CATESOL Roundup, Part 5

Creating Paired Readings

Jayme Adelson-Goldstein of Lighthearted Learning, who has also co-authored of the famed Oxford Picture Dictionary,  and Lori Howard of UC Berkeley advocate using a special kind of jigsaw reading to develop and expand students' reading strategies as well as to get the point across that reading is all about interacting with the author.

Here are the steps:

• Choose two full reading selections that express opposite opinions ("Broccoli: What's Not to Love?" and "Broccoli Haters in the US") or are otherwise complementary to each other ("A History of Mother's Day" and "Different Ways Mother's Day Is Celebrated").
• Copy the two articles in two different colors.
• Front-load with some pre-reading and vocabulary work, which does not have to be done only by the teacher. In this phase, though, start with a couple low-level comprehension-type questions about the topic to be read.
• Have students preview the articles and choose one to focus on. If the majority of the students choose one and not the other, you can strong-arm them by saying, "Would you read this other one?"
• Have students read their article individually and silently without a dictionary, on different sides of the room, and within given time limits. Assign a couple focus questions as a task for the students to accomplish during this reading.
• Pair up the students according to their articles: A-A, B-B, to check their understanding of the same article which they have just read.
• Form groups of 4: A-A-B-B, to present their read information to each other.
• Hold a whole-class post-reading discussion to deal with cross-cultural issues and critical literacy by using the information from the articles, prior knowledge, more analytical questions, and future-oriented questions to go beyond the articles and further process the read information.

The presenters suggest newspaper pro/con columns as one of the sources for paired reading lessons. They also suggest searching for Kate Kinsella's academic language framework (such as this) for ideas while designing paired reading activities and discussions. If you would like a copy of their handouts, you can email them at lightheartedlearning@gmail.com.