Welcome to your reading course

Hello dear students,

Reading is a process of constructing meaning by interacting with text; as individuals read, they use their prior knowledge along with clues from the text to construct meaning. Research indicates that effective or expert readers are strategic (Baker & Brown, 1984a, 1984b). This means that they have purposes for their reading and adjust their reading to each purpose and for each reading task. Strategic readers use a variety of strategies and skills as they construct meaning (Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991).

A strategy is a plan selected deliberately by the reader to accomplish a particular goal or to complete a given task (Paris, Lipson, & Wixson, 1983; Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991). When students are able to select and use a strategy automatically, they have achieved independence in using the strategy. Along with the strategies that expert readers use, they also use a number of comprehension and study skills. It is clear from research that readers develop the use of strategies and skills by reading and writing and being given the support they need to grow in these processes (Wells, 1990).

From this task I will help you to become a better reader. You will be reading about a number of interesting topics such as animals, robots and people. These coming lessons have been designed to introduce and reinforce some skills and strategies for literacy. 

There are several reading strategies: finding the main idea, summarizing, inferring, predicting, comparing and contrasting, skimming, scanning, etc. In this semester we will work only on two or three of them, and then next year, we will continue with the rest up to complete the whole of them.

Each task will have a teaching guide that provides suggestions for introducing the strategy and then supplying guided and independent practice. The success of this reading course will depend on your attitude and motivation to study and practice the different strategies. 

INSTRUCTIONS

After reading these words, think and reflect on these questions:

1. When you read an article, what are the three steps you follow to understand the content?

a)_____________________________________________________________- 

b)_____________________________________________________________

c)_____________________________________________________________ 

2. Why do you think that learning these coming strategies is important for you? Write two reasons

a) _____________________________________________________________________________

b) _____________________________________________________________________________