Pre - Reading strategies enhance high school students’ reading competence in reading lessons

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
NGOC LAC ETHNIC BOARDING HIGH SCHOOL
EXPERIENCE INNOVATION
PRE-READING STRATEGIES ENHANCE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ READING COMPETENCE IN READING LESSONS
Writer: Đinh Văn Thiện
Position: Teacher
Topic in the fields of: English
THANH HOA 2019
INDEX 
Page
INDEX ..
2
A. INTRODUCTION ...
3
I. Reasons to choose the theme .
3
II. Purposes of the research 
3
III. Objects of the research ..
4
IV. Range of the research. ...
4
V. Methodology of the research. .
3
B. CONTENTS. 
5
I. Theoretical basis of the study .
5
II. Reality of the issue ...
7
III. The practical basics of the theme. 
7
1. Solutions 
7
2. Some suggested solutions to run “Before you read” part in high school basic English curriculum
11
IV. The assessment of experimental results. 
17
C. CONCLUSION ...
18
1. Experience lessons 
18
2. Proposal 
18
REFERENCE AND LINKS 
20
CONVENTIONS OF ABBREVIATIONS ..
20
EXPERIENCE CATEGORY ASSESSED AND CLASSIFIED BY COUNCILS
21
A. INTRODUCTION
I. Reasons to choose the theme
Being the most popular language in the world, English is widely used in many countries all over the world in many fields such as economy, science and technology. It is a useful means that helps human beings promote mutual understanding and connect each other around the world. In Viet Nam, with the global economic integration as well as the innovation of economy and society, English has become more and more concerned by people of all ages, especially the younger generations. Being aware of the importance of English, our government has issued numerous policies and decisions to improve learning and teaching English in order to gain the capacity to use it fluently. As a result, English become a compulsory subject in school curriculum and an indispensable requirement in the current employment.
Although English is important in term of studying and employment, learning English is never a simple work. It requires learners to master four basic skills: listening skill, speaking skill, writing skill and reading skill. Among them, reading skill gives learners a massive amount of information, ways of expression and grammar structures. Thus, developing reading skill for students is one of important tasks to help them not only comprehend their reading lessons in textbooks but also expand their knowledge through additional documentation. However, it is a difficult skill that often challenges and declines most of the learners by its characteristic complexity.
To solve this situation, being a teacher of English, I considered carefully that how I can teach all my students to learn this skill effectively. According to my experience of teaching, it is surprising to find that the pre-reading part is an important stage to a reading comprehension. In order to conduct reading lessons in motivate and effective ways, I decided to study the topic: “Pre-reading strategies enhance high school students’ reading competence in reading lessons”. 
II. Purposes of the research
Completing a reading lesson is not a problem to students and of course to a teacher of English. The issue I want to emphasize here is that whether students have or not their interest and efficiency in the class. Be aware of my responsibility for requirements of the Department of Education and Training combining my students’ reality to learn English at my school, I wrote this experience innovation wishing to share some of my own opinions to my colleagues about “Pre-reading strategies”. I hope my research will help my high school students partially remove the difficulties they have in the process learning English.
III. Objects of the research
In a practical valuable research, choosing appropriate objects is one decisive part. Basing on the fact of my teaching English in my school for many years, I have understood problems and difficulties in learning English of my students who are mainly ethnic minorities. Therefore in this topic, I studied the fundamental solutions applied to the students in my school within my colleagues’ assistance. The number of participants included four classes with a total of 120 students.
IV. Range of the research. 
In this topic I am just focusing on the following issues: 
1. Teacher’s tasks in “Pre-reading strategies”.
2. Students’ activities in “Pre-reading strategies”.
3. Some suggested solutions to run “Before you read” part in high school basic English curriculum.
V. Methodolody of the research.
For complete data in high reliability, I carried out my study through a combination of the analysis and the comparison of four classes in reading lessons in which the output and interest of students are key values.
In order to have an effective subject, I researched it based on my own teaching experience process, a number of references related to reading skills and some comments of my colleagues.
B. CONTENTS.
I. Theoretical basis of the study.
In an English idiom: “It is the first step that counts.” people imply the importance of the beginning in most of the work. We can apply this idiom when we evaluate the essential of “Pre-reading strategies” in entire process of reading teaching. 
There is an indisputable fact that Pre-reading strategies allow students to think about what they already know about a given topic and predict what they will read or hear. Before students read any text, teachers can direct their attention to how a text is organized, teach unfamiliar vocabulary or other concepts, search for the main idea, and provide students with a purpose for reading. According to Danny Brassell and Timothy Rasinski: “Most importantly, teachers can use prereading strategies to increase students' interest in a text." (Danny Brassell and Timothy Rasinski, Comprehension That Works. Shell Education, 2008)
In other words, in “pre-reading strategies”, the instructor conducts tasks and asks students to take part in activities in order to achieve the following purposes:
Motivation in study.
Need for study.
Guideline for the topic and predication of the content.
Pre-teach vocabulary.
However, what all successful pre-reading activities have in common is that they are student-centered. The teacher has to identify the potential problems of readability inherent in a chosen reading text, and then has to help students find ways to overcome those difficulties. Rather than just provide answers or summarize the content, the teacher can guide students identify the sources of their reading difficulties.
In order to obtain the intention above, the strategies must be applied flexibly and effectively in “Pre-reading” stage are Brainstorming, Discussion, and Questioning.
1. Brainstorming 
Sue Watson in his study indicated that Brainstorming is an excellent teaching strategy to generate ideas on a given topic. It helps promote thinking skills. When students are asked to think of all things related to a concept, they are really being asked to stretch their thinking skills. Similarly, a substantial body of research affirmed that Brainstorming is a large or small group activity that encourages students to focus on a topic and contribute to the free flow of ideas.
By expressing ideas and listening to what others say, students adjust their previous knowledge or understanding, accommodate new information and increase their levels of awareness. Brainstorming's main purposes are to:
focus students' attention on a particular topic
generate a quantity of ideas
teach acceptance and respect for individual differences
encourage learners to take risks in sharing their ideas and opinions
demonstrate to students that their knowledge and their language abilities are valued and accepted
introduce the practice of idea collection prior to beginning tasks such as writing or solving problems
provide an opportunity for students to share ideas and expand their existing knowledge by building on each other's contributions.
2. Discussion
According to previous studies, discussion regarded as one of the most challenging teaching methods can also be one of the most rewarding. Using discussion as a primary teaching method allows the teacher to stimulate critical thinking. As the teacher establishes a rapport with the students, the teacher can demonstrate that the teacher appreciates their contributions at the same time that the teacher challenges them to think more deeply and to articulate their ideas more clearly. Frequent questions, whether asked by the teacher or by the students, provide a means of measuring learning and exploring in-depth the key concepts of the course.
3. Questioning 
Questioning techniques are a heavily used, and thus widely researched, teaching strategy. Research shows that asking questions is second only to lecturing. Teachers typically spend anywhere from 35 to 50 percent of their instructional time asking questions.
A teacher may vary his or her purpose in asking questions during a single lesson, or a single question may have more than one purpose.
In a more general view, in their research named “Classroom Instruction That Works” Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (2001) illustrated that instruction involving questioning is more effective than instruction without questioning. Questioning is one of the research-based strategies presented in. One important finding is that questions that focus student attention on important elements of a lesson result in better comprehension than those that focus on unusual or interesting elements. Questions should also be structured so that most elicit correct responses. 
Additionally, they indicated that teachers ask questions for a number of reasons, the most common of which are:
To actively involve students in the lesson
To increase motivation or interest
To evaluate students’ preparation
To check on completion of work
To develop critical thinking skills
To review previous lessons
To nurture insights
To assess achievement or mastery of goals and objectives
To stimulate independent learning
II. Reality of the issue 
1. Advantages. 
Although many problems directly affect to the teaching and learning process, our teachers and students have surmounted the difficulties and have gradually improved the quality of teaching and learning English to meet the constantly changing requirements of the textbook programs. 
• For teachers: 
- They have absorbed initially to new teaching methods. 
- They have constantly improved knowledge as well as have learned experiences from each other to promote the quality of teaching.
• For students: 
- Most of them participate regularly and positively in learning English. 
- They are always interested in learning new teaching methods.
2. Shortcomings.
We easily see boredom, lack of dynamism and inefficiency in reading lessons in my school. This is what my colleagues and I have devoted special attention. To find out the factors that lead to this problem, we carried out a survey and perhaps below are the major causes:
• For teachers:
- Many of them do not make a sufficient preparation for every lecture.
- They apply new methods in their teaching inconstantly. 
- Pre-reading strategies are conducted in inappropriate ways to students’ levels.
- Many of them are not really aware of the important role of Pre-reading strategies. Some even ignore this part because of their own reasons.
• For the students:
- Most of them do not review and prepare the new lesson before coming to class.
- Their background knowledge is limited.
- Their comprehension skills are at the level of awareness.
- Their vocabulary is not available.
III. The practical basics of the theme.
1. Solutions 
Normally, activities in Pre-reading strategies had better last from ten to fifteen minutes in a forty five-minute-lesson. How can we achieve our goal in such a short time? There are many factors that affect directly effectiveness and excitement in pre-reading strategies, in which the preparation for the lesson of teacher and the students are two extremely important ones. 
1.1. What should teachers do in Pre-reading strategies?
To operate a reading lesson effectively, the teacher has to make a good preparation for it. As being mentioned above, Pre-reading strategies play an important role in the process of teaching reading skill. In a more specific view, the teacher should pay much more attention to “Before you read”. He needs organize himself “Strategies to activate students’ knowledge” and prepare “Additional Pre-reading Strategies”
1.1.a. Strategies to activate your prior knowledge: 
- Brainstorming: 
	Brainstorming that helps the learners improve thinking skills as indicated earlier on in this study can excite students and set the context. To achieve this goal, the teacher needs students to write words related to the reading, the pictures in the reading or the title, the topic of the reading. At the same time, teachers or students can write words or phrases on the board.
These activities in this part should be short (around 3-4 minutes) and focused on the topic of the lesson. 
In the same vein, “concept or mind mapping” is also a type of brainstorming in which the teacher sets the title / subject as the main idea, then develops a "mind map" around it. It can be effective for the students in a group or by individual.
- Discussion:
	Group discussions in and out of class will help the students to discover what they bring to their reading lesson, what other fellow learners bring, as well as shared experiences. Therefore, the teacher should ask students to discuss the pictures in the reading. Tell them to say their thoughts about the text: Talk about what? What happens? ...
	In order to encourage all students in the class to participate in the discussion, the teacher should have students work in pairs or small groups.
If you find they have new background information, ask for more information from them
Noticeably, in his study named “Discussion Method Teaching: A Practical Guide” (1989), William M. Welty asserted that the leader in the discussion (the teacher in a reading lesson) needs enough space to move about the room in order to energize the discussion when necessary; ideally, enough space to be able to contact every student in the room.
- Questioning :
	Have students think of questions provided in “Before you read” part in the reading lesson in high school English curriculum. This activity creates a useful practice in forming students' answers and giving them a reason to read.
	Nevertheless, these questions given in the curriculum are sometimes inadequate and even inequivalent to effectively implement the tasks in this stage. They can be flexibly applied or replaced by others which are created by teachers. The followings are a series forms of questions that teachers can designed to ask students when in reading lessons:
Definition:
What is....? Where does ... fit? What group does ... belong to?
Characteristics:
How would I describe...? What does ... look like? What are its parts?
Examples: 
What is a good example of ...? 
What are similar examples that share attributes but differ in some way? 
Experience
What experience have I had with ....? What can I imagine about ...?
It is advisable to ask good students to answer questions and the kind of question asked will depend on the reason for asking it. Questions are often referred to as ‘open’ or ‘closed’.
Closed questions, which have one clear answer, are useful to check understanding during explanations and in recap sessions. If the teacher wants to check recall, then he is likely to ask a fairly closed question, for example: ‘How many oceans are there in the world?’ or ‘How often are the Asian Games held?’
On the other hand, if the teacher wants to help pupils develop higher-order thinking skills, he will need to ask more open questions that allow students to give a variety of acceptable responses. During class discussions and debriefings, it is useful to ask open questions, for example: 
‘Can you explain why endangered species have become extinct?’, 
‘Given all your arguments, why you don’t like horror films?’, 
‘What do you think about if all forests were distroyed?’
Questioning is sometimes used to bring a students’s attention back to the task in hand, for example: 
‘What do you think about this statement, Nam?’ or ‘Do you agree?’
1.1.b. Additional Pre-reading strategies
- Visual Aids: 
Pictures and other visual material can activate your prior knowledge. Likewise, visual aids can be used to draw students' attention to the main topic of the reading and create an exciting atmosphere for the class. Thus, in addition to the pictures provided in English course books, teachers create diversity by using realia, such as pictures from newspapers, magazines, the Internet or a few ideas of how to incorporate pictures into your teaching.
* Use personal pictures: Whenever possible, use pictures of the teacher or real photos around the town or school (that students would recognize) in Power Points or games. This will make it much more interesting and memorable for the students, so words will stick that much easier.
* Draw stick figures: When all else fails, or the teacher needs a quick solution, use the simple drawing or stick figure. Stick figures take only a second to draw, can be used to teach just about anything, and are guaranteed to get a chuckle.
By these sources of aids, teachers should consider the pictures and questions carefully before giving to their students. In order to make a good impression on students, the pictures must be lively, positive, related to the topic and easy to understand. In this part, teachers order students look at the pictures in order to answer the questions or only think about them. Of course, be sure that the questions should be concise, related to the content of the lesson and easy to answer.
Generally, there are many new words, expressions and grammar structures in a reading text. This is a major problem that interrupts readers to discover the text. In order to gain the high effectiveness, teachers can apply their favorable vocabulary teaching methods as long as each lasts roughly five minutes. 
- Vocabulary Previews: 
By pre-teaching unfamiliar key words, students can improve new words, background information, and comprehension. To gain this goal, it is advisable for the teacher to the following tasks:
List all words in the assignment that may be important for students to understand. 
Arrange words to show the relationships to the learning task. 
Add words students probably already understand to connect relationships between what is known and the unknown. 
Share information with students. 
Verbally quiz them on the information before assigned reading begins.
- Structural Organizers: 
Before reading an assignment, basic frameworks which are included in the text should be pointed out such as cause-effect or problem-solution. It can be beneficial to call attention to specific plans of paragraph or text organization such as signal words, main idea sentences, highlighted phrases, headings and subtitles. A review of skimming techniques might also be appropriate as these various areas are covered.
2. Some suggested solutions to run “Before you read” part in high school basic English curriculum.
2.1. Basic English 10
Period 2:
Unit 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF 
Lesson 1: Reading
Part 1: Before you read
The teacher can start off by raising some closed questions:
Do you get up early?
What time do you often get up?
Do you need an o’clock to wake you up?
What do you do after breakfast?
What do you do in the morning / afternoon / evening?
It it no use in correcting students’ answers but the teacher should encourage them speak out
Next, two pictures are presented with two questions:
What are they doing?
Where are they?
Then, the teacher orders the students the reading text and pre-teach orally the below words in it:
Go off