop the main idea, we have to find a way to summarize this information. There are many different answers. One potential answer would be to count the number of supporting details and determine what they have in common. Look at the following potential answer.

There are at least four reasons why people should want a dog.

If you look at the paragraph there are five sentences, four sentences talk about great things about dogs. The last sentence is a question. Main ideas can never be questions but this sentence provides a clue about what the author was trying to tell us. Instead of giving us the main idea, the author gives the answers to a question and then provides the question at the end of the paragraph. Turn the question into a statement and this is one way to get the main idea.

Again, this is not the only answer. Someone might see something different in the text and derive a slightly different answer. The goals is to try to determine what you think the author is trying to say.

Conclusion

The implied main idea must be derived by the reader. This requires knowing the different strategies to do this. These strategies are particularly useful for people who are struggling with their reading.

NOTE TO WRITERS: In most research settings it is unwise to imply the main idea. Teachers want to know what the point is and they often do not have the patience to try and guess what you are saying. It is better to state the main idea when writing academic papers. Being coy and indirect will usually harm your grade. One major exception is writing in the English department.

Searching for Supporting Details

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A paragraph consists mostly of three components

The topic (already discussed)
The main idea (already discussed at least most of it)
The supporting details (the discussion for today)

The supporting details are examples, explanation, proofs, statistics, etc. that support and illustrate the point being made by the main idea of a paragraph. They are supporting because they lift up the main idea and help to make it clearer through providing a deeper explanation of the author’s main point.

In order to find the supporting details, a reader needs to find the main idea and turn it into a question. The aspects of the paragraph that answers these questions are the supporting details. Let’s look at an example.

Example

There are several reasons why smoking is bad for you. First, smoking waste a lot of money that can be used for other activities. Second, smoking harms your health. Lastly, smoking is a bad example for children.

Here is a breakdown of the paragraph. We know that the first sentence is the main idea.

Topic: Smoking

Main idea: There are several reasons why smoking is bad for you.

Supporting Details: First, smoking waste a lot of money that can be used for other activities.
Second, smoking harms your health.
Lastly, smoking is a bad example for children.

Perhaps you noticed that most of the time, everything that is not the main idea is normally a supporting detail but there are exceptions to this.

As stated earlier, in order to identify the supporting details, a reader needs to turn the main idea into a question(s). Below is an example.

Topic: Smoking

Main idea: There are several reasons why smoking is bad for you.
Conversion of the main idea into a question: What are the reasons that smoking is bad for you?

Supporting Details: First, smoking waste a lot of money that can be used for other activities.
Second, smoking harms your health.
Lastly, smoking is a bad example for children.
Conversion of supporting
details into an answer: First, smoking waste a lot of money that can be used for other activities.
Second, smoking harms your health.
Lastly, smoking is a bad example for children.

Clues for Finding Main Ideas

In addition to turning the main idea into a question, there are three clues for finding supporting details.

Supporting details often appear as a list of bullets, as a set of numbers, or lettered list.
After the first supporting detail, additional details are introduced by words and phrases such as In addition, also, moreover, another, next, then, first, second, last, finally, etc.
The main idea sentence itself often provides hints about the number or type of supporting details. Such words and phrases such as four reasons, two kinds, six types, certain ways, three categories, etc.

We will take the previous paragraph and provide examples of each.

Clue 1 List

There are several reasons why smoking is bad for you.

It wastes a lot of money that can be used for other activities.
It harms your health.
It is a bad example for children.

This is not much of paragraph but it provides reasons for the main idea.

Clue 2 Introductory Phrases

There are several reasons why smoking is bad for you. First, smoking waste a lot of money that can be used for other activities. In addition, smoking harms your health. Lastly, smoking is a bad example for children.

In this example, the introductory phrases are bold and it shows the addition of another supporting detail.

Clue 3 Main Idea Clue

There are several reasons why smoking is bad for you. First, smoking waste a lot of money that can be used for other activities. Second, smoking harms your health. Lastly, smoking is a bad example for children.

This example highlights how the main idea can provide the clue. The phrase “several reasons” in bold is a signal to a reader that there should be several supporting details that explain the main idea about smoking.

Conclusion

As you can see several clues can be used to find the supporting details in the same paragraph. It does not matter how you find the main idea as long as you separate the point from the details. For writers, it is important that there is consistency between the main idea and supporting details. Many times, writers will only have details and no main idea or the say that they have several reasons and only provide one. Understanding the importance of supporting details and their role in reading and writing will enhance reading comprehension and writing clarity.

Finding the Main Idea

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After determining the topic of a reading passage. The student needs to figure out what the main idea is. The main idea is the most important statement the writer makes about the topic. There are three common characteristics of main ideas.

Must always have the topic (the word, name, or phrase that tells who or what the paragraph is about)
Must always be a complete sentence by itself (even if you were not able to read the rest of the paragraph)
Must be a sentence that summarizes the details of the paragraph

IMPORTANT NOTE: In many ways, the main idea and the thesis statement can be the same thing. A thesis statement is the main idea of an entire paper whereas a regular main idea is the most important statement about the topic in a particular paragraph. In other words, there are different levels of main ideas from ones that cover an entire paper to ones that only cover a paragraph. This applies to the concept of topics as well.

The main idea of a paragraph can be in one of three places.

The beginning
The middle
The end

We will now look at examples of each.

Main Idea at the Beginning

The main idea at the beginning is often the easiest to understand. The first sentence states clearly what the rest of the paragraph is about. The reader never has to wonder why the author is saying something because the author tells them from the beginning. Below is an example. The main idea is underlined and in bold

Dogs are good pets to have. Dogs are fun to play with and are friendly to everyone. Dogs are also very close to their master and obey them. Dogs even love children and will protect the family.

Dogs are good pets to have is the main idea. The rest of the paragraph provides reasons and evidence for why dogs are good pets. This is deductive reasoning in which is going from a general principle (the main idea) to specific examples (the rest of the paragraph.

Main Idea at the End

The next most common place to put the main idea is at the end.

Have you ever had a dog for a pet? Dogs are fun to play with and are friendly to everyone. Dogs are also very close to their master and obey them. Dogs even love children and will protect the family. Dogs are good pets to have.

The writer starts with a question (a question can never be the main idea). They supply reasons for having a dog and the summarize by sharing that dogs are good pets to have. This is inductive reasoning in which the author goes from specific examples (the beginning of the paragraph) to a general principle (the main idea).

Main Idea in the Middle

The worst place to put the main idea is in the middle. This approach is neither deductive or inductive it is just confusing for many academic disciplines. Below is an example.

–Have you ever had a dog for a pet? Dogs are fun to play with and are friendly to everyone. Dogs are also very close to their master and obey them. Everyone should own a dog. Dogs even love children and will protect the family.

The question to ask is “why” provide another example after sharing the main idea?” This is why this approach is not always the clearest.

Conclusion

When reading it is important to determine what is the point and to answer why is the writer writing about this. The answer to these questions is the main idea. It is the most important idea about the topic. The main idea is what the writer wants a student to remember after he or she finishes reading. The placement of the main idea can be anywhere in the paragraph. Finding the main idea will help a student to see the big picture of what the writer was trying to say.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR WRITERS: In an academic writing, it is almost always best to put the main idea at the beginning. A student wants the reader, which is often a professor, to know exactly where the student is taking them in their text immediately. If a teacher has to try and figure what a student has to say, the teacher can often become frustrated and this could cost a student points. Scholars want to know what the point is right away, they want to see the big picture and check details as necessary. Therefore, students should tell them in the first sentence or as soon as possible what the main idea is. There are exceptions depending on discipline but this is a very safe rule for most circumstances.

The next best place to put the main idea is at the end. As mentioned, this is a sort of inductive reasoning approach. The reader wonders what the student is talking about but the get the point at the end. It’s frustrating but eventually, they get the punchline. The worst place is the middle. A student gives examples, state the point, and give more examples. This is totally confusing in many disciplines. Remember, the main idea should be first whenever possible, last if necessary, and never in the middle.

Determining the Topic

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The first step for a student to understand what they are reading is to know the topic of what they are reading. The topic is simple what the author is writing about. This sounds ridiculous but for students, especially those who are reading in a second language, it is not always easy to determine what the topic of a reading passage is. Below is a list of common characteristics of a topic.

The “something” an author is writing about is the topic.
The topic is the who or what that the author writes about.
The topic is always a word, a phrase, or a name and it is never written as a sentence.

In addition to these characteristics above, there are four common clues that can be used to identify the topic. Below is the list and each will be explained with an example.

Look for a heading or title.
Look for words in special print, such as bold, italics, or color—or some combination, such as bold italics.
Look for repeated words in a paragraph.
Look for something mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph and then referred to throughout the paragraph by pronouns or by other words.

Clue 1: Find the Heading

The example below gives the topic of the passage in the title. This is an obvious example, however, students often skip the title to begin reading and never know what they are reading about. This is one reason that students must be taught to read the title first, if it is available, as it provides a framework for reading the details.

Somewhere University

Somewhere University is a school in Southeast Asia. It has about 300 students. The school offers several majors that focus mainly on humanitarian service. Somewhere University also has a diverse faculty with teachers from all over the world.

The title tells you what the topic is. This passage was about “Somewhere University.”

Clue 2: Look for Special Print

Sometimes the topic is in the text and the writer uses special print or color to identify it. Again students run right to pass such obvious information. Below is the example. The topic is in bold and italics within the paragraph.

Somewhere University is a school in Southeast Asia. It has about 300 students. The school offers several majors that focus mainly on humanitarian service. Somewhere University also has a diverse faculty with teacher from all over the world.

In this example, the text is bold and in red. This is a common approach in textbooks.

Clue 3: Look for Repeated Words or Phrases

Many times the topic can be found by looking for words and phrases that are repeated continuously within a reading passage. The more often a word or phrase is used the more likely it is the topic. Below is an example. Count how many times the word “Somewhere University” is used.

Somewhere University is a school in Southeast Asia. It has about 300 students. Somewhere University offers several majors that focus mainly on humanitarian service. Somewhere University also has a diverse faculty with teacher from all over the world.

The noun Somewhere University is in every sentence as the subject. As such, it is the topic of this paragraph.

Clue 4: Find a Word or Phrase Mentioned at the Beginning and Throughout the Passage by a Pronoun

After mentioning the topic by name, many authors will refer to it by other names or pronouns. This can be especially confusing for people new to the language as they may not have mastery of the various pronouns and synonyms appropriate for the topic. Below is an example.

Somewhere University is a school in Southeast Asia. It has about 300 students. The school offers several majors that focus mainly on humanitarian service. The Institute also has a diverse faculty with teacher from all over the world.

In the paragraph above, Somewhere University was referred to by the following words

It (2nd sentence)
The school (3rd sentence)
The Institute (4th sentence)

Remember this can be very confusing for many students when one word is referred to by several different other words.

Conclusion

These are some tools to help students to figure out what they are reading about. Are there other ways to do this? If so please respond in the comments section.

Part II of Without a Dictionary: Finding the Meaning of Unknown Words

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In the last post, we discuss the first three clues that a person can use to finding the meaning of unknown words. In this post, we conclude our discussion by looking at the last two rules, which are

General sense of the sentence
Clues from another sentence

General Sense of the Sentence

This clue is really not a clue. In other words, there is nothing in the sentence that provides a hint as to what the unknown word is. Instead, the student uses their prior knowledge and personal life experience to determine the meaning of an unknown word. An example sentence is below. Keep in mind that there is no signal word or phrase for this type of clue. The unknown word is the word clumsy.

The drunken man was staggering, falling all over the place, and looked really clumsy.

Assuming a student does not know what the word clumsy means he can call on his experience to figure the word out at least partially. For example, many students know how intoxicated people act. It is not a secret that drunken people at not very careful and the sentence indicates that the person was falling down. Therefore, the word clumsy means someone who has poor control of their body.

Clues from Another Sentence

At times, the meaning of a word is not in the sentence that you find it. For many students, they stop reading until they figure out what the word means. This is often a mistake because many times the meaning of the unknown word is in the next sentence or beyond. In other words, sometimes a student needs to keep read.

Below is an example. Remember that there are no signal words or phrases for this clue. The unknown word is the word convoluted.

This book is convoluted. I cannot understand it because it is so complicated

Notice how the first sentence had the unknown word but no meaning. It is in the second sentence that the definition of the word can be extracted.

Conclusion

The clues shared here are only to help a student. They are not intended to replace a dictionary. There are times, however, when students cannot use dictionaries such as during a test or when one is not available. It is in the context such as these that these clues for finding the meaning of unknown words can be helpful.

Without a Dictionary: Finding the Meaning of Unknown Words

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A common problem for students, from elementary to grad school, is figuring out the meaning of a word they do not know. Understanding the words in a reading passage is important for comprehension. Fortunately, there are several ways of determining the meaning of these unknown words. These approaches are called context clues because the context or environment in which the words are used help to explain their meaning. In this post, we will look at three context clues and they are Definition or synonym clues, Contrast clues, and Example Clues.

Definition or Synonym Clues

The definition clue is the easiest way to determine what the meaning of an unknown word is. In this approach, the author tells the reader the meaning of

the word. Below are some signals that the author uses to define the unknown word. A sentence using the signal is provided for each one and the signal is in bold. The unknown word for each sentence is the word convoluted.

–phrases such as the term, is defined as, means, is known as

The word convoluted is defined as something that is complex
The word convoluted means something that is complex

–a definition following a comma, colon, or dash, or enclosed in parentheses, brackets or dashes

The text is convoluted (complicated) so the students complained about reading it
The text is convoluted-really complicated-so the students complained about reading it

–synonyms introduced by or, in other words, that is, is also known as, by this we mean, etc.

The book is convoluted or complicated
The book is convoluted and by this we mean it is complicated.

Of course there are other ways that author defines words but this serves the purpose of providing a foundation for knowing when this happens.

Contrast Clues

Contrast clues define unknown words by providing a word that has the opposite meaning of the unknown word. Below is a list of signals with examples and the signal is in bold when possible. The unknown word again is convoluted.

–Words such as but, however, on the other hand, nevertheless, yet, in contrast, and some . . .others

Women are convoluted but men are simple.
Women are convoluted, however, men are simple.

–Opposite words (e.g., men and women; Democrats and Republicans; ancient and modern)

Women are convoluted and men are simple

Example Clues

An example clue illustrates a word through providing examples. Below is a list of signals with examples and the signal is in bold when possible. The unknown word again is convoluted.

–Examples are typically introduced by for example, to illustrate, for instance, and such as

There are many examples of convoluted machines in nature such as the human body
For example, a convoluted machine would be the human body.

There are several other ways to define unknown words that have not been discussed yet. In the next post, we will look at the last two clues for determining the meaning of unknown words.

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Perceptual Level

Selective Level

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Facts

Opinion

Conclusion

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Cause and Effect

Comparison/Contrast

Conclusion

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List Pattern

Sequence Pattern

Definition Pattern

Conclusion

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Strategy 1: Add Needed Information

Strategy 2: Combining Separate Sentences

Strategy 3: Summarize Supporting Details

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Somewhere University

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