Should Teachers Teach Students to Read Aloud or Read Silently?
Mark Chapman MEd
I help marketing & branding professionals advance their careers by improving their English (interviews, meetings & more).
When I was an MEd (TESOL) student, I listened to my professor and a classmate discussing how to teach reading. But as I listened I noticed something strange. They appeared to be talking about different things–although neither seemed aware. Our tutor was clearly talking about strategies to improve students’ reading comprehension, but my classmate seemed to have something different in mind. I asked her if by reading she meant that all the students stand up and read aloud together. She said yes–our tutor ended the discussion in surprise.
If such a misunderstanding can develop in face to face conversation, then it’s hardly surprising that even bigger misunderstanding can occur online. As was the case when I recently read an online discussion on whether English teachers should teach students to read aloud or read silently. The teachers were passionate in defending their positions, but one thing became quickly clear to me: the meaning of reading aloud varied widely, as did their approach to teaching it, and the teachers who advocated either reading silently or reading aloud often taught in very different contexts...
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Owner of an English Language training centre in China
6yI think that both forms of reading are equally important. I run oral English classes and would find it difficult to ascertain as to whether my students could actually read English if I could not hear them. So I adopt a strategy of getting them to do both. I usually start by getting them to read as a class and then picking out the better readers to read out loud individually. This in my experience gives the less capable students the confidence to try to read out loud on their own. Once they have seen and heard their peers read it generally gives them the impetus to perform One thing I never do is to allow any of my students to read new material without at first hearing it being read by myself. It works for me