Reading Strategies

Activities Practice

Reading for relaxation and enjoyment Part 1: Synonyms

● a novel ● Identifying and reading for

● a short story synonyms
● a biography
● articles on topics that interest you (e.g.
sports, cinema, fashion, health etc).

Part 2: Noun and verb groups

Reading to practice looking for information
● Parts of speech
● advertisements ● Noun groups
● brochures – for products, services, holidays ● Verb groups
etc. ● Understanding pronouns
● information leaflets – from companies, service
providers, governments, employers
● Timetables.
● company handbooks
● workplace policies
● training course advertisements or leaflets
● job adverts
● job descriptions
● workplace memos.
● http://www.thejobexplorer.com/Job_Descripti
on/index.html

reading to gain information Part 3: Punctuation

● http://www.economist.com/
● http://www.guardian.co.uk/
● http://www.sciam.com/
● http://www.newscientist.com/
● http://www.world-newspapers.com
● Giving a
definition/explanation
● Giving additional information
● Emphasising a point or idea
● Indicating a name or title

Education
Health and leisure
The arts and entertainment
The environment
Science and technology
Social issues
Business and work
Government and the law
Development issues
Relationships
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/index.shtml
 Reading Strategies
reading to build vocabulary Part 4: Connective words and
phrases
● guessing the meaning of a word from the
context. ● Cause and effect
● Additional or similar ideas
writing new words in a vocabulary notebook ● Contrasting ideas
● Explanation of ideas
practising and revising new vocabulary ● Sequence / time order
regularly. ● Order of importance
● Giving examples
● Activity - Guessing missing words in a  ● Putting it together
text

reading to increase speed. Part 5: Strategies for understanding

unfamiliar words
● choose suitable texts
● practise reading in ‘chunks’ ● Guessing the meaning of the
● monitor your reading speed. word from context
● Looking for a definition in the
text
● Looking for opposite meaning
● Understanding prefixes
● Putting it all together

Using a dictionary 
● Skimming
● the vocabulary item ● scanning
● how to pronounce it ● reading intensively for detail​.
● parts of speech
● two different meanings of this word
● example sentences using the word.

Noun Groups
Online dictionaries 
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ ● a prepositional phrase
http://www.longmanwebdict.com/index.asp ● an adjective
http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/oald/lookup/ ● a qualifier
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ ● a quantifier
● a noun​ (used as an adjective)
● a relative clause
 Reading Strategies
Verbs Group
vocabulary notebook
● new word ● a noun
● part of speech ● an adverb
● meaning of the word ● an adverbial or prepositional
● example sentence using new word phrase
● a modal verb​.
● the opposite meaning (decrease)
● synonyms (grow, expand, enlarge)
● relevant prepositions (an increase ​in​ sales /
an increase ​of​ 5%)
● expressions which use that word (wage
increase, price increase)

new vocabulary is to regularly practise and

revise new words
● read aloud

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/lear
ningenglish/language/