The role of strategy training in reading skills development

Strategy has a very profound role in reading skills development. Strategy is becoming much more important given the changing dynamics of the education industry currently underway. Strategy training, for example must account for a much more diverse student population. Strategy training must also account for different learning environment including a hybrid and online formats. These different formats require different skills in order to properly attract and retain students within the classroom. These issues are exacerbated for online only courses which require teachers to keep students occupied and interested within an online format. Here, students can easily be distracted causing adverse consequences as it relates to learning outcomes.

Strategy training is predicated on the needs and desired outcomes of the course. Here the course curriculum provides a solid foundation by which strategy training can build upon. Through use of the curriculum, instructors can better formulate the manner in which they will engage with bilingual students. These initiatives can very from course to course, which require a robust strategy training program. With COVID-19 and other health issues emerging, it is also important the strategy training program to account for contingencies. Here, contingencies relate to need to quickly shift instruction in the event of an unforeseen event and circumstance. As the last few academic years have proven, having a robust contingency plan is paramount to academic success. The ability to quickly shift resources and initiatives to accommodate changing market conditions is critical. Strategy training allows instructors to have the foresight to these coming trends and take correction action for the benefit of the course and the students themselves (Catts, 2006).

Reading skills development can be very challenging from both the students and teachers perspective. Here, students will be challenge to properly comprehend the meaning of vocabulary, sentence structure, and sentence composition. Strategy training allows instructors to anticipate these mental roadblocks and formulate strategies designed to overcome them.

The relationship between word recognition (and other bottom-up skills) and reading proficiency

There is a very strong correlation between work recognition and reading proficiency. Bilingual education must having emphasize vocabulary training. There are many innovative and tradition methods in which to increase student word recognition. The most traditional approach is through the use of flash cards. This has worked as it allows students to quickly learn multiple words in a short time span. However, flash cards often can not be solely...

Here, students during a classroom session can memorize the work and its meaning, but during subsequent sessions the student either forgets the word entirely or confuses it with other words. Here instructors must be able to differentiate between memorization and comprehension. In order for the relationship between word recognition and reading proficiency to emerge students must transition from memorization to comprehension. Flash cards can be used to familiarize a student with a particularly word, but repetition and context allow students to comprehend the actually meaning of the word within the larger scale of reading proficiency. From a bottom up perspective, comprehension often requires the ability for students to decode words and recognize their meaning. Research has shown that vocabulary is the single biggest predictor of comprehension ability (Braze, 2007).

The influence of reading speed on reading proficiency

When reviewing the literature on the relationship of reading speed and reading proficiency is not fully determined. In fact, there is conflicting research in this field of study. For example, some research indicates that reading speed and reading proficiency are heavily correlated. Opponents against this research however state that other factors...

…allows for students to obtain the best elements from online course instruction and in-person course instruction. Likewise, instructors have much more flexibility in how creative they would like to be in their own instruction to the students.

Learning to read versus reading to learn/ The use of literature in L2 reading classes

Learning to read vs reading to lean is predicated on the students comprehension skills. The student must utilize all the variables discussed in detail above related to vocabulary, listening, comprehension, and practice to first learn how to read. Once the student can properly learn to read, they can then transition more seamlessly to the next phase which is reading to learn. During this phase, the student has much more opportunity to learn many of the nuance of the language that where not readily apparent during the first phase. This is also where literature can be better used in L2 classrooms. Integrating literature into L2 learning can create a learning environment that will provide a comprehensible input and a low affective filter. In addition, literary texts may be used in both extensive and intensive reading by the student to better enhance their ability to learn while reading. Literature used in an L2 classroom first provides context that students can use to develop our reading strategies and knowledge of non-fiction texts. It can be used by bilingual instructors to form a reading program with the sole purpose of providing student with new vocabulary words to learn. Finally, literature also provide students with the opportunity to learn and explores cross-cultural values in a manner that they could not otherwise do without the prior reading knowledge. The research also bears this fact out as it has shown the learners obtain an increase vocabulary, gain significant reading comprehension skills, and develop a much more positive attitude…