Most Important Issues in Reading Instruction

These are the most important issues in reading instruction (Grabe, 2009, p.46)

Which one do you think has gotten too little attention so far? 

And how could you teach this aspect, using CALL? 

Finally, do you think any of these issues have been claiming too much

attention from teachers, and why?

1. Ensure fluency in word recognition

2. Emphasise the learning of vocabulary   a) Electronic dictionaries   b) Multimedia glossing

3. Activate background knowledge

4. Ensure acquisition of linguistic knowledge and general comprehension skills

5. Teach recognition of text structures and discourse organisers

6. Promote development of strategic readers rather than mechanical application of strategy checklists

7. Promote extensive reading

8. Build reading fluency and rate

9. Develop intrinsic motivation for reading

10. Contribute to a coherent curriculum for student learning Merve I think item #6 is often neglected by teachers. Strategy training is essential if teachers are to make their students independent learners who can adopt, apply, and adapt different skills for various task types. I'm not sure how CALL can help teach such a skill. Item #7 can be one of the things exercised too often by teachers. Some texts which are meant to be scanned or search-read do not necessarily require the reader to understand everything in the text. Therefore, using a text beyond its requirements and analysing everything it gives is a waste of time and effort by the student. Selahattin: I agree with Merve on the teachers' neglection of sudent strategy training, and promoting extensive reading. Especially when it comes to extensive reading, many Ts think that encouraging Ss to read outside the classroom is enough. However, the in-class support of such an activity is mostly neglected. Arranging book clubs or reading sydicates could both help students feel motivated because they read for a genuine purpose and encourage them to be critical thinkers. Ideas in line with promoting extensive reading can easily and effectively be applied to CALL, as Ts can keep track of extensive reading activities by starting a discussion in the class blog, ask students to do a web-based research and present it in the classsroom, create onine boards about books they read with many visuals, and supplementary information from varied sources