Questioning as an Active Reading Strategy for Struggling Readers. Questioning is a strategy that readers use to engage with the text. Questioning techniques help the reader to clarify and comprehend what he is reading. Struggling readers tend not to ask questions of themselves or the text as they read.

“Pre-reading strategies allow students to think about what they already know about a given topic and predict what they will read or hear. Most importantly, teachers can use pre-reading strategies to increase students’ interest in a text.”

But although intensive reading can be used to focus attention on a particular language feature or features, its main purpose is to better prepare learners to read other texts on their own, either intensively using the same strategies or more extensively.

Research shows that reading styles instruction can help even the least academically talented youngsters become proficient readers. Twenty years of experience with reading styles have taught us well. We now know the importance of teaching to students’ strengths and accommodating their interests.

INTENSIVE READING activities include Skimming a text for specific information in order to answer the questions like;

1. True or false statements,
2. Filling in gaps.
3. Summarizing,
4. To discover mistakes and inconsistencies of syntax,
5. Scanning a text to match headings to paragraphs, and.

Critical reading is a more ACTIVE way of reading. It is a deeper and more complex engagement with a text. Critical reading is a process of analyzing, interpreting and, sometimes, evaluating. When we read critically, we use our critical thinking skills to QUESTION both the text and our own reading of it.

8 Extensive Reading Activities for Language Learners Teaching Themselves

1. Prime your knowledge.
2. Write book reports and book reviews.
3. Do timed readings.
4. Join book club discussions.
5. Create chain stories.
6. Work on your creative writing.
7. Keep vocabulary journals.
8. Skim and scan.

Using a leveled-reading website like Newsela allows all of your students to read the same text, or dive into new and more interesting texts, while struggling less. Each article can be read in five different reading levels, and includes a writing and quiz component, to ensure comprehension.

Extensive reading involves learners reading texts for enjoyment and to develop general reading skills. It can be compared with intensive reading, which means reading in detail with specific learning aims and tasks. Extensive reading is often overlooked, especially as a classroom activity.