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Reading Strategies and Current Events: Level Three
Winter Quarter
Class Meetings: TR 10:00-11:50AM
Materials
- A Large three ring binder/notebook, 100 sheets loose leaf college ruled notebook paper, and 5 reinforced index dividers.
- More Reading Power
- 504 Absolutely Essential Words
Objective:
This course is designed to help you improve your reading skills by accomplishing the following:
1. Understand commonly used word roots, prefixes, and suffixes to help increase guessing strategies for unfamiliar vocabulary.
2. Read critically by recognizing the meaning that is implied through the context of a reading, as well as the overt information or content.
3. Read two-three intermediate novels (from the student library).
4. Use various reading skills with a variety of reading genres.
5. Increase knowledge of current events and cultural awareness.
6. Increase vocabulary through extended reading.
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.
Grading
The number letter grading scale is set as follows:
A 95-100
A- 90-94
B+ 87-89
B 84-86
B- 80-83
C+ 76-79
C 70-75
NC 69& below
Scoring Grade
Your final grade will be calculated as follows:
Attendance and Participation 5%
Midterm 20%
Final 20%
Quizzes55%
Total 100%
Student Library
In addition to the readings in the textbook, News for You, and in the SRA reading kit, I want you to check out books from the ACLP library. Keep in mind the following points:
/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 personal dictionary 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 ten week period.
News for You
To further engage your interest in active learning, I will give you a copy of the weekly newspaper, News for You. Be sure to read each copy each week; the information in the articles will help you understand the world and national news in a clear and concise way. I will give short quizzes based on the newspaper to test your comprehension and further expand your vocabulary.
Requirements:
1. Readings--Passages textbook, the newspaper, and books 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.
5. Personal Dictionary--Using a three ring binder, make a personalized vocabulary dictionary. Include in the dictionary the new words from 504 Essential Words and words you come across in the your reading. Organize it by writing all the "A" words together, the "B" words together, and so on. For each word, write the part of speech, the definition in English, the sentence you saw it in (or a sentence from a dictionary) and an original sentence. That is, make up your own sentence using the word. You will turn this in three times.
Reading Strategies and Current Events Course Outline Date
Faster Reading
Comprehension
Skills
Thinking Skills (pp. 179-204)
Assignments/Quizzes
19-Jan
p. 213
Scanning pp. 15-25
21-Jan
p. 215
Scanning pp. 26-33
1-5
26-Jan
p. 217
Previewing and Predicting pp. 34-39
6-10
28-Jan
p. 219
Previewing and Predicting pp. 40-48
11-15
2-Feb
p. 221
Vocabulary pp. 49-55
News for You #1
4-Feb
p. 223
Vocabulary pp. 56-67
16-20
Personal Dictionary due
9-Feb
p. 225
Topics pp. 68-77
News for You #2
11-Feb
p. 227
Midterm
Midterm
21-25
Midterm
Midterm; Quiz on News for You
16-Feb
p. 229
Topics of Paragraphs pp. 78-83
News for You #3
18-Feb
p. 231
Topics of Paragraphs pp. 84-88
26-30
23-Feb
p. 233
Main Ideas pp. 89-93
News for You #4
25-Feb
p. 235
Main Ideas pp. 94-98
31-35
Quiz on News for You
2-March
p. 237
Patterns of Organization pp. 99-112
36-40
News for You #5
4-March
p. 239
Patterns of Organization pp. 113-131
41-45
Personal Dictionary due
9-March
p. 241
Skimming pp. 132-140
46-50
News for You #6
11-Marc
p. 243
Skimming pp. 141-150
51-60
Quiz on News for You
16-Marc
p. 245
Making Inferences pp. 150-163
61-70
News for You #7
18-Marc
pp. 247, 249
Making Inferences pp. 164-166
71-80
23-Marc
p. 251
Summarizing pp. 167-172
81-90
News for You #8
Personal Dictionary due
25-Marc
Summarizing pp. 173-178
91-100
Final Exam
Copyright (C) By Michael Buckhoff