Hitting the booksPreparing students for Skillful university reading

Lindsay Warwick

How can we develop Skillful readers?

What reading skills did you use?

Skimming Identifying an argument

Identifying main idea Assessing the logic of an argument

Identifying supporting points Evaluating sources

Recognising tone Previewing/Questioning

Identifying fact vs opinion Identifying persuasion techniques

Identifying humour Vocabulary related to context

Making inferences Recognising bias

Identifying the author’s purpose Identifying cause and effect

Identifying the author’s position Recognising text structure

Inferring criticism Identifying the source

Finding similarities Finding differences

Developing key reading skills

Social scientists have studied the effect of winning a national football championship in the U.S. on the fans of the winning team. They have found that fans have more self-confidence and feel more competent, probably because team victories reflect well on their personal sense of identity. When people feel more competent, they perform better at work and are more likely to earn and spend more money (Coats and Humphreys, 2002, The economic impact of postseason play in professional sports). Experts say that for these reasons, it is likely that a winning team may have a positive influence on the economy of a city.

Skillful Reading & Writing 3 p11

Developing key reading skills

Social scientists have studied the effect of winning a national football championship in the U.S. on the fans of the winning team. They have found that fans have more self-confidence and feel more competent, probably because team victories reflect well on their personal sense of identity. When people feel more competent, they perform better at work and are more likely to earn and spend more money (Coats and Humphreys, 2002, The economic impact of postseason play in professional sports). Experts say that for these reasons, it is likely that a winning team may have a positive influence on the economy of a city.

Concluding sentence

Topic sentence

Fact vs opinion: language

according to

demonstrate

believe

viewdiscover

claim

suspect

argue

confirm

show

good, better, bestseems

Fact or opinion?1. Two billion people watched the World Cup opener.

2. I would argue that footie players are overpaid and underworked.

3. It is often assumed that footie fans are only male.

4. Researchers have recently discovered that the Chinese invented football.

5. According to the dictionary, the word soccer comes from the word association.

Be an active reader!

Previewing

• Title, subtitles, section headings

• Photos and captions

• What is it?

• Where is it from?

• Who is the intended audience?

• What do you think it will say?

• What do you need from the text?

• What can you learn from the article?

Questioning

• What three questions do you want answers to?

• What question do you have during or after every paragraph?

Annotate!

Questioning

Social scientists have studied the effect of winning a national football championship in the U.S. on the fans of the winning team. They have found that fans have more self-confidence and feel more competent, probably because team victories reflect well on their personal sense of identity. When people feel more competent, they perform better at work and are more likely to earn and spend more money (Coats and Humphreys, 2002, The economic impact of postseason play in professional sports). Experts say that for these reasons, it is likely that a winning team may have a positive influence on the economy of a city.

Skillful Reading & Writing 3 p11

Being an active note-taker

Fans of winning team feel more confident & competent better work, salary, spending.

likely that succ. teams more succ. city environment.

Being an active note-taker

Fans of winning team feel more confident & competent better work, salary, spending.

Likely that succ. teams more succ. city economy.

Reviewing

• What did you learn?

• What questions do you have?

• What do you need to do next?

Developing critical readers

What is an argument?

Developing critical readers

An argument is:

A statement of opinion + reasons/evidence

An argument must:

be based on reasonable assumptions

lead to logical conclusions

not be flawed

Assessing an argument

Is the argument logical? Based on unreasonable assumptions?Is there enough evidence to support the argument?

Is the source of any evidence reliable, relevant, current?

Skillful Reading & Writing 4 p71

Assessing an argument

Is this really true?

Skillful Reading & Writing 4 p71

Reasonable assumption? No evidence.

Evidence?

Developing vocabulary skills

Academic Keyword List

(University of Louvain)

Academic Word List

(Averil Coxhead)

englishvocabularyexercises.com/awl

quizlet.com

Engaging students

• Images

• Text snippets

• Quizzes

• Brainstorms

• Ranking

• Puzzles

• Sounds

• Debates

What’s the text about?

What’s the text about?

wordle.net

What’s this about?

“Through her years of research, Sherry Turkle has noticed that these permit us to

have complete control over our friendships.”

OR

There is one element of social networking that is deeply worrying and that is...

Skillful Reading & Writing 4 p10

Say the colour, not the word!

Thank you!

http://tinyurl.com/leseu43

http://www.macmillanskillful.com

lindsay_warwick