Reading 4: Comments

I loved the suggestions made in this article about showing students strategies for reading in their L2. I love practical ideas in articles, ideas that I can see myself implement in the classroom. The idea of using non-sense words to show the students that they can guess when reading in their L2 is something I will definitely try. In general there is a lack of emphasis on teaching students strategies, such as reading strategies, in the classroom. This is not only true for the L2 classroom but for all subject matter. We need to be teaching students the strategies that they need to read, to understand a text, to pull information from text, to study etc.

Another great thing about this article is the focus on students deciphering context. There has been an emphasis in several of the articles about creating context for the students to help in their understanding. I love the emphasis on context rather than trying to ask students to understand random sentences pulled out of nowhere that have no context like "my aunt's pen is on my uncle's desk". When in life do you ever need to understand anything with no context? Giving students the tools to use metacognitive skills to think about the reasons why the text was written, the purpose of the text and the goal of the author allows them to build context themselves. Making it very explicit what is expected of the students as they read a text allows them to become confident in their understanding skills. It is important to give students the confidence they need in order to challenge themselves.

Reading matters