Teaching and Developing Reading Skills

Abstract

As an ESL instructor and administrator, I often find myself uneasy when approaching textbook-like sources for teachers, with long and fragmented books providing hyper-specific information regarding teaching a particular language skill. These books must walk a difficult line between theoretical grounding and practical application, and although they often try to please everyone, all too frequently they do not. In contrast, Peter Watkins’s Teaching and Developing Reading Skills is a helpful volume written for teachers by an experienced researcher/teacher. Watkins moves away from traditional intensive reading and comprehension checks for assessment, instead arguing for a more holistic and reflective approach to teaching reading. The stated goal for the book in the introduction is ‘to support teachers, and the successful teaching of reading, through providing practical classroom activities’ (p. 10). These activities are all included in the book, with printable electronic versions available through the Cambridge University Press website. In the introduction, Watkins summarizes the motivation for the book. The complexity of the reading process and different perspectives on the best way to teach L2 reading are central here. Watkins focuses on perspectives on how learners read, on intensive versus extensive reading, and on moving toward a more balanced reading programme, away from factual comprehension checks. The reader (who he assumes to be a reading instructor) is encouraged to use the book as a resource guide, both for the brief summary sections of the challenges in teaching reading skills at the beginning of each chapter, and for the activities themselves.