Basic Reading Skills Level One
Fall Quarter
Class Meetings: TR 10:00-11:50 AM
Instructor Michael Buckhoff
Materials
ºA Large three
ring binder/notebook, 100 sheets loose leaf college ruled notebook paper, and
5 reinforced index dividers.
ºReading Power
Objective:
This course is designed to help provide you a basic foundation
in your reading skills by accomplishing the following:
1. Learn and use practical reading skills: scanning,
previewing, predicting, and guessing.
2. Locate and find the main idea of a paragraph.
3. Begin to use guessing strategies, and context cues for
unfamiliar words to increase reading comprehension and speed.
4. Read at least one graded novel (from the student
library).
SRA Extended Reading for 45 minutes
Reading is a critical skill needed by second language
students not only for TOEFL but for academic success. Extensive reading (reading
large amounts of English only texts for periods of at lest 45 minutes or more)
provides ESL students the means for developing the background knowledge
necessary for more speculative thinking. In a survey obtained by Ostler, ESL
students considered reading the most important skill for future academic
success.
Reading is not a skill that you just get or understand. You
must do large amounts of extensive reading in order to develop and learn the
skill. Timing and concentration are extremely important skills for reading
comprehension. As you work in class on the extended readings, I want you to be
aware of the following "bad habits" that you may have as a non native
reader of English which may prevent you from learning to read the same way we do
as native readers. Some of these "bad habits" are:
;The best way to read
is to translate all the words from English into your own language.
;In order to
understand what you read, you use the dictionary to look up all the words you
don’t understand.
;In order to
understand what you read, you look closely at each word and translate it.
;In order to read
well, you think that you need to understand all the words on a page.
;In order to
concentrate well when reading, you read slowly and carefully. You also write
the meanings of all the words on the page.
;You believe that
there is only one way to read. As a result you read the newspaper the same way
as you would read a textbook.
If you do any of these"bad habits" when you read,
you might not be able to finish the reading comprehension section of the TOEFL.
In addition, you may have poor reading comprehension.
Many of you have been reading for 10 years or more and you
have your own reading habits. Habits are very difficult to change. Nine weeks is
a short time to learn new reading habits. But you will begin to learn how to
read more quickly and easily during this term. Read, read and read some more!
That’s how you get better.
Late Work
Assignments submitted after the due date will not be
accepted. In other words, you will receive no points. I will only allow you to
make up missed work if you have a written documented excuse from someone stating
the urgency of the situation (e.g. Doctor’s note, CHP accident report, etc.).
Attendance
Your attendance is required at all class meetings. Only
written documented excuses for an absence may result in your making up an
assignment or graded daily work. Absences endanger your grade simply because you
are missing out in the learning process. Two absences will result in an
overall reduction of one full letter grade and four absences will result in a
failing grade for this class. Come to class on time. Three tardies will be
counted as an absence. If you arrive fifteen minutes late or more, you will be
counted absent for that class period. If you do come late to class, please enter
quietly so as not to distract the other students. Do not explain to me why you
are late.
/Make sure that you
begin reading materials that are on the appropriate level for you.
/All of the books are
color coded to make it easier in your selection.
/Your goal is to read
as many of these books as you can during the quarter.
/I will hold weekly
conferences with you to discuss how you are doing. readings and your reading
for understanding notebook.
/At the end of the
quarter, we will have an award ceremony for the students who have read the
most pages. I will give awards to the top three students who have read the
most pages in a nine week period.
1. Readings--Passages from the handouts and readings
from the ACLP library will be completed both during and outside of class time.
2. Vocabulary--Weekly assignments, games, and quizzes
will test the student’s ability to recognize and use chosen words from the
readings.
3. Skills--The reading cards from the SRA box will be
used approximately 30 minutes a week to build vocabulary and context skills.
4. Discussion--Understanding and commenting on the
readings is a very important part of the activity of reading. Sometimes
students will talk together, other times they will write their reaction to the
reading.
