Teaching Reading

I. INTRODUCTION

Reading is commonly understood as passive skill because the readers seem

not to produce anything from the passage they read. Yet, reading actually
involves communication. Specifically, it is the communication between the
readers and the writers.

Some people find that reading is difficult. It might due to the vocabulary,
sentence structures, and the topic of the reading. That matter will be more
complicated when the passage is not written in the readers’ native tongue. For
EFL learners, reading can be quite a challenge since they deal with both content
and language of the passage.

To help the EFL learners, the teachers need to employ certain techniques that
facilitate the learners to understand the reading passage. Building the schema,
involving the learners as active readers, or directing them to make predictions
before reading in details might be helpful to build the students’ comprehension.
The meaning one taken from the text is the result of the linkages of prior
knowledge and previous experience and the information on the text. With the
background information and reason(s) for reading, the readers make predictions
about the text. Then, all of the elements of comprehension, such as prior
knowledge and previous experience, information available in the text, reader
stance, and social interaction become merged.

That is why the teachers need to provide students opportunities to relate

their prior knowledge and the information available in the text, let them make
their own predictions about the points being asked without stating whether
those are “correct” or “wrong”. Seemingly, teaching reading should be carried
out in sequence that assists the students to gradually understand the content of
the reading.

II. READING TECHNIQUES

A. DR-TA

The DR-TA is aimed to develop high level of thinking while reading. Its key
element is predictions. The teacher needs to organize the lesson in a way
that enable the students to make predictions about what they are going to
read, to read in order to match the predictions and the information available
in the text, to revise or add predictions, and to read again.
B. TEACHING PROCEDURE

The teaching procedure in DR-TA is as follows:

Step 1 Identifying purposes for reading

The first step in DR-TA is creating intellectual links by combining prior

knowledge with information in the text to make prediction what is the text
going to be about. The predictions can be broad and speculative. During the
discussion, the teacher is supposed to accept student prediction without
judging whether it is “correct” or “wrong”. Then the teacher can probe more
questions to assist students in making linkage between what they predicted
and what they found in the passage.

Step 2 Adjusting Rate to Purposes and Material

Adjusting the rate can appear in two dimensions, that is, 1) rate and flow of
information (teacher determined) and 2) reading rate (student determined).
The teacher determines the amount of text to be revealed between the stop
points and the length of the discussion time.

The first stop point should occur immediately after a title or opening line.
Here the students are given time to speculate what is the text going to
discuss based on the title. The second stop point might be after one or two
paragraphs. The purpose is to show readers the cycle of predicting-sampling
text-repredicting-resampling that is essential for comprehension.

Step 3 Observing the reading

A certain amount of guided silent reading needs to be done in school.

Teacher can observe during that reading. Silent reading allows the teacher to
assist the students with the reading and to learn which students are faster
readers and which are slower, which students are really reading and which
are not. S/he can also identify what strategies students use to get the
meaning from the text or figure out unknown words, and many other
activities.

Step 4 Developing Comprehension

Developing comprehension occurs as students combine prior knowledge and

new information to make predictions, read to confirm or adjust their
predictions, and draw conclusions and speculate during class discussion. It
also occurs during the time when the students discuss their knowledge with
others. During this process, the teacher can see that the new concepts are
developed and reinforced and that students can comprehend them within the
framework of their prior knowledge. Another important point in developing
 comprehension is the questioning strategies that teachers use to extend the
discussion. The teachers can use questions to guide the discussion.

C. REFERENCES

Ruddel, Martha Rapp. 2005. Teaching Content Reading and Writing. New
Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Nuttall, Christine. 2005. Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language.

Oxford: Macmillan.

D. LESSON PLAN

Level : University students – Faculty of Engineering

Grade : Semester 3
Time allocation : 100 minutes
Topic : The development of society and technology
Lesson objectives : • To figure out the meaning of the new words.
• To learn how to relate the students’ prior
knowledge and the new information in the text.
• To make predictions of the reading content.
• To comprehend the main ideas and details of the
reading.
Teaching materials : Reading passage
Whiteboard
Slide show for pictures
Paper and whiteboards
Teaching : DR-TA
technique
Teaching :
procedure

N Activities Teacher’s Activities Students’ Time

o Activities Allocati
on

1. Pre-reading Building schemata 15’

Activities a. Ask students questions
• Imagine if you lived Answer the questions
300 years ago:
– How would you
travel?
– How would you
 send messages?
– How would you
build houses?
– What would your
clothes be like?
– In your opinion,
what has caused a
change in today’s
society?
b. Show students pictures
about the society in the
past (50 years – 300
years ago)
Vocabulary Building 10’

a. Ask the students to – Scale their

look at the list of understanding of
vocabulary. the vocabulary.
– Involve in the
b. Ask them to scale discussion of the
themselves whether word meaning.
they have known the
vocabulary or not.

c. Discuss with them the

vocabulary.

Pre-reading using DR-TA 15’

a. Asking students to
predict the passage. Answer the
– Read the title, what questions.
information do you
think we’ll find in
this passage?
– What else? Any
other ideas?
b. Ask more questions
that require students to
draw a conclusion.
– What makes you
say that? Why?
– Now what do you
think?

2. While- Reading using DR-TA 20’

reading a. Ask the students to
Activities work in pairs and make – Work in pairs
predictions on several – Make predictions
points: upon the points
– Life in the year being asked.
1700. – Share their
 – The appearance of predictions with
people 5,300 years the class.
ago. – Read the passage
– The differences while discussing
between society their predictions.
with advanced
technology and that
with simpler
technology.
– Agrarian society.
– Industrial society.
– Post-industrial
society.
b. Now ask the students
to share with the class
their predictions.
c. While sharing, together
ask them to look at the
passage to check
whether their
predictions are in line
with the reading.

3. Post-reading a. Reading 30’

Activities comprehension
through paragraph – Work in groups
drawing. – Discuss the
– Put the students into paragraph with
groups of 3. their friends in the
– Assign them a group.
paragraph to read (the – Draw the content
paragraph will be of the paragraph.
different for each – Present the
group). picture.
– Ask them to draw what – Make the graphic
the paragraph is about organizer as
on a piece of paper. shown by the
– After they have done teacher.
drawing, have them
retell their picture to
the class.
– Discuss the students’
answer.
– Take all pictures and
stick them on to the
board.
– Put the pictures into a
graphic organizer
containing number of
paragraph, pictures,
 and main ideas.
– Review the content of
the passage based on
the graphic organizer.
b. Answering reading 10’
comprehension
questions – Work in groups.
– Divide students into – Send one member
groups of 3 or ask of the group to
them to stay with their take each piece of
group. paper.
– Put strips of paper – Discuss the
containing reading answer of the
comprehension question.
questions on the desk – Show the answer
in front of the class. to the teacher.
– Label the strips of
paper according the
groups.
– Tell the students that
they are going to
compete in answering
the questions.
– Tell them that each
group will send one
member as a runner
whose job is to take a
piece of paper in front
of the class and give it
to his/her group.
– Together ask each
group to write the
answer of the question.
The runner will return
the paper to the
teacher. Then the
teacher will check it. If
it is correct, s/he can
take another piece of
paper. The cycle
repeats until all
questions are
answered. The group
that finishes the race
first is the winner.
– After all groups have
done with answering
the questions, review
the answers.
E. EVALUATION

After the class, it is expected that the students understand the approaches to
be used to comprehend the reading content. Asking the students to activate
their prior knowledge about the topic is helpful in establishing the discourse.
Otherwise, they are not ready for receiving new information presented in the
text. For further activity, the teacher can give them written homework related
to the topic.

TEACHING READING

MIDTERM PAPER

LESSON PLAN FOR TEACHING READING USING DR-TA

YULIANA DEWI

8212710007
Post Graduate Program – English Education Department

WIDYA MANDALA CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY

SURABAYA