Reading Strategies from Auerbach

By Category: The Four Skills

Auerbach, Elsa and Paxton, Diane (1997). “It’s Not the English Thing”: Bringing Reading Research Into the ESL Classroom. TESOL Quarterly 31(2), 259.

Sample Strategies

Prereading Strategies

  • Accessing prior knowledge
  • Writing your way into reading (writing about your experience related to the topic)
  • Asking questions based on the title
  • Semantic mapping
  • Making predictions based on previewing
  • Identifying the text structure
  • Skimming for the general idea
  • Reading the introduction and conclusion
  • Writing a summary of the article based on previewing

During-Reading Strategies

  • Skipping unknown words; guessing from context
  • Predicting the main idea of each paragraph
  • Glossing
  • Responding while reading
  • Relating glosses back to the text structure
  • Drawing pictures to show what you see in your mind’s eye

After-Reading Strategies

  • Revisiting prereading expectations
  • Reviewing notes, glosses, text markings
  • Making an outline, chart, map, or diagram of the organization of the text
  • Retelling what you think the author is saying
  • Relating the text to your own experience
  • Responding to the text or critiquing it

Scan —> Skim —> Read for detail: these are on a continuum from fast to slow, superficial to deep.