Contexts of Reading - Teaching Strategies

Contexts of Reading - Teaching Strategies

How can I increase my students’ awareness of reading contexts?
Increasing students’ awareness of reading contexts means helping them think about how various settings, purposes and texts influence their reading. You can do this through strategies such as the following.
• Have the class brainstorm a list of all the reading they did the previous day. Many students will automatically limit their list to books; however, encourage them to identify other kinds of reading they might have done, such as comics, signs, maps, magazines, newspapers, e-mail or Web sites. Ask students to identify the setting and purpose for each text they listed. Draw attention to the fact that reading occurs in different contexts.
• Ask students to compare and contrast how their reading changes if the setting, purpose or text changes. For example, if students are reading a story on their own rather than in school, how is the purpose different? How does that affect their reading? How is reading in a social studies class different from reading in a mathematics class? And what happens when the text changes? How is reading a recipe different from reading a story? There are no right or wrong answers here.
• Provide students with graphic organizers or other tools that will help them reflect on the context before they start reading a text.
• Make identifying the context of reading part of the requirements for research projects and other assignments that involve reading throughout the year.

How can I encourage students to explore and share contexts of leisure reading?
Consider the following sample strategies.
• Discuss reading that occurs outside of school, such as at home, at the library, on the bus or airplane, waiting in a doctor’s office, or in a park.
• Encourage students to keep a journal to record what they read on a daily basis. Ask them to include information about the text, the place and the purpose for reading. Your class might be surprised to learn how much reading they really do! [Reading Log tool - thumbnail]
• Have your class survey their friends to find out the last thing they read for leisure and what prompted them to read it. Then have students tabulate and graph the results. What trends can they see? Are there gender or other differences?
These activities will help students think about how they might find more enjoyment in their reading, such as new texts to try or times and places for reading that they might not have thought of. At the same time, these activities will also help you find out about your students’ leisure reading, so you can build on the texts and situations that students already enjoy.

How can I help my students prepare for functional reading in the home and community?
Consider the following sample strategies.
• Have students keep a journal of their daily reading. The first step in helping students prepare for functional reading in the home and community is to make them aware of what types of reading they have already experienced.
• Encourage students to discuss goals they have at school, in the workplace and in their everyday lives. Help students see the relevance of strategies they are learning at school by pointing out how school-related tasks connect with the experiences and goals in the rest of their lives; for example, reading to pass a driver’s license examination involves many of the same skills as reading for a test at school.
• Ask students to identify situations where they have initiated reading because they recognized that a particular text could help them meet a goal.
• Lead group discussions about what strategies students find useful for functional reading they do outside of school.
• Provide self-assessment tools that students can use to monitor their understanding of texts they read.
• Model and create opportunities for students to practise identifying specific goals they want to achieve through individual reading tasks. This habit will help students to focus on the information they need, making reading tasks more manageable. For example, when reading a Web page, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by all the print and visual images. But students who have clear goals in mind can scan a text and focus on finding what they are looking for, rather than getting distracted or confused by information that can safely be ignored. They can also choose specific strategies to achieve their goals.
• Wherever possible, integrate discussion about reading contexts and strategies into existing content areas and activities in the classroom. That is, instead of teaching reading as a separate skill, integrate the instruction into the actual reading that students do in their courses for real purposes and real activities.
• Consider setting aside time in the school day for leisure reading. Engaging daily in the practice of reading will help students improve their reading abilities. You could model this practice by bringing your own leisure reading to enjoy at school.

How can I help my students prepare for functional reading in the workplace?
Activities to help students with functional reading at home and in the community will also prepare them for reading in the workplace. In addition, consider the following sample strategies.
• Incorporate workplace-like reading, such as instructional and safety manuals, letters, memos, reports, reference books or Internet information, into classroom work. This practice will make students better able to recognize when such reading is purposeful, whether in the workplace or in solving problems on their own.
• Discuss the kinds of experiences students have, or will be having, with reading on the job. Focus on how students can assess each element of the situation: what they need to read, why they need to read it and where the reading will happen. Discuss how each of these elements has an impact on how they should go about the task. For example, reading to follow instructions in a technical manual is different from reading a report to identify the main idea and bring it to a meeting.
• Have students visit a workplace or bring in a guest speaker to discuss what and how they read at work. It can be particularly meaningful for students to hear first-hand from employers that reading various texts is an expectation in most occupations. Then, when students are reading in the classroom, help them see links between the reading they are doing in school and the reading they will be doing in the workplace.
• Brainstorm situations in which reading a particular text will be required for everyone at a workplace (e.g., policies or procedures). Explain how this context would require the reader to read and think about all of the information in the text, even if there are points where it does not make sense or where the information seems to be something he or she already knows. Discuss how students might recognize similar purposes and how they can best increase their focus and understanding when reading.

How can I use the Read to Live videos to teach my students about contexts of reading?
All of the video segments can be used to explore the importance of contexts of reading. The two examples below offer a sample of the kinds of activities and questions you can use as you view these clips with your students, as well as ideas for viewing the clips with colleagues. You could also guide students through relevant sections of the Student Page, which provides key information from all of the workshop topics, built around the video segments. For a list and description of all the video segments, click on Video Index in the top navigation bar.
Signs You're Reading
Rules of the Road

Signs You’re Reading
While riding around town on a bus, a student realizes that he is a reader. In fact, he reads things all around him: signs, ads, even newspaper headlines.

Student Activities
• Ask students to record all the instances in the clip where there is something to read. They might need to view the clip more than once.
• Discuss the following topics in small groups or as a class.

When you go for a walk or take a trip somewhere, do you encounter as much print as the student in the video? More? Less? How much of it do you read? How do you decide which things are worth reading?��
For those items you do read, do you read them consciously, or do you think they have an effect on you even if you don’t notice you are reading them?
Some people feel that in today’s society we encounter too much print and suffer “information overload” as a result. Is this true? Why or why not? Should there be bylaws limiting the amount of print, such as on billboards, you have to see in your community? Why or why not?

• Discuss the prominence of logos and symbols in signs, advertising, clothing and other things we see in our environment. Have students work in groups to compare and contrast these symbols with words. How do they convey meaning? How is the process of reading this meaning the same or different? Then have each group copy a logo they have seen in the community and discuss what would happen if you replaced that symbol with words—what would the sign say? Finally, invite students to plan or create a personal logo or symbol for themselves.
• Take a walk around the school. What print is posted in public spaces? If you were a visitor, what would that print tell you about the culture of the school?
• Ask students to walk around the school and community to photograph, sketch or paint the print that they see. As a class, create a collage that captures the reading that occurs during a walk around the neighbourhood.

Community of Practice
You can also support understanding of reading contexts in your school by viewing this clip with your colleagues. Discuss whether or how you consider the various types of “reading” shown in the clip as being valid in terms of offering a real reading experience. Are there any points of disagreement? If you think that some of the examples do not really involve reading, explain why you think they do not. You may want to review the definition of text in the English Language Arts program of studies as a starting point for your discussion.

Rules of the Road
As a student studies the driver education manual to prepare for her driving test, she uses different strategies to help her understand the text. She thinks about what she already knows, breaks down difficult sentences and words, pictures the information in her head, and asks someone else for help.

Student Activities
• View the video as a class and ask students to identify the three features of the context of reading: the reader and her purpose, the text, and the environment. For each one, ask students to explain how that aspect of the context supports or hinders the girl’s reading. For example, if the purpose of getting her driver’s license is a motivating factor for her, this is supportive, but could there also be a point where the prospect of the examination becomes a stressor for her? When students find themselves in this or a similar situation, what can they do?
• Bring a copy of the provincial driver’s manual to class. Ask students to describe the design of the manual, including the layout and illustrations, and identify aspects of the design that they could use to support their understanding of the content.
• Encourage students to consider how the girl in the video uses her imagination to apply her knowledge and test her understanding. How many students in the class have done this? Bring in other examples of instructions and have students visualize themselves carrying out the steps. Or, have the students write their own examples and have each other test the feasibility of the examples by imagining what would happen if the students carried them out.
• Ask students whether they feel comfortable seeking help when they have difficulty reading, as the girl in the video does with her brother. If they do not feel comfortable asking for help outside the classroom, are there ways of ensuring that they always feel comfortable doing so in class?

Community of Practice
You can also support understanding of reading contexts in your school by viewing this clip with your colleagues. Consider the “think aloud” strategy carried out by the girl in the video. This is an example of where it is appropriate for a student to read line-by-line and to check for understanding at every step along the way. What are some other instances of reading where it would be appropriate to read like this?