Planning a Reading Lesson
Tips on Evaluating the Textbook for Planning Reading Activities
Textbooks have their own reading approach that dictates the quality of reading and vocabulary activities. Here's a checklist to help you plan your next reading lesson.
When planning reading lessons, the textbook is the framework of many of your reading activities. It might be enough to make your students cringe or just completely demotivate them from the actual subject you wanted to teach. The textbook is just one to supplement reading activities.
Every new teacher begins somewhere and the textbook is a safe place to start. But every teacher also has that reading approach she identifies with more and by applying this information to viewing the textbook, you will be able to choose much more selectively those reading activities you want to use. The general categories that you will want to analyze are: vocabulary and reading comprehension skills in light of reading texts and grammar.
Looking at Vocabulary
Pre-reading activities can be represented by a variety of vocabulary activities which need to be pre-taught in many cases. How is vocabulary integrated in your textbook unit? Will you need to present new lexis in a new and fresh way? What other activities will you need to integrate? For those ELL teachers, consider the needs of your learners. Are there other lexis that you will need to pre-teach?
The Textbook
What may you need to add or leave out? New teachers think they may need to teach from cover to cover. But adding or leaving out reading activities is entirely legitimate and acceptable. Take into account:
- the level of your learners
- their interests
- the learning pace
- the interest of the teacher
First impressions really do count. How interesting, attractive and colorful are the stories? Does the textbook offer a lot of activities including on a personal level? Always trust your first instincts. Listen to what your voices tell you.
Unit Organization of Reading Activities
How are the units organized? What are the repetitive patterns? What is the character of the textbook? Are there reading dialogues, songs, personal questions? Is there sufficient opportunity for pupil interaction? Are there are enough reading comprehension type activities? Is there a balance between vocabulary and reading comprehension activities? Are the reading comprehension texts graded?
Finally, A Few Words on Reading Approaches
What is the main orientation of the book? Does it focus only on skills or is it pupil oriented? is it communicative or eclectic?
Final Note
You may need to look at other textbooks in order to supplement reading and vocabulary activities if you feel you are skipping or adding too much of your own ideas. What do all the book on that particular level have in common? Maybe you can choose another textbook for the following year or speak to your reading specialist and see what other preventive tactics can be taken into consideration.
