Strategic Reading in the ESL Classroom

What is Strategic Reading?
In this article, you will find out why strategic reading is so important and what you can do to implement it in your ESL classroom.
In the ESL classroom, what and how to read go hand go hand in hand. Strategic Reading is helping the student to comprehend what he or she is about to read by offering a plethora of pre-while-post reading strategies to the student.

Why Strategic Reading?
Reading is an extremely complex activity and one of the most important skills in language learning. There are different levels to reading and so many different factors are involved facilitating actual comprehension. Authentic reading comprehension implies deep understanding, ability to infer, analyze, apply and evaluate. It is important for ESL pupils therefore to know how to read and to be able to deal with a text independently.

What makes teaching Strategic Reading problematic?

Many of the skills teachers have to teach the kids in English as a Second Language are skills they have not acquired in their own language in terms of paragraphing, summarizing, paraphrasing, finding the main idea, supporting details, the list goes on. Yet, teachers are required to do this in a second language even to kids who are weak. Many of the skills require a deep cognitive awareness which some students don't have.

Many times some of the questions which are asked in exams test higher cognitive ability and not English ability. This leads to frustration both on the part of the teacher and the pupils.