Reading is an interesting subject, and one that I've thought A LOT about. I spent over 2 years teaching two core reading courses almost 4 hours per day. I've spent days mulling over strategies to improve my students'reading ablilities. I've tried almost everything, and every time the Institutional TOEFL used to roll around, I would eagerly grade the reading section, only to feel all my efforts were in vain. Students would show such little improvement in the one measure they felt was important.

I started off my tenure as a reading instructor as an idealistic M.A. grad., using a lot of SSR (Silent Sustained Reading). Students didn't feel like they were being "taught," and after TOEFL scores came out, I switched to a purely skill-based approach. I had to badger students endlessly to do homework that bored them to tears. Same result on TOEFL. I finally settled into a comfortable combination of the two. What I changed, though, was that the homework was the SSR. This pleased students and I had a lot of fun with it too. The TOEFL scores were a little better (not much--nothing's perfect). This is what I have done in the past and what I continue to refine:

I. Teach 5 vocabulary words per day. Quiz at the end of the week. I might not do this now that the TOEFL doesn't have the vocabulary out of context section. Now, students actually see the benefit of "Vocabulary in Context" exercises. Thank you, TOEFL!

II. Read a novel a week (I got this idea from Anthea Tillyer--I never would have been so ambitious before). I used simplified Heinemann novels which my students found quite challenging as they were lower-level students. We did SSR at the beginning of the week for 15-20 minutes to get them into the novel. Then they finished the novel outside of class. They were required to write two entries in their journal about the novel -one when they were halfway through and one when they were finished.

I evaluate the novel reading three ways. First, did they actually read the novel? They get points for that. Second, how well did they understand the novel? I determine this from their journal entries and from a "book conference" that I have with them toward the end of the session. At this time we talk about all of the novels they read. Third, the Heinemann readers come with a free worksheet that I have the students complete and turn in. The Heinemann Readers are fairly inexpensive. I ordered one book at the bookstore that all the students buy (approx. $5.50), and then I bought one each of about 20 books. We read the first novel together and I hold their hand through this one explaining what I want them to do. We spend quite a bit of class time on this novel. After that, I bring in my armload of novels and they can choose. Then, each Friday I have the students give a short oral review of the novel they read. They can recommend or pan the book to the rest of the students. There is usually a fight after that about who will get the highly recommended books.

III. Keep a reading journal. Students would go to the library or the ESL resource area three class days and find an article on our topic of the week or day. The topics would be of general interest to the class based on a pre-class survey. They would read it and write about what they understood in the article. The articles were too difficult for them, but the point wasn't to understand everything. The point was to get them to try to understand the main idea. They would write about that in their journals. They always included a copy of the articles, and I would read them also and comment on them. My comments would be limited to their understanding of the article. They almost always understood a lot more than they thought they could. It gave them confidence in their reading ability, and they overcame their fear of using the library (we had a tour of the library first).

To check on the students' library reading, I have the students tape or paste copies of the articles into their 3-ring binder. (Which I require they buy. We spend the first day organizing it into the sections which I want them to keep - one for vocabulary, one for novels, and one for articles). I ask them to tape the article to the back of one sheet of paper and write their reaction on the page facing it. I use the word "reaction" because I find it less intimidating to students than summary.

IV. Classtime is mainly spent on skill building. One of my favorite books for lower level learners is Addison-Wesley's Reading Power. They now have both an intermediate and pre- beginner book. For higher level learners I like Keith Folse's book Intermediate Reading Practices. Both of these books work on "Timed Readings" which I have found students to value and learn from. One of the most important skills for students to learn is the art of reading faster. For the highest level readers, I mainly work on inproving reading speed. The Jamestown Timed Readings work well. For students with TOEFL scores above 500, books 5,6, and 7 work well. We try a technique for reading faster every time students do a timed reading (usually every day) until students find what works for them.

There are various techniques for developing faster reading speeds. To help students vary their own techniques, I try to give a tip a day. Here are some of mine:

• 1. Pair students and have them face each other. Have one watch the other while they read. Their job is to count the number of eye movements the other makes per line. One way to speed up reading is to reduce the number of eye movements and improve peripheral reading. It takes practice, and one way to do it is to draw two light pencil lines down the page, dividing the passage into thirds lengthwise. Have the students concentrate on just making two eye movements--on each line down the page. Their time will increase automatically, but it takes a while for the comprehension to catch up. Many student find this hard to do. If they have a lot of eye movements, I let them put 3 or 4 lines down the page.
• 2. Don't move your head--your eyes can move faster, so it slows you down.
• 3. Don't use a pencil or your finger when you are reading. Your eyes move faster than your finger (try it), so you're slowing yourself down.
• 4. I give each student a blank 5x8 index card. I have them use it to read the passage. It focuses the eye on the line being read, and it really speeds them up. If they want to read faster, they should move the card faster.
• 5. Don't mouth the words or try to pronounce them in your head. You can read faster than you can talk.
• 6. I have them do an exercise to help them group words together--adjectives go with nouns, so they should be read as a unit.
• 7. Don't read function words. The, an, a, of are usually not important --skim them.
• 8. Keep reading--don't stop if you don't understand something. Faster readers understand more. It's hard to convince them of that, but if you say it enough, some of them believe you. If they keep reading, they usually begin to understand.
• 9. Preview quickly--guess what the article or passage is about before you begin to read. Bring as much of your background knowledge as you can to the forefront of your mind. You can read things you know something about faster than what you know nothing about.

These are not in any particular order. I also review some that I think are important or that students had difficulty with before.

V. Finally, at the end of every week we would go over what they had done that week. It helped keep up their motivation.

So, the simple answer that I have found is what we've all probably come up with--combined SSR and skills. I enjoy reading what others write about reading and hope more people will write about this. In my opinion, reading is the hardest skill to teach. There is so little reward in it because students have no product that proves to them that they've improved. Most students improve so slowly that they don't even notice it themselves. Sigh.

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