10 WAYS TO EXPLOIT READING TEXTS
Churchill House, Spencer Square, Ramsgate, Kent, CT11 9EQ, England
Find us at www.churchillhouse.co.uk
The web is a great source of textual information, but if you are like us, you won’t
have the time or inclination to spend hours turning pages from the web into complete
lesson plans with worksheets, handouts etc. So here are our top ten ideas for taking
ANY text and using it in class with the least amount of preparation time on your part.
Enjoy!
1. EXPAND THE TEXT
With short, simple texts, get students to add an adjective in front of every noun / an
adverb to every verb etc.
For slightly longer texts - before class write (10) extra clauses or sentences that can be
inserted into the text. Write these up in jumbled order on the board and get students to
add them in the most appropriate places.
2. REDUCE THE TEXT
Get students to reduce the text to EXACTLY (100) words OR reduce the total number
of sentences by (50%).
3. RECONSTRUCT THE TEXT
Before class, write a list of key words from the text in jumbled order on a sheet of
paper. Make one copy for each group of students.
In class, give out the text to all the students. Get them to read it through. Now ask
them to turn over the text. Hand out the jumbled keywords. Ask students to put the
keywords back into the correct order WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE TEXT. When
they get stuck, allow them to reread to the text (but first get them to cover up the
jumbled words again.)
When all the students have got the words in the correct order, take the text away. Get
students to reconstruct the text (orally or in writing) from the key words.
4. MATCHING
Before class, get a heavy black pen and cross out the first sentence of each paragraph.
(If you downloaded the page off the web, use your word processor to delete the
sentences before printing.)
In class, write the missing sentences up in jumbled order on the board and get students
to add them back into the text in the correct place.
Note: choosing the first sentence of a paragraph is particularly useful as these often
summarise the main idea of the paragraph. Students can use these sentences to help
them understand and structure the text.
10 WAYS TO EXPLOIT READING TEXTS
Churchill House, Spencer Square, Ramsgate, Kent, CT11 9EQ, England
Find us at www.churchillhouse.co.uk
5. TRANSFORM THE TEXT
Students must transform the text in some way, for example:
♦ Retell a story in the first person not the third person
♦ Retell a story from the perspective of a different character in the story (e.g. from
the wolf’s perspective, not from Little Red Riding Hood’s.)
♦ Present a news story as a TV news item instead of a newspaper item.
6. DEDUCTION
Copy the text onto a piece of A4 paper. Tear off a column (say 4cm wide) down the
left hand side of the copy and a similar sized column off the right hand side.
Photocopy and hand out the remaining “middle” part of the story. Students must work
together to deduce the whole story from the bits they have. Hand out the original story
for comparison at the end.
7. TEXT QUIZ
Hand out the chosen text to the class. Give them time to read it, check new words etc.
Now get the students in groups to prepare (15) questions about the text which another
group will have to answer from memory. Questions should be factual.
When the groups are ready, cover up all copies of the text, then get groups to swap
their question sheets and answer each other’s questions. The group that answers the
most questions correctly wins.
8. WORD PARTNERSHIPS
Before class, find (15) useful word partnerships in your chosen text. Write the first
word of each partnership down the left-hand side of a piece of paper.
E.g.
Solve …………
(Don’t forget that word partnerships can consist of two or three words, and also that
sometimes a word is partnered with another one in a completely different part of the
text. E.g. “The puzzle, which had baffled experts for well over 20 years, was finally
solved by a 12-year-old girl from Ramsgate.”)
In class, hand out the text. Allow students time to read and ask questions.
Now get the students to complete the sheet that you prepared by finding the partners
for each word.
As a follow-up, students can test each other by covering up one of the columns on
their sheets and trying to remember the missing word partners.
10 WAYS TO EXPLOIT READING TEXTS
Churchill House, Spencer Square, Ramsgate, Kent, CT11 9EQ, England
Find us at www.churchillhouse.co.uk
9. REACTIONS
Before class, prepare a list of sentences along the following lines:
What I found most interesting about this text was…..
boring
shocking
amusing
irritating
baffling
incredible
etc.
In class, allow students time to read the text and check out any problems. Then ask
them to complete all / some of the sentences from your list.
When they have finished, put them in groups to discuss their reactions.
10. TALK ABOUT THE TEXT
One of the things we often do in real life is tell someone else about a story / news item
/ magazine article etc that we read.
To do this in class, all you need is a text and a group of students. Get the students to
read the text. Now ask them to describe the text and their reactions to it to their
partner. Get them to start like this:
“I was reading this (story) the other day and it was really interesting. What it said
was…..”
Variation: have two or more texts and get different students to read and talk about
different texts.
Acknowledgements: you will find great ideas on ways of dealing with short texts in Alan Maley’s
classic book “Short & Sweet”, publ. Penguin
For lots of good ideas on exploiting the language – especially the lexis – of authentic texts, Mark
Powell’s seminal “Business Matters” comes with a whole raft of resource ideas in the teacher’s book.
Publ. LTP