It is mundane to stick to the same day in day out teaching and learning activities. There is time when one will question the reason of doing things the way they are. I think I should re-invent my TnL in the reading classroom to suit the needs of the pupils.

The two things I wish to focus in my reading classroom are
1. Reading to improve vocabulary; and
2. Reading to improve grammar.


The tips presented here were written by Kenneth Beare from About.com guide

Reading to improve vocabulary

•Construct vocabulary trees from short stories or articles you are reading.


•Build mind maps based on the stories or articles you are reading.

•Photocopy a page or an article and highlight all the words you do not understand. Look up those words and add them to your vocabulary diary.

•When you come across a word you do not understand, first try to understand based on context.

•Focus on prefixes and suffixes and find examples in a text you are reading. Underline and try to understand based on the prefixes or suffixes. Try to come up with the antonyms. These are words with an opposite meaning and are often related (unhappy - happy, misinformation - information, etc.)

•Read a short story and try to retell or rewrite the story using as much vocabulary from the story as possible.

•Note down nouns and adjectives you do not understand. Use a thesaurus to help you find synonyms to these words. Finding synonyms will help you learn groups of words with similar meanings.

Reading to improve grammar

•Focus on various tenses or forms, by highlighting examples of a specific form in a text you are reading.


•Highlight all auxiliary verbs in a text. Discuss which tenses take the highlighted auxiliary verbs.

•Choose a few sentences from your reading material and highlight content words (main verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs) in red and structural words (articles, auxiliary verbs, any and some, etc.) in yellow or another color.

•Find linking words (although, however, but, first, next, etc.) and notice how they relate sentences to each other.

•Use a text as a basis for a sentence auction in class. Change some of the sentences to an incorrect version and see if you can fool your classmates into thinking they are correct.

•In small groups, highlight sentences using different tenses. Each students explains the reasons for the tense in each sentence.

•Mark-up a few sentences from an article selecting subject, auxiliary verb, main verb, adjective, etc.


These activities can be done individually or in pair. Previously, during reading comprehension, my stress is only the vocabulary while grammar is done in isolation. I guess by incorporating both in one reading text will help the pupils to identify certain things which would be beneficial in their futire reading and writing.