| Secondary>Strategies to Develop Reading |
Strategies to Develop Reading
Model strategies for reading texts – for example: skimming, scanning, reading on, using images, subheadings, highlighting etc.
Provide a simplified form of a linguistically complex written source.
Use strategies that help to structure reading such as DARTs and use these in a collaborative context - paired/group work.
Examples of such activities:
- sequencing
- prioritising
- matching pictures to words
- matching phrases to definitions
- matching examples of cause and effect
- cloze
- the use of true/false statements
- sorting to determine which information is not needed for a piece of work
- grouping information to identify similarities and differences
- matching concepts to examples
Depending on a EAL learner's previous experience, confusion may arise from the following:
- cultural references, for example, references to common aspects of life in Britain , which may be unfamiliar
- reference in text, where meaning is carried across sentences and paragraphs through reference (to previously stated nouns) using pronouns (it, they, he, she)
- meaning carried through the use of complex sentences or clause construction in some texts
- contextual definitions of words that can have different meanings, such as ‘depression’
- imagery – metaphors, similes, idiomatic phrases
For more detailed advice see ‘Access and Engagement in English’ published by Department for Education and Skills, Ref: DfES 0609/2002.

