Teaching Reading Skills in ESL – From Skimming to Deep Understanding

🎯 Introduction

Reading in English can be intimidating for learners, especially with long texts or unfamiliar words. By breaking reading into manageable strategies, TEFL teachers can build confidence and comprehension skills.

✅ Essential Reading Strategies

• Skimming: Quickly finding the main idea

• Scanning: Looking for specific details or keywords

• Predicting: Guessing content from titles, pictures, or headings

• Summarizing: Retelling in simple words

  
  

📚 Classroom Activities

• Timed skimming races with short articles

• “Find the fact” scavenger hunts

• Prediction games before reading stories

• Partner summaries of news pieces

  
  

💡 Pro Tip

Choose texts that are slightly challenging but still achievable — this keeps students motivated without overwhelming them.

📌 Next Step

GoTEFL equips teachers with practical reading activities, and TEIK provides real placement opportunities to practice them.