T HE RE ADERS CLUB Han dbook americanenglish.state.gov THE READERS CLUB HANDBOOK ii THE READERS CLUB HANDBOOK © 2018 by The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, except where noted. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Author: Kathleen F. Malu, Ph.D., with Bryce Smedley All images CC0. Please see https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/ for details. This publication is available free of charge online at: americanenglish.state.gov Office of English Language Programs Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs United States Department of State Washington, D.C. americanenglish.state.gov iii TABLE OF CONTENTS The Readers Club Handbook .................................................................................................1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................1 Successful Readers Clubs ........................................................................................................4 Successful club meetings .....................................................................................................4 Problems and solutions for Readers Club meetings .............................................................5 Suggestions for using this Handbook .......................................................................................8 Plan 1: All Members read BEFORE the meeting .................................................................8 Plan 2: All Members read DURING the meeting .................................................................9 Plan 3: All Members read the SAME text or visual source ...................................................9 Plan 4: Members all read from DIFFERENT texts or visual sources ..................................10 What is Reading? ....................................................................................................................11 Strategies before Reading .....................................................................................................21 Identifying text style ..............................................................................................................21 Skimming/scanning ................................................................................................................23 Looking for vocabulary ...........................................................................................................26 Recalling what we know .........................................................................................................29 Predicting ..............................................................................................................................31 Asking questions ....................................................................................................................34 Strategies while Reading .......................................................................................................37 Visualizing .............................................................................................................................37 Checking for understanding ...................................................................................................40 Finding and making connections ...........................................................................................44 Understanding new words ......................................................................................................46 Strategies after Reading ........................................................................................................55 Talking about texts .................................................................................................................55 Asking information questions and answers ........................................................................56 Thinking conversations ......................................................................................................57 Doing role-plays .................................................................................................................58 Interviewing the author ......................................................................................................59 americanenglish.state.gov iv Interviewing the characters ................................................................................................60 Talking back ......................................................................................................................61 Presenting a commercial ....................................................................................................62 Writing about texts .................................................................................................................63 Information questions and answers ....................................................................................65 Role-play, skit, or drama ....................................................................................................66 Different genres .................................................................................................................66 Using drama with texts ...........................................................................................................69 Role-play, skit, or drama ....................................................................................................72 Choral reading ...................................................................................................................73 Role drama ........................................................................................................................75 Pantomime .........................................................................................................................76 Theatre games ...................................................................................................................77 Choosing texts for drama ....................................................................................................78 Using new words from texts ....................................................................................................80 New word list .....................................................................................................................82 Meaningful use of new words .............................................................................................83 Strategies for Viewing ............................................................................................................87 Viewing images ......................................................................................................................87 Color ..................................................................................................................................88 Angle .................................................................................................................................89 Size and distance ...............................................................................................................90 Interpreting visuals ................................................................................................................93 Suggested texts and images ....................................................................................................95 Places to look for texts and images .........................................................................................96 Suggested Topics ....................................................................................................................99 January: The New Year ..........................................................................................................99 February: Black History & Valentine’s Day ..........................................................................100 March: Celebrating women ..................................................................................................101 April: The environment ........................................................................................................102 americanenglish.state.gov v May: War & peace ...............................................................................................................103 June: Food & health .............................................................................................................104 July: Independence & freedom ............................................................................................105 August: The arts & culture ...................................................................................................106 September: Education & employment ..................................................................................107 October: Community service ................................................................................................108 November: Thanksgiving .....................................................................................................109 December: Year’s end ...........................................................................................................110 Funny, informative, and provocative articles & photos .........................................................111