Improving your reading skills For a printer-friendly PDF version of this guide, click here Improving your reading skills will reduce unnecessary reading time and enable you to read in a more focused and selective manner. You will also be able to increase your levels of understanding and concentration. Other useful guides: Effective note making, Thought mapping. Reading for study You already use a range of reading styles in everyday situations. To improve your reading skills you need to: have clear reading goals;choose the right texts;use the right reading style;use note taking techniques. Reading goals Clear reading goals can significantly increase your reading efficiency. Reading goals can be: an essay or seminar subject;a report brief;a selected subject area;a series of questions about a specific topic. Use your reading goals to help you identify the information that is relevant to your current task. Choosing a text You will need to assess the text to see if it contains information that is relevant to your reading goals.
Starfall's Learn to Read with phonics Strategies for Developing Reading Skills Using Reading Strategies Language instructors are often frustrated by the fact that students do not automatically transfer the strategies they use when reading in their native language to reading in a language they are learning. Instead, they seem to think reading means starting at the beginning and going word by word, stopping to look up every unknown vocabulary item, until they reach the end. When they do this, students are relying exclusively on their linguistic knowledge, a bottom-up strategy. One of the most important functions of the language instructor, then, is to help students move past this idea and use top-down strategies as they do in their native language. Effective language instructors show students how they can adjust their reading behavior to deal with a variety of situations, types of input, and reading purposes. Strategies that can help students read more quickly and effectively include Reading to Learn Reading to learn the language: Reading material is language input.
Story Starters Ready to get students excited about writing? Story Starters is a fun, interactive tool that generates writing prompts, which include direction on character, plot, and setting. Your students will love watching the Story Starters' wheels spin. If they want to modify the prompt, they can simply pull the handle on the Story Starters Scrambler to change any piece of it! This activity is now also available for iPad. First, students choose one of four themes: Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-fi, or Scrambler. Get started. Learning Objectives While participating in Story Starters, students will: Discuss and identify what makes a story compelling.
Practice Reading Tests Scoring The Practice Reading Tests in this book are scored on a point system that differs slightly by grade level. Grades 1 and 2 have fewer questions and no short- or long-answer questions. Grade 1 is based on a scoring rage of 0–6 points. Grade 2 is based on a scoring range of 0–12 points. Grades 3 through 8 are based on a scoring range of 0–22 points. Using This Test Prep Site This site has a practice test for each grade. In this site, the questions and multiple choice sections follow both reading selections. To answer multiple choice questions, students click on the button next to their answer choice. When a student has completed the sample test, he or she can click on the "Submit" button. The Answer Key for all grades is available from your Pearson Education sales representative. Read, Think, and Explain Short-Answer Questions Short-answer "Read, Think, and Explain" questions are worth up to two points. Tips for Students Taking a Reading Test
Free English Reading comprehension tests and exercises online Reading comprehension is also an important part when you take an English test. Reading comprehension test can help you to improve vocabulary, grammar, and logical thought ability. There are some tips for you to improve reading skills: - Practice reading every day. You should read different fields to improve your vocabulary. - Take note all new words and learn them. - Try to answer all the questions. - After answer all the questions. - Practice reading techniques - scanning, skimming, intensive and extensive reading. + Scanning: You try to find a particular piece of information. + Skimming: You try to gather the most important information as quickly as possible. + Intensive reading: You try to find the details of a specific information. + Extensive reading: You try to find general information of a passage. Elementary Reading Tests
Reading Assessment Techniques - The Cognitive Foundations of Learning to Read: A Framework We have created this summary of the different types of assessment that can be used for measuring development in reading skills in the hopes that teachers will better understand how single skills can be assessed by multiple measures. This description of the various assessment techniques may also help teachers to design their own classroom assessments, and may help teachers to better understand the district or campus assessments that are already being used with their students. Each of the elements of the framework is briefly described, and descriptions of various forms of assessments that could be used for that framework element are provided. Reading comprehension assessments are the most common type of published reading test that is available. Reading comprehension should not be confused with reading accuracy, another very common form of reading assessment. Find published reading assessments that test Reading Comprehension. Find published reading assessments that test Decoding.
Practical Bottom-Up Strategies for Teaching Reading Former TESOL President Dr. Neil J. Anderson and David Nunan have teamed up together to write a book about practical ways to teach the English language. The following is an excerpt from their book talking about how Reading Horizons can be an effective bottom-up resource. The approach (to teaching reading) that is accepted as the most comprehensive description of the reading process is an interactive approach. The best readers in any language are those who use interactive reading, which integrates elements of both bottom-up and top-down reading. Beginning-level readers should be exposed to a strong bottom-up component. Systematic phonics instruction is a bottom-up approach to reading that should be integrated into reading materials for beginning proficiency-level readers. There are also effective phonics programs that provide teacher instruction as well as online learning support. Reading Horizons teaches beginning readers Five Phonetic Skills for effectively decoding sounds in English.