Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): Recording. And I'm gonna hand over to you, Robin. Robin Skipsey: Thanks, Paul. Thanks very much for the introduction. I'm just going to try and share my screen. So please bear with me a second while I do that. Robin Skipsey: II hope everybody can see. the first slide of the presentation. Thanks. Everyone that's joining today. It's It's 60'clock in the evening in Tokyo. Robin Skipsey: And so it's good evening from Tokyo. But I imagine it's good morning for a a num
ber of people that are joining today. Robin Skipsey: This session it's called bringing Efl reading instruction up to date. A lot of Robin Skipsey: reading instruction is based on a lot of from reading instruction for foreign languages Robin Skipsey: is based on first language research. Robin Skipsey: But unfortunately, lots of that research is is actually quite out of date. And that's what I want to look at in today's session, and how we can maybe bring some of the newer ideas from first languag
e reading, instruction into second language, foreign language, reading instruction. So I hope you find some of the Robin Skipsey: information and ideas in this session. Useful, and I hope to leave about 10 min at the end of the session for for questions. Robin Skipsey: So the session aims for today are these. first of all, we're going to look at some common misconceptions. In Efl reading. which come from research into first language reading. Robin Skipsey: And these 2 misconceptions are around s
peed reading. Robin Skipsey: and the role of guessing when when reading. Robin Skipsey: then we're going to look at what? What is skilled reading? Robin Skipsey: which, what the latest research says about how we actually learn to read specifically in English. Robin Skipsey: And I'm going to end with some helpful ideas about teaching reading based on on the research into skilled reading and also based on. Some of the the training and the projects that we've been running in Japan. Robin Skipsey: S
o start with some common misconceptions. I'm going to show you some Robin Skipsey: comments that I've come across quite a lot since. I've been involved in teaching English as a foreign language, and I'm I'm quite curious to know whether you've also come across comments like these. So as I put them up, it'd be quite interesting if you could type in the chat, yes or no based on whether you've actually come across these comments yourselves or not, whether it maybe it's just Robin Skipsey: just me t
hat's seen these. So the first comment is. Robin Skipsey: I hear teachers saying things like run your eyes over the text to get the main idea Robin Skipsey: and read the first sentence and last sentence of each paragraph. Robin Skipsey: Oh, so just look for the keywords. Don't worry about the other words Robin Skipsey: I've heard people saying. We don't read every letter in every word. Robin Skipsey: and don't worry about the spelling. Robin Skipsey: English is not a Robin Skipsey: phonetic lang
uage. I'm quite interested to hear whether to see whether or not. Robin Skipsey: oh, I'm seeing a mixture of nose and yeses. Robin Skipsey: Yes, no, no. Robin Skipsey: okay, so interesting. So these are things that some of you have come across, and some of you Robin Skipsey: have not come across. The latest answer is a yes. Robin Skipsey: and then another, yes, and another. Yes, and another. Yes, okay. Robin Skipsey: good. So Robin Skipsey: certainly. In my experience, this, these kind of commen
ts are quite common. And I've seen them. I've heard them. And I've seen this kind of advice in in training materials and and even textbooks. Robin Skipsey: So Robin Skipsey: Some of the advice on the last slide may be helpful in some situations. I don't want to dismiss all of it. Robin Skipsey: but it often comes from flawed and out of date. Ideas about reading. Robin Skipsey: and we'll look at 2 of these ideas. which, as you may remember, are are speed, reading and guessing. Robin Skipsey: So
we're going to start by looking at speed reading. And when I talk about speed reading, I'd like to make a distinction. I'm not talking about fluent reading. So if if we're reading fluently, it means we can read the words at the same kind of speed that we could talk if we were talking normally, that's fluent. Robin Skipsey: And if we're reading silently, we can usually read even more quickly than that. And fluent reading is, of course, a very important and useful thing. Robin Skipsey: But the ide
a of speed reading goes beyond that. speed. Reading is often associated with the idea that we can read it. Very high speeds may be 600 words per minute, or 1,000 words per minute. Robin Skipsey: And that's what I'm I'm referring to when I talk about speed reading. Robin Skipsey: So speed reading classes, were common in the Us. From the 19 thirties onwards and speed reading. Robin Skipsey: I think. It's a phenomenon that that really was associated with the Us. In particular, although it would be
to spread to other countries, including the Uk and all around the world. In fact. Robin Skipsey: there was one famous figure in the speed reading movement called Evelyn Wood, and she made this idea very popular. In the 19 sixties. Robin Skipsey: She claims that she personally could read 2,700 words per minute, and some people claimed even higher speeds than that up to 6,000 words per minute. People were claiming. Robin Skipsey: and This became Robin Skipsey: very, very widespread, and it was end
orsed by famous people, including us Presidents Jeff Kennedy. You can see a picture of him there. Robin Skipsey: Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, who all took speed reading courses and and recommended them to their staff Robin Skipsey: speed. Reading courses became big business and Robin Skipsey: made millions of dollars in sales. And so this was a very big phenomenon, and by the 19 seventies it was well established as part of us. Education as a high school and university level, that that people
would be introduced to speed reading courses, and the idea that we can read much more quickly than most people usually do. Robin Skipsey: and you can see why this is attractive. Most people feel like, maybe they're they're a little insecure about their reading. I think maybe they they Robin Skipsey: he should be able to read more quickly. Robin Skipsey: or maybe they have to face a lot of reading in their everyday, everyday lives, and so speed reading can be seen as a very attractive idea. Robin
Skipsey: So what was taught on these speed reading courses? Robin Skipsey: Well, students were taught eye exercises to increase Robin Skipsey: the number of words they could see. When they looked at the page Robin Skipsey: they were taught to run their finger down the middle of the page in an attempt to to speed up their reading Robin Skipsey: and they were told to eliminate sub vocalization. Robin Skipsey: Software. Equalization is where you kind of, murmured the words as you're reading and ac
tually, most people. A large number of people at least have a voice in their head is their reading, which kind of says the words Robin Skipsey: but speed reading course, is told you to suppress it, and and to try and get rid of any kind of self localization because it slows you down. Robin Skipsey: So this is a very popular movement. What's the evidence about speed reading? Well. Robin Skipsey: unfortunately. Robin Skipsey: we cannot increase Robin Skipsey: the capacity of our eyes to read. So R
obin Skipsey: the first exercise is really, we'll just Robin Skipsey: no use whatsoever. Robin Skipsey: And when tested, speed reading students has comprehension below 50% Robin Skipsey: So Robin Skipsey: if you don't really understand half of the of what you're reading that's not as useful, maybe, as as we'd hope it would be. Robin Skipsey: In fact, really, when it comes down to it, speed reading relies heavily on skimming and scanning. And these are the only effects, the only kind of Robin Ski
psey: techniques that you that you really learn when you're on a speed reading course. Robin Skipsey: and it's now regarded by most reading specialists Robin Skipsey: as a scam. Robin Skipsey: This is a the illustration shows a book about Evelyn Wood Robin Skipsey: calling her a scan artist after scanning from skimming and scanning and talking about how she convinced the world that speed breeding work, even though it didn't really work, and in fact. Robin Skipsey: She made some quite dishonest c
laims. I think she altered data. That suggested that her speed reading courses were more effective than they really were nowadays. It's not really regarded as a credible claim so much anymore, certainly by reading specialists. Robin Skipsey: Oh, you might be thinking, okay, this is an interesting story. But what does it got to do with teaching English as a foreign language? Well. Robin Skipsey: speed reading techniques, are also obvious in English as foreign language teaching the communicative a
pproach to English as a foreign language. Teaching was born in the 19 seventies, and this is around the peak Robin Skipsey: of speed, reading, popularity, and so not surprisingly there are elements of speed reading, and that we find in Robin Skipsey: lessons which follow the communicative approach Robin Skipsey: in particular. Lessons in textbooks often include skimming and scanning skills practice. I've put the word skills in in inverted commas. Because II don't think these really are skills ac
tually. Robin Skipsey: And teacher training often includes sessions on how to teach, skimming and scanning. And certainly when I did, my preservice teacher training there was a big focus on skimming and scanning. And and often when I look at Robin Skipsey: textbooks teachers, books in textbooks they talk of, they refer to skimming and scanning. It's something that I see quite regularly when I look also Robin Skipsey: the websites of major textbook publishers. Robin Skipsey: Now, I don't want to
condemn skimming and scanning out to Brandon and say that they're a complete waste of time. Skimming and scanning are useful, or a useful coping strategy in some situations. Robin Skipsey: For example. Robin Skipsey: if we have a big document to look through in a short time. Then we may need to rely on skimming and scanning, because there's no way we can. We can read it in the time we have available. Robin Skipsey: and this allows us to identify the the parts that are important. Robin Skipsey: e
specially if we know that some of the information in a document is not going to be interesting or useful for us. Robin Skipsey: But then, in that case, skimming and scanning are extremely valuable. Strategies Robin Skipsey: and students may find these coping strategies useful in tightly timed tests Robin Skipsey: with large amounts of reading text especially. Robin Skipsey: they don't. If you're reading a text, and then you're looking at the questions. You don't want to go back and start reading
the text from the start again. You may need to skim and scan your way through the text in order to find the answers to those questions. So skimming and scanning can also be useful test. Taking strategies, although I think we can sometimes go too far in recommending them, even for these purposes. Robin Skipsey: But what's important to know about skimming and scanning is skimming and scanning a more like a strategy than a skill. It's a technique we can choose for certain situations. Robin Skipsey
: A skill is something that the more you practice it generally the better you Robin Skipsey: you get at it. And this is probably not the case so much with skimming and scanning. There's a Robin Skipsey: maybe if you've never done it before then, and some practice will be helpful. Robin Skipsey: But it's likely to be fairly Robin Skipsey: fairly brief practice that's necessary for doing this, especially if it's a technique that you already use in your first language reading. Robin Skipsey: And we
need to bear in mind that skimming and scanning have a negative impact on comprehension. Robin Skipsey: and as a result, in many situations choosing to skim and scan will not be helpful or appropriate. Robin Skipsey: If you need to read something carefully and understand it. Then skimming and scanning skills are not useful. They don't transfer. Robin Skipsey: on the other hand, lots of things that we can do in reading lessons do transfer learning new vocabulary and learning new grammatical stru
ctures, learning how different kinds of text is structured. All of this information transfers to any text that we read, whereas skimming and scanning doesn't. Robin Skipsey: as a result, spending a lot of classroom time on skimming and scanning Robin Skipsey: is really an opportunity cost. So I'm not saying we should never teach it. As I mentioned before, there are. There are times when it's a useful strategy, and if if to Robin Skipsey: students have always been trained to start at the top of a
text and lead to the bottom. Then it's it's useful to introduce them to the idea that that's not always necessary. But there are some situations when we might want to skip to the end and that we don't always have to read everything with extreme care. Robin Skipsey: however alright. Robin Skipsey: Going back to the point. Spending a lot of classroom time on these strategies is an opportunity cost, and we could use it for things that are much more effective in helping students to read in any situ
ation. Robin Skipsey: Here's a quote from from Scott, Thornbury. who has written many books on Robin Skipsey: English language teaching, and he says, the skimming and scanning of texts in the absence of a more intensive reading is a characteristic not of good readers. Robin Skipsey: but of poor ones. Robin Skipsey: And certainly, that's my experience with learning Robin Skipsey: Japanese. So I'm actually quite good at skimming and scanning through texts in Japanese. Robin Skipsey: But what would
make me a more effective reader is knowing more Japanese kangy characters. I don't need to spend any time skimming and scanning. I need to spend time practicing learning a new vocabulary. I think Robin Skipsey: that's my own self diagnosis. Robin Skipsey: So, despite the lack of evidence, speed, reading courses continue to be surprisingly popular around the world. And a video of a recent and extreme version called Quantum reading Robin Skipsey: Went viral in 2019 went viral means. It became ver
y popular on the Internet. And if you're interested in this, it's in the pretzels. There's a link to the UA. Youtube video of of students doing quantum reading. It's really quite bizarre students, so literally, just flicking through pages in their books. Under the under the Robin Skipsey: understanding that this will help them to become more effective readers. Robin Skipsey: and and obviously, it's very unlikely that this will be of any use whatsoever. Robin Skipsey: So again, I'm gonna just pos
e a question to you in the chat. Do you find a lot of skimming and scanning activities in the teaching materials you use? I'm interested to know how widespread this is around the world, and I see that we have people joining us from from Robin Skipsey: all over the place, from Mexico, from India. So I'm curious to see how much of a worldwide phenomenon this is again, these just time, yes or no in the chat. Robin Skipsey: Okay, and it's interesting. Robin Skipsey: I'm seeing quite a lot of yeses.
Yes, is an absolute list. Yeses with lots of exclamation marks. Robin Skipsey: yes, Celta teaches it. Yes. Robin Skipsey: no. I teach at primary. Okay, so that's yes, in India it's a scam worldwide, I see. Okay. good. Robin Skipsey: A lot of skimming. I see from Jenny. So Robin Skipsey: this is it's a widespread phenomenon, and I think, as I said, that as I mentioned before, this can be an opportunity cost, and we maybe need to do something that's more helpful for us instead. Robin Skipsey: So
I'm going to move on to the next the next Robin Skipsey: misconception about teaching reading which is around guessing. And they're kind of linked to actually the idea that you reach through checks very quickly. And then you guess all the words that you don't know. Robin Skipsey: This is quite common, I think, in aot thinking. Robin Skipsey: and the idea of guessing is really strongly associated with a reading researcher called Kenneth Goodman. He wrote a very influential paper called Reading a
Psycho Linguistic Guessing Game. Robin Skipsey: in which he stated. reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. And what he was suggesting was that Robin Skipsey: actually, we didn't read. We don't read all the letters in words. We kind of sample the text, and we spend a lot of our time Robin Skipsey: predicting the words that are current going to come next, guessing the words as we read Robin Skipsey: and this was a very influential theory that strongly impacted. The teaching of reading, parti
cularly in the U.S.A. In the 19 seventies. Robin Skipsey: and his theory gave birth to an idea called the queuing system. Robin Skipsey: And so Robin Skipsey: teachers would teach students from elementary school level upwards to look at 3 different clues when they're Robin Skipsey: when they're reading words and trying to guess what they what they are. Robin Skipsey: So one is semantic clues or meaning. And the question is, does it make sense? The other one is Robin Skipsey: graphophonic. So tha
t's to do with the spelling? And the question is, does it look right? Robin Skipsey: The third one is syntactic. So the word order and things like that? Robin Skipsey: And there the question is, does it sound right? Robin Skipsey: So it's still, even to this day. There are a lot of teachers who are who are teaching students from a very young age when they're starting just to approach reading. That's very important to guess. The words that are written on the page. Robin Skipsey: So what's the evi
dence for this claim. Well, actually, although Goodman's Robin Skipsey: paper was influential and thought provoking eye tracking studies since the 19 seventies, so that readers do pay attention to all the letters in words. Robin Skipsey: and another theory, actually, theory actually, was that students relied on word shapes as well to to to work out what Robin Skipsey: what kind of word they were reading. And this is also not true. Skilled readers do not. They don't identify words by their shape
s, they do identify them by their letters. Robin Skipsey: So goodman's theory, in fact. turned out not to be true. Robin Skipsey: Skilled readers recognize words fluently or and automatically. They're not guessing the words. They're recognized and fluently. Robin Skipsey: and they're recognizing them so automatically that they don't have to think about their Robin Skipsey: And that's the mark of being a skilled reader. Robin Skipsey: and this automatic recognition frees up mental space to think
about and understand the contents of texts. Robin Skipsey: So if you're constantly trying to work out what the words are. In fact, it makes it difficult to comprehend what you're reading, because all your mental energy is focused Robin Skipsey: on identifying the words. But if you can recognize them automatically. This gives your brain space to think about what the meaning of the to think about the meaning of the text. Robin Skipsey: Here's a quote from Professor Shanahan. Robin Skipsey: who was
on a very influential reading panel in the Us. Robin Skipsey: And he says, the 3 queuing systems theory is still taught to many teachers and prospective teachers. Robin Skipsey: which is a shame Robin Skipsey: because it is descriptive of how poor readers read. Robin Skipsey: rather than how good ones do. Robin Skipsey: So. Again, as I was, as I said previously. Robin Skipsey: good readers are not constantly guessing at words. They're not constantly predicting what words gonna come next, not le
ast, not consciously, in in. Instead, they are rapidly and automatically identifying the words as they see them Robin Skipsey: now Robin Skipsey: again. I don't want to go too far, and say that there's never any situation when we we don't need to guess words or try and work them out from the context. That's not true. And one one very clear example of the role of context. Robin Skipsey: Is this so strong? We just do use context to interpret the meaning of ambiguous words. Robin Skipsey: For examp
le. after identifying the word run. Robin Skipsey: A skilled reader would use context to interpret which meaning is intended. Robin Skipsey: So his sentence. I go for a run once or twice a week. and here the meaning of Ron is the one that pretty much everybody knows. However. Robin Skipsey: in this sentence I run my own company. This clearly has nothing to do with jogging or exercise. And here, skilled reader would use context to work out. But run here means is a synonym for manage. I manage my
own company. Robin Skipsey: So context is important. But the key point is, we're not using context to guess Robin Skipsey: all the words and sentences on a large number of words and sentences. We're identifying the words. And then, where necessary, we're using context to interpret what they mean. Robin Skipsey: So we've looked at 2 key misconceptions. Speed reading and Robin Skipsey: and the idea that we're constantly guessing when we read and we see that evidence. Recent evidence has shown that
this is not true. So the ideas are mistaken, and after this seminar you'll be able to to download a handout which contains links to the studies Robin Skipsey: which I've just been talking about. So there are references to to all the points. So I've just made, and you can access them when you when you download a handout at the end of the session. Robin Skipsey: So the next question is, what is skilled reading Robin Skipsey: and an idea that's very helpful for understanding. This is called the Si
mple view of Reading, which was proposed by researchers called Guff and Gulf Antona in 1986, Robin Skipsey: and they said that reading is decoding Robin Skipsey: times, language, comprehension. That's what equals reading, comprehension. Robin Skipsey: So decoding means Robin Skipsey: being able to recognize the words on the page Robin Skipsey: and language. Comprehension means being able to understand the meaning of the text if you hear it. Robin Skipsey: So if someone read the text to you and y
ou could understand it. That's language. Comprehension Robin Skipsey: but decoding is, is recognizing the words on the page. Robin Skipsey: and these are both Robin Skipsey: highly dependent upon each other. So if you can say the sounds of the words on the page, but you don't understand what they're meaning their meaning, your language, your language, comprehension, is low, so your reading comprehension will be low. Robin Skipsey: On the other hand, if you can understand the words when you hear
them, but you don't recognize them when they're on the page. then your decoding is low, and of course your reading comprehension will be low. Robin Skipsey: and this simple view of reading is a very helpful way to approach Robin Skipsey: the skill of reading, and what we need to do to help students become better readers. Robin Skipsey: So first, let's have a look at decoding. Robin Skipsey: And this depends on first of all, the the skill of phonological awareness Robin Skipsey: and phonological
awareness is being able to break words down into component sounds. Robin Skipsey: So. Robin Skipsey: for example, if you hear the word big. Robin Skipsey: you could break it into the 3 sounds of it. Robin Skipsey: And Robin Skipsey: we can see whether students have full awareness by asking them to change some of these these phone names. So, for example, if you change the boot to Robin Skipsey: you, get pig. Robin Skipsey: if you change the E to app, you get bag. Robin Skipsey: If you change the
Robin Skipsey: Goethe, you get ben this kind of thing Robin Skipsey: for second language. Foreign language learners at the first stage in phonological, and it's actually just knowing the sounds of English, so knowing. Robin Skipsey: been able to hear and recognize words in in English. I mean, this is something that first language learners of first language Robin Skipsey: learners of first language readers obviously bring with them when they start to read. If you're learning English as a second l
anguage, then the first place may just be hearing the sounds of English and and learning some words already. Robin Skipsey: So how is fun? Phonological awareness, and decoding linked while skilled readers can break words into sounds to phonemes and map these sounds to spellings. Robin Skipsey: So, for example, the word frighten. Robin Skipsey: they can identify the sounds. Robin Skipsey: and they can link these to the the spellings which you can see below, and notice that, for example, the sound
I Robin Skipsey: is linked to the spelling. IGH. Robin Skipsey: So phonological awareness developed as you learn to recognize the sounds of words. And this is the first key stage. You need to know some words in English and and be able to Robin Skipsey: understand them when you hear them. Maybe say them yourself. It's affected by both hearing the sounds of English, and by learning to read and write the letters that represent those sounds. Robin Skipsey: and for fluent readers word recognition be
comes automatic. That means we do it without thinking about it. So you can see with a beginner, reader, they might sound outwards. For example, the Robin Skipsey: the example I gave before of big Robin Skipsey: a beginner. Right, reader, might go be big Robin Skipsey: but fluent readers don't do this. They see the records, and they automatically recognize the word Robin Skipsey: on the page. Robin Skipsey: Now. it's quite traditional. In many countries in the world, certainly in Japan for Robin
Skipsey: Efl teachers to to not teach phonological awareness and to not teach individual letter sounds instead. What often happens is they that Robin Skipsey: teachers teach words as whole words Robin Skipsey: in Japan, for example, using flashcards teacher will show the word in English. Robin Skipsey: Maybe they'll say the word, and then they'll show the the Japanese word on the back of the cart. Robin Skipsey: So here's an example, maybe, this student in the illustration that's called student
student one. Robin Skipsey: She's learning whole words in her lessons and in today's lesson she learned the word insects. So the teacher showed her the word insects, and she said insects, insects. Robin Skipsey: And then maybe, she said, maybe it's mushy in Japanese. Robin Skipsey: So as a result, with a lot of practice, this student can recognize this one word. Robin Skipsey: but it's not very efficient, actually, because there are so many words and so many different so many words to learn. It'
s not a very efficient way of learning to read. Robin Skipsey: So let's look at an alternative. This is student 2 student 2 learns letter sounds. Robin Skipsey: He also read the word insects in class today. Robin Skipsey: but because he can read a lot of other. Because he could recognize letter sounds. He can also read a lot of other words with the same letters like 10 and 10, and net and nets. Robin Skipsey: So we can see that where a student one can only remember words taught by the teacher st
udent 2 is becoming an independent reader. Robin Skipsey: And this is a really big argument in favor of teaching individual letter sounds and letter and sound spelling. Robin Skipsey: It helps students to become more independent. Robin Skipsey: and there's, in fact, a well known there is, in fact, an influential theory called the self teaching hypothesis. which suggests that if we can break Robin Skipsey: words down into sounds and we map them to spellings. We can teach ourselves a lot of new wo
rds, and without Robin Skipsey: even the teacher doing this for us. Robin Skipsey: But the question you might be asking is, okay. This is really clear in first language for first language readers. But our letter sounds and phonological awareness useful for Efl students Robin Skipsey: Efl students have the disadvantage that they often don't hear Robin Skipsey: the words of English around them, so they only learn the words that are taught to them in in school. Robin Skipsey: so they don't have the
same advantages. As we've just seen. Necessarily. Robin Skipsey: however, Robin Skipsey: While there is less research in this area for Efl, reading. Robin Skipsey: 2021, meta analysis found positive effects of teaching for any. Make awareness combined with one ex teaching. And if you're interested in that study. You can access it using the QR code that I just put up on the screen. Robin Skipsey: The size of the impact depends on various factors. For example, students. Robin Skipsey: whether stu
dents have a first language which is alphabetic or not. Robin Skipsey: the length of time that they're taught and how old they are when they're taught for new awareness Robin Skipsey: and for virtual awareness and phonics Robin Skipsey: and better quality studies are needed for afl reading. It's under research, I think, this area. But certainly Robin Skipsey: There's evidence that this is useful for second language learners as well. Robin Skipsey: And we've certainly found in teacher training pr
ojects and curriculum projects that we've been working on in Japan that students definitely do benefit from Robin Skipsey: from this kind of teaching that teaches them how to to link the sounds of English to to spellings. Robin Skipsey: So the key points are, we should help students to link the sounds and spellings of words. Robin Skipsey: This will help them become more independent readers. Robin Skipsey: We should also recognize that word recognition requires effort to start with. But free rea
ding practice. Students will learn to recognize words automatically. So that means that actually, students need quite a lot of practice to get to that. Automaticity. Robin Skipsey: Decoding is only one side of the the equation. Language comprehension is the other. Robin Skipsey: and language. Comprehension depends on students, ability to make sense of words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. So, of course, of course, all the things we do in Efl lessons where we teach vocabulary, where we teach
grammar, where we break down Robin Skipsey: paragraphs and and teach text structure is all very useful, very important. First for students reading comprehension. Robin Skipsey: One area that maybe we are less aware of but is also important is students, background knowledge. Robin Skipsey: And this is something we might overlook when, especially when we're teaching reading as a reading in English, as a foreign language. But it is an important factor. Robin Skipsey: And Robin Skipsey: there's a a
study called the baseball study which illustrates this effect of background knowledge very clearly. Robin Skipsey: I'd like to briefly explain the study to you, so you can understand how it works. So in this study the researchers took 4 groups. Robin Skipsey: and each group read a text about a baseball game. Robin Skipsey: and the students Robin Skipsey: the children read the text, and then they had a a model of a baseball pitch, and they moved the pieces around the baseball pitch to represent
Robin Skipsey: what was in the text about this baseball game and this measured their comprehension. Robin Skipsey: So here are the 4 groups Robin Skipsey: group one had strong readers who were baseball fans and knowledgeable about baseball Robin Skipsey: group. 2 had strong Robin Skipsey: readers, but they were not base football fans. They didn't know much about reading. Robin Skipsey: so I'm sorry they didn't know much about baseball group 3 were weak readers, but they were baseball fans and Gr
oup 4 were week readers, and they were not baseball friends. Robin Skipsey: So based on this. Which groups do you think what, what, which groups do you think would would be the most effective readers? I'd like to to predict for a moment which or do you think they will go in. Robin Skipsey: and I'll show you the results of this study. So unsurprisingly. Group One. Robin Skipsey: the strong readers who were baseball fans or knowledgeable about baseball. They were the most successful readers. Robin
Skipsey: but interestingly group 2 who were strong readers Robin Skipsey: were not as good at comprehending the text as Group 3 who were weaker readers. but they had a high knowledge of of baseball. And this just goes to show Robin Skipsey: that the the effect of background knowledge is is really important. In reading comprehension. Robin Skipsey: And here is a reference to that study. If you're interested, and again, it will be in the handout that you can download at the end of this presentati
on. Robin Skipsey: So you might be wondering how this works. I'm going to give you a an illustrative example here. Robin Skipsey: So this, I think maybe will work differently for people in, let's say, India and people based in, let's say, South America. So here's a text. Robin Skipsey: I'll briefly read it to you. Taylor works the ball off his pads to find leg and sprints through for 2. There'll be nearly another run out there. As Ambrose crashes down the stumps an inch or 2 too late. Robin Skip
sey: Mills adds another boundary to take him through to 37 mills, then sweeps the ball straight to Bell at silly mid-on. Robin Skipsey: Now again, it's likely that if you are a cricket fan this was very easy to understand, and you have no comprehension problems at all. and if you know nothing about cricket, it was possibly extremely confusing. Robin Skipsey: and Robin Skipsey: the reason for this is not to do with necessarily the recovery. These are quite straightforward words works fine leg run
. Robin Skipsey: but it's the context they're being used in. And your background knowledge of the rules and the scoring system of cricket which will, which will influence how well you understood this text. Robin Skipsey: So Robin Skipsey: it's important to know the background. Knowledge helps us visualize the situation being described in the text. Robin Skipsey: It helps us make sense of familiar words being used in unfamiliar ways. Robin Skipsey: It helps us work out what the writer means. Robi
n Skipsey: even if they leave out key information. And this is known as the inference Robin Skipsey: an inference working out what the writer means, even if they don't say it, is something that we sometimes practice when we're teaching reading, but it depends very heavily on background knowledge. Robin Skipsey: So in the text, I just showed you, the writer did not explain the rules of cricket. The writer did not explain how scoring works, because they assumed that the readers of that article wou
ld already know this. Robin Skipsey: and that's quite common. When you write a text, you assume that the reader knows some things you have to assume this, otherwise your text would become incredibly long and and very boring. For a lot of people trying to read it. Robin Skipsey: So to summarize, then. the key elements of skilled reading. and this is taken from a Robin Skipsey: from a from the the reading room, which was was was Robin Skipsey: designed by Scarborough in 2,001. A reading research.
Yeah. The key elements to skilled reading of vocabulary, language structures, syntax, grammar, etc., which I think we're all familiar with Robin Skipsey: verbal reasoning. So being able to explain what you've what you've understood. Robin Skipsey: Literacy knowledge. So print concepts. how different kinds of writing work, and are different from each other. Robin Skipsey: Background knowledge as we've just looked at and decoding, which we've also looked at. Robin Skipsey: And once we know that th
ese are the key elements of skilled reading, it gives us quite helpful hints into what we can do when we're teaching reading effectively. Robin Skipsey: leaving aside the flawed and flawed misconceptions that I referred to earlier. Robin Skipsey: So I'd like to to come towards the the last part of this presentation, and look at some helpful ideas about teaching, reading. ignoring the misconceptions, and and focusing on what we know about skilled reading. Robin Skipsey: So first of all, and most
obviously, we need to teach students about sounds and spelling and ideally starting from when students are beginners. Robin Skipsey: We can do this by teaching the sounds of the alphabet and the most common spelling patterns. Robin Skipsey: And we can consolidate this with reading aloud activities. So it's quite important. If you're teaching students knowledge about the alphabet and sounds that they get a chance to practice using this knowledge. Otherwise it just seems like Robin Skipsey: someth
ing that's, you know, quite irrelevant to them. Robin Skipsey: Can you introduce the sounds of the alphabet is quite common to introduce the alphabet Abcd, efg. In that order. But one interesting way of doing it is to introduce, that is, in the order of the most commons Robin Skipsey: spellings of English. So here is Robin Skipsey: a way that you can start the introducing that the alphabet using the letters SATP, n, which are representing the sounds at Robin Skipsey: it. And and already, if you
teach students these 6 Robin Skipsey: phonings, these 6 sounds of letters Robin Skipsey: they can already, immediately, from their first couple of lessons, start to Robin Skipsey: to say words in English. They can say PIN, they can say sat. They can say tin. Robin Skipsey: you can say sit. Robin Skipsey: And so already, straight away, we're helping them to see how letter sounds and reading are linked. Robin Skipsey: This is an example list of letter sounds from a a popular reading scheme in the
Uk. And other countries around the world called joly phonics. There are other Robin Skipsey: borders that you can also use. Robin Skipsey: Individual. That's a sounds aren't enough. There's other common sound spelling patterns that are important, especially in English. Robin Skipsey: There's lots of different vowel Robin Skipsey: spellings Robin Skipsey: so here are 5 Robin Skipsey: common spellings for the vowel sound, a which can be spelled with AI, as in train main and brain a y as in day pl
ay, and say a consident e sometimes called a magic e, as in plate, calculate, and save Robin Skipsey: EA bit more rare, as in steak and grate. Robin Skipsey: or EIGH. As in Number 8, or way or weight. Robin Skipsey: So teaching these also important because without knowing these more slightly, more complex spelling patterns, Robin Skipsey: English seems extremely irregular. But when you start to teach these these vowel spelling patterns, it becomes a lot more regular. You start to see a lot more
patterns in in the words the spellings of English Robin Skipsey: as well as teaching Robin Skipsey: systematically. You can also do incidental teaching. That means that you teach new words as they appear in the text. It's good to combine both. Robin Skipsey: and you can do this by breaking down how the sounds and spelling are linked, and it's Robin Skipsey: I find it's most easy to go from sound to spelling, not the other way around. If you go from spelling to sound, you have to do a lot of very
complex explanations Robin Skipsey: which can be confusing for students. But if you go from sound to spelling, it's nice and simple and straightforward. Robin Skipsey: So I'm gonna give you an example. Robin Skipsey: Let's imagine that in a text, you have the word qualification. So I'm gonna help students to recognize and maybe spell the word qualification. So first of all. Robin Skipsey: here it is qualification. Robin Skipsey: Bo le fei K. Shun Robin Skipsey: qualification. Robin Skipsey: And
if I was fixing Japanese students, I say this is in Japanese, because it's very important that students know the meaning of any words that they're trying to read or spell. Robin Skipsey: Okay. so qualification has a tricky sound. Robin Skipsey: The first one is, oh. Robin Skipsey: spelt with letter A. Robin Skipsey: It usually spells the sound app, but in this word it spells the sound of qualification. and it's the same in these other words, want, and was Robin Skipsey: where the letter a spell
s the sound. OP. Robin Skipsey: There's one more slightly tricky part. Robin Skipsey: the sh Robin Skipsey: qualification Robin Skipsey: and the sh is felt with the letters T. And I Robin Skipsey: like in station and patient. So let's look at the word one more time qualification. Robin Skipsey: So this is an example teaching technique that you can use if you're teaching words that come up, especially if you're teaching secondary learners where the basic sounds are fine. But some of the new words
are difficult for them to to read or to spell. Robin Skipsey: So first of all, Key Point is to say the word clearly, and if it's a long word, break it into syllables. So qualification. Robin Skipsey: po Li Fei kai shin. Robin Skipsey: Let's break it into 5 syllables. Robin Skipsey: Make sure students understand the meaning of the word. That's very important. Show the spelling Robin Skipsey: highlight, the tricky bits. So it was the off spell with the letter A and the Robin Skipsey: spelt with t
he letters Ti. In qualification. Robin Skipsey: and show other examples, using familiar words. So I use walls and want. For example, station. Robin Skipsey: which helps students see, these are patterns of spelling. Robin Skipsey: So that's one example of a practical technique you can use. It's important to practice oral reading as well. Robin Skipsey: Here's a quote from Mark Sidenburg, who was a Who's a well respected reading researcher, and who wrote the interesting book language at the speed
of sight. He says. Robin Skipsey: children who struggle when reading texts aloud do not become good readers, if left to read silently. Robin Skipsey: Their disfluency merely becomes inaudible. Reading aloud and silent comprehension are causally connected. So Robin Skipsey: it's what's clear from this is that we actually need to hear students reading aloud. It's a bit of a taboo I found in Efl reading. Some people say Robin Skipsey: that they don't like reading aloud, but it's actually very impor
tant part of learning to read, and English, whether it's your first language or second language. or reading by students, helps to link spellings and sounds of we as we've seen. It gives hints on comprehension issues. If we hear students pausing in strange places Robin Skipsey: we can maybe imagine that they're struggling to understand what they're reading. and it makes any decoding or fluency issues clear to the teacher. So if the student is taking a very long time Robin Skipsey: to sound out ea
ch word, then we know that maybe they need some extra practice, and if they're reading silent, we have no idea we have no insight into what the problem is, whether it's they don't understand the word or they can't read the word we don't know. So oral reading Robin Skipsey: gives lots of important information to the teacher. Robin Skipsey: One note of caution, though Robin Skipsey: if I've sometimes seen classes where the Robin Skipsey: teacher will ask one student to read to the class, maybe the
re will be 40 students. 39 of them are listening, and one is reading. Robin Skipsey: There's some issues with this. It can be embarrassing for that student, especially if they're a weak reader. and they may give a poor model for other students. and it can be tricky to give feedback without humiliating that student. Robin Skipsey: Moreover, other students in the class get reduced reading time. We've got one student reading 39, listening. If the students not doing a very good job, then the other s
tudents also maybe not be listening very carefully. Robin Skipsey: so I don't particularly recommend this style of oral reading instruction. Robin Skipsey: but something that is quite helpful is what's called paired oral reading. Robin Skipsey: That's where students take turns to read a paragraph allow to each other in pairs is an illustration that shows it. So maybe the girl on the left reads first, and the boy listens, and then they swap. Then they switch roles, and the boy reads and the girl
listens, and if either of them are having trouble reading words, the other. One can coach them and help them. Robin Skipsey: They can give each other feedback and coaching, as I said, and the teacher can monitor the class and give feedback. So while students are reading in pairs, the teacher can walk around listening. Teacher can give individual feedback if necessary, or whole class feedback. If they hear lots of students having the same kind of problems. Robin Skipsey: Repeated. Reading is also
another technique that can be helpful. Robin Skipsey: Also. Oral reading by the teacher is helpful, allows the teacher to show students fluent reading Robin Skipsey: to scuffle understandings. That means to support students understanding, for example, by using intonation and pausing to make the meaning of words, of sentences clearer. Robin Skipsey: so gloss, vocabulary to that means to explain vocabulary, maybe in students, first language. Robin Skipsey: and also to model thinking and reading s
trategies. So what to do when you get stuck. Robin Skipsey: I'm not going to pose you this question. I'd like you just to think by yourself how often you use oral reading activities in your English lessons, and maybe you might have a question about this in the QA. At the end. But I'd like to move on so that we finish the time finish in time for some QA. Robin Skipsey: So the last point is, we can teach background knowledge. It's important to choose any background knowledge that we teach. And so
when you do this, it's important to look at the test text. You're teaching and ask yourself these questions. Robin Skipsey: What background information does the writer assume? Readers already know? Robin Skipsey: And you are my students likely to know that background information? Robin Skipsey: If not. Robin Skipsey: how can I teach this information in a clear, engaging, and efficient way. Robin Skipsey: We're going to look at a quick example. This is taken from, learn English kids. So it's aime
d at primary school children. Robin Skipsey: And it's a text about saving water. Robin Skipsey: And in the text, we have these sentence, that's okay. There's a lot of water on our planet. Robin Skipsey: True. But did you know that we can't use most of it? Robin Skipsey: That's because it's salt water in seasonal oceans or fresh water, which is ice or in the ground. Robin Skipsey: Now, if you're teaching using this text in a young learner classroom, in a class of primary or elementary school stud
ents. Robin Skipsey: there's some assumed information here that I'm not sure the children will necessarily know. Robin Skipsey: And Robin Skipsey: If you look at that, I wonder what background knowledge you think might help students to understand this text better. Robin Skipsey: I think that it's this sentence here. Robin Skipsey: especially if students are not live a long way from the sea, or they haven't been taught about salt water yet. Robin Skipsey: and they might say, Well, why can't we dr
ink salt water? And so if we're using this text, we need to be prepared. This didn't ask questions, or if they don't seem to understand the text. To give them some information about this. Robin Skipsey: The simple information is, it makes us sick. Robin Skipsey: A more detailed information is that the salt damage is our kidneys, which you can see in the illustration. The kidneys try to get rid of the salt using water. Robin Skipsey: So we lose more water than we drink. That's why we can't drink
salt water. Robin Skipsey: This kind of information also actually enlivens the text for students. A note of caution, though Robin Skipsey: trying to avoid telling students information that they can gain themselves from reading the text. Robin Skipsey: So, for example, if the feature says we're going to read it about water. Did you know that we can only use around 1% of the water on the planet? Robin Skipsey: That's because Robin Skipsey: this is information that students could work out for thems
elves by reading the text, and the text tells them this information. so we don't need to explain it to them before they read. In fact, if we do this. Robin Skipsey: we explain all the information in the text to students, they lose the chance to practice. The mental process of says of reading comprehension. Robin Skipsey: and it also removes students reason for reading, and I think a good analogy for this is, if you went to a film. Robin Skipsey: your friend told you how it ended, you'd perhaps b
e less motivated to watch the film. It's the same for reading. Robin Skipsey: I think we need to remember that the mental work of trying to understand. Text is a key part of reading. So we shouldn't rock students of the opportunity to think about what they're reading. Robin Skipsey: But, as I said, there may be occasions where students, background knowledge doesn't allow them to understand the text. And that's where we can. We can help with some brief and and helpful, teach Robin Skipsey: finall
y, some other useful ideas. Getting students to discuss the text in pairs in their first language. tends to lead to deeper, deeper discussions, deeper understanding Robin Skipsey: teaching strategies for breaking down long, complex sentences is useful for students, because long complex sentences are often the topic sentences. The key ones that students need to understand in a paragraph Robin Skipsey: teaching students about different text genres and text organization that's important Robin Skips
ey: and raising students curiosity about the text they're about to read. It's also important. Robin Skipsey: Curiosity is linked very clearly to reading comprehension. Robin Skipsey: And one way of doing this is to take a content. That approach to reading text. That means you don't say we're gonna read this text to learn a lot of new grammar and vocabulary. Instead, you introduce the text based on the topic of the text and get students curious and interested in finding out more about that topic.
Robin Skipsey: But final summary, so skilled reading involves recognizing words automatically and reading them fluidly. This gives students time to think about the meaning of the text. They're reading and background knowledge is also important for reading comprehension. Robin Skipsey: that's all from me. Thank you very much for listening. Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): Thanks very much, Robin. It's great, really, really interesting lots in there. Huge amount in that actually, and I think cert
ainly, from the comments we've been getting throughout, it's been it's been a very useful session for everyone. So thank you for all of that, I think. Yeah, we could Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): should probably get you back into another one. Expand on some of this. Okay, we've just got a few minutes actually, for questions. You can hopefully see the QA. If there's any that you sort of think might be worth picking out. One that might be interesting is actually the last one that's in the how c
an we raise average readers when kids and teams nowadays prefer gadgets over books, and this is perhaps not Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): exactly relevant to some of the techniques and stuff you've been talking about. But it was something that I was thinking about where you were talking, having to sort of teenage children who getting them to read is like getting touch from a stone sometimes. So I just sort of wonder if you had any sort of a golden nuggets of of advice then on that one. Robin
Skipsey: But I'm actually in a fairly similar situation. I don't. I think. Robin Skipsey: yeah, I think one of the problems is that gadgets are actually very. They're designed to be addictive. And so it's it's very. If you've got a gadget in one hand in a book in the other. Gadget is most likely to win your attention. It's been designed to suck up your attention. So Robin Skipsey: making sure there is some non gadget time in this. In students lives where they have no no other option but to to do
some reading to pass the time is is probably an important tip to think about, but that's Robin Skipsey: maybe not something I I've got any great. Unfortunately, I've tried bribery and offering money. Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): One thing is interesting, I think I mean just sort of just on that, and going back a little bit. Some particularly, is now 19 when he was sort of younger he read Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): all of the Harry Potter books. I don't know. I mean, it sort of relates
a little bit to your sort of the baseball experiment. If you're actually kind of interested in something. The topic then is then maybe that maybe it's a case of finding something that they're actually interested in and not necessarily expected to read a whole big book. But you know, reading something. On the top of that. Isn't this interesting to them, maybe is Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): is something. Robin Skipsey: Yeah, I think curiosity is a really key part of reading comprehension, I
know. And obviously, curiosity is gonna play a role in motivation as well. Absolutely Robin Skipsey: okay. Question from from Maya Cutlap saying, I find reading allowed lowers the students comprehension significantly. And how do you deal with it? And that's a good question I'd like to just briefly touch upon. And I think yes, it is likely to. Initially, especially for Robin Skipsey: beginner students. They're devoting so much time to kind of decoding the words that there's not much space left fo
r them to understand what they're reading. And that's where rereading is actually quite important. So Robin Skipsey: don't just go with 1 one. Read and then ask you, what do you understand? Give them a chance to think about it and reread it and maybe discuss with a partner what they've understood is that that is likely to both increase their Robin Skipsey: fluency and give them the mental space to to think about what they've just read. Robin Skipsey: And I've had an exactly the same thing. When
I went to a Japanese lesson and we were asked to read a lot of Japanese text around the class, II was able to Unders. I was able to answer the questions to the student who dread allowed, but not my own. Robin Skipsey: When I had to read a lot of passage, and I was asked a question I couldn't on. I couldn't answer it, because I've spent so much effort trying to. Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): Yeah, yeah. Okay, alright interesting. Okay, one more quick one, possibly question from Rebecca English
as additional language students in my previous school in the Uk. Had good phonological awareness, and could read aloud fluently, but had poor comprehension. Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): What would be your advice to improve that comprehension? So it relates a little bit to Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): to the last one, I suppose. But Robin Skipsey: yeah, absolutely. So. I think you need to check first of all, that they Robin Skipsey: the vocabulary. Also, you know, reading aloud to stude
nts. So reading 2 students is also a very valuable activity, in fact, because then they have haven't got the pressure of trying to decode the words themselves. Robin Skipsey: And you can. You can check their understanding of the words you can feed in any necessary background knowledge you can. Robin Skipsey: You know, if the text structure is unfamiliar to them. You can tell them without. So a combination of reading to students and and student discussions and inputting, you know. Background know
ledge for cavalry. That kind of thing is important. I think. There, there's a expression barking at text which is sometimes where students can say words, but they don't know what they mean. And that's obviously not reading. Understanding the words is a key part of it. Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): Okay, brilliant. Fascinating. Thanks. Ever so much of them. We've kind of run out of time. It's a shame because it gets to carry on with this. But thank you ever so much. To you, Robin, and thank yo
u to everyone participating. Thank you to Melissa and Joe for moderating and also to Louise, moderating the Facebook as well, and thank you to everyone in Facebook. He's been watching Paul Braddock (TeachingEnglish): as well as in zoom. We've got another session coming up in 15 min. So we're gonna leave this one now and hopefully see most of you in the the next session in 15 min time. So again, thanks, reverend, thanks. Everyone cheers.
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