standard reading comprehension
Source: Lingolex
Reading for specific information activity
As any TEFL theory book will tell you. We need to help the students develop the many different reading skills and strategies such as gist reading, reading to confirm expectations, reading for communicative tasks etc. This is an example of scan reading or reading to extract specific information. In the real world you would do this to find a number in a telephone book or find out how deep the swimming pool is in a holiday brochure, what is on at the cinema etc. This text will hopefully give some practice in this type of reading. Go to student text
Suggested Procedure:
1. Spend 5 minutes pre-teaching some of the difficult vocabulary. eg jaw, brain, squeeze, share, rubbish, smell, chew, swallow etc.
2. Hand out a photocopy of the text to all the students. Let them read it for 3 or 4 minutes or if you really want to develop scan reading don't let them read it at all.
3. It is best to use the cheap trick of having a competition to add some motivation. Divide the class into two teams. You ask questions on the text and the team who answer your questions correctly first get a point. Ask the questions from various parts of the text don't start at the top and go down.
Here are some ready made questions:
That should be enough.
More suggestions:
If this activity was a success there are other ways you can practice reading for specific information. It is a good idea to find texts that the students might really have to read.
e.g.. Photocopy the accommodation flats for rent section from a newspaper and ask questions like how much is the bedsit in Acacia Avenue. Other sources could be :- Job adverts, brochures, TV and entertainment etc.
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