The paper describes exercises for teaching discursive reading to foreign military personnel. A distinctive feature of the exercises is that they are aimed at forming cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies and skills in discourse reading. Each group of exercises creates a certain order of actions aimed at developing persistent skills. The method of teaching discursive reading is revealed on the example of special exercises for the educational text The Russian Navy. The author has identified and justified the feasibility of using exercises in classes on Russian as a foreign language. The paper describes in detail the step-by-step work with the educational text, which involves performing a number of tasks aimed at developing all types of speech activity, as well as improving students vocabulary and grammar skills. The algorithm for working with text can be used with students of the first certification level and includes pre-text and post-text tasks for the development of discursive reading skills, as well as optimization of time spent on the acquisition of persistent skills. Special attention is paid to the ability to perceive the text from the position of a foreign language discourse, when the maximum result is determined by the culture of educational activity.