HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY N
o
2
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY
- - -    - - -

NGUYEN THI HOAN SOME SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES IN THE PRE-READING
STAGE TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION FOR
THE 12
TH
FORM STUDENTS AT XUAN TRUONG B HIGH
SCHOOL

(GRADUATION PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH) SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN THI PHUONG LAN, M.A

Hanoi, 2014

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students in Xuan Truong B High school, reading has been paid more
attentions to as the students have to take the examinations which are grammar and
reading based. However, they have encountered a lot of difficulties in reading
comprehension especially at the pre-reading stage.
With the desire to improve students’ reading comprehension, this graduation
paper limits itself to the study of the current situation of learning reading
comprehension in the pre-reading stage for the 12
th
form students of Xuan Truong B
High school. The results of the study are conducted by questionnaires for students and
then are illustrated by charts. This study has also given some suggestions techniques to
apply for the 12
th
students to help them to learn reading comprehension effectively at
the pre-reading stage.
iii

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Title: Some suggested techniques in the pre-reading stage to improve reading
comprehension for the 12

VI. Significance of the study 3
VII. Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
I.1. Literature review in brief 4
I.2. Overview of reading 5
I.2.1. Definition of reading comprehension 5
I.2.2. Classification of reading 7
I.2.2.1. According to the manner of reading 7
I.2.2.1.1. Reading aloud 7
I.2.2.1.2. Silent reading 8
I.2.2.2. According to the purposes of reading 9
I.2.2.2.1. Skimming 9
I.2.2.2.2. Scanning 10
I.2.2.2.3. Intensive reading 10
I.2.2.2.4. Extensive reading 11
I.2.3. Reading process 11
I.2.4. Schema 13
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I.2.5. Stages of a reading lesson 14
I.2.5.1. Pre-reading stage 14
I.2.5.2. While-reading stage 14
I.2.5.3. Post-reading stage 14
I.3. Overview on the pre-reading stage 15
I.3.1.The importance of the pre-reading stage 15
I.3.2.What to do in the pre-reading stage 16
I.3.2.1. Activating or building students’ knowledge related to the text’s topic 16
I.3.2.2. Helping students with difficult new language items 16

form students at Xuan
Truong B High school 31
III.2.2. Students and teachers’ method of learning and teaching reading especially at
the pre-reading stage 32

CHAPTER IV
SOME SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES IN THE PRE-READING STAGE
TO IMPROVE READING SKILLS FOR THE 12
TH
FORM STUDENTS
AT XUAN TRUONG B HIGH SCHOOL
IV.1. Introducing the text 34
IV.1.1. Using introductory sentences 34
IV.1.2. Using questions and answers 35
IV.2. Eliciting students’ background knowledge related to the text 35
IV.2.1. Giving discussions about some main points related to the text 35
IV.2.2. Brainstorming 36
IV.3. Encouraging students to guess the main content of the text 36
IV.3.1. Using networks 36
IV.3.2. Using the title of the text 38
IV.4. Presenting new vocabulary 38
IV.4.1. Using visual aids 38
IV.4.1.1. Using pictures 38
IV.4.1.2. Using real objects 39
IV.4.2. Showing the meaning of words in context 40
IV.5. Giving guiding questions 40

PART C: CONCLUSION
1. Summary of the study 43
2. Limitations for further study 43

read and do the comprehension exercises.
However, in high schools in Vietnam, reading texts are exploited as the main
source where both teachers and students acquire and provide vocabulary and grammar
items rather than reading skills itself. The teacher often presents the new words
appearing in the text and students are required to read and do exercises afterwards. In
addition, they are rarely provided with the background knowledge concerning the
reading text. Consequently, students might be lacking of involvement, motivation and
interest to read and do the comprehension exercises.
The above mentioned facts motivated the researcher to carry out the study
“Some suggested techniques in the pre-reading stage to improve reading
comprehension for the 12
th
form students at Xuan Truong B High school”. The
reason for choosing 12
th
grade students to focus on the fact that the new syllabus has
applied in the 12
th
form curriculum so limited amount of research has been conducted
in this field. Moreover, the researcher is interested in seeking the answer to the
question whether the teaching and learning reading including the pre-reading of the
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12
th
form students and their teachers of English, with such a change in the syllabus,
have any adjustment or not.
In conducting this study, the researcher hopes to supply an insight into the
current situation of teaching and learning reading including the pre-reading stage, and
where applicable, suggesting some techniques in this stage with the hope that the

To implement this study, the following methods are used:
- Consulting related materials: For the sake of getting knowledge and useful
ideas, I read many books and other materials in addition to earlier researches
about reading and teaching reading comprehension.
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- Delivering survey questionnaire: To fulfill this thesis, survey questionnaires for
students were carried out to find out the students’ attitudes toward learning
reading.
VI. Significance of the study
The study highlights the importance of motivation to the reading skills in
general and to the pre-reading stage in particular. Moreover, the findings of the study
are thought to be useful for teachers of English to be aware of the essential role of the
pre-reading activities to the students’ motivation in reading lessons.
VII. Design of the study
The thesis is divided into three parts:
Part A is the Introduction which includes rationale, aims, scope, tasks, methods,
significance and design of the study
Part B - Development is the main part which consists of four chapters. Chapter
I is about theoretical background relating to reading comprehension. Chapter II
describes the methodology of the study including the selection of informants, data
collection instrument and the procedures of data collection and analys. Chapter III
discusses the major findings through the survey conducted. Chapter IV gives some
suggested techniques used in the pre-reading stage to improve the reading skill for the
12
th
form students
Part C is the Conclusion of the study, discusses the limitations of the study and
proposes further researches. Following this part are the references and appendix.


students with necessary new words, structures and background knowledge to read the
text more easily but also motivates them to feel interested in reading that text.
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Brown (2001) lists some important microskills that learners should use in
reading tasks in Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. According to him,
students should follows some principles for designing interactive reading techniques,
such as: don’t overlook the importance of specific instruction in reading skills (balance
extensive and silent reading), use techniques that are motivating, balance authentic
texts, encourage the development of reading strategies include both bottom-up and
top-down techniques, subdivide the techniques into pre-reading, during-reading and
after-reading phases. He also advises the introduction of the topic before reading the
text, the practice of skimming, scanning, predicting and activating schemata. The
author emphasizes that students bring the best of their knowledge and skills to a text
when they have been given a chance to ease into the passage.
In brief, each person can have a different opinion to improve reading
comprehension and we can not tell which is better because each of them focuses on
one important matter of reading comprehension. However, the findings they drew out
were too simple and general. They do not find out the real situation of teaching and
learning reading comprehension at the pre-reading stage. In fact, there are a lot of
difficulties that learners have to face before reading a text. Therefore, being a language
teacher, we must understand the nature of reading thoroughly to help our students read
effectively.
I.2. Overview of reading
I.2.1. Definition of reading comprehension
Reading comprehension takes a very important part in teaching and learning
reading a language and a foreign language as well. It can be seen as the ability to retain
information of a written text to the fullest of the readers.
Grellet (1981:34) stated “reading comprehension or understanding a written text
means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible”.

knowledge that they already have about the topic of the text.
From the above mentioned definitions, it is possible to draw a conclusion that it
is meaningless if readers spend time reading but have no comprehension or attain
nothing or even little from a written text. In other words, it is no use of reading without
comprehension. Therefore, reading comprehension plays an important part in teaching
and learning a foreign language in general and teaching reading in particular. And it is
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a need to improve reading skills so that reading motivation is increased, benefits from
reading such as being able to progress through assignments faster and to retain more
information, learning more and being more knowledgeable, improving spelling and
grammar skills, and having a more active imagination,… are to the fullest.
In conclusion, in reading comprehension, the reader not only reads written
graphic forms in the text but also recognizes the intention of the writer. They are
opinions and point of views which the writer had in mind when they wrote. Therefore,
readers can master the structures, vocabulary presented in the real situations. However,
the reasons for reading differ from one person to another. As a result, the ways we read
are also different. In other words, the purposes of reading determine the ways or the
styles of reading. Now it is necessary to have a close look at the classification on
reading according to manner and the purposes of reading to identify different types of
reading.
I.2.2. Classification of reading
I.2.2.1. According to the manner of reading
I.2.2.1.1. Reading aloud
Reading aloud is an unnatural activity because most people do not read aloud in
real life, and it is difficult for the speaker to pay attention to the meaning of the text
when reading aloud. Reading aloud involves “looking a text, understanding it and also
saying it” (Doff, 1988:67) and he considers “reading aloud as a way to convey
necessary information to someone else”. Very few people are required to read aloud as
a matter of daily routine. The readers are asked to read the text so loudly that other

meaning.
In Doff’s opinion (1988:67), silent reading or reading for meaning “is the
activity we normally engage in where we read books, newspapers, road signs, etc. It
involves looking at sentences and understanding the message they convey, in other
words, ‘making sense’ of a written text ”.
According to Doff, we know that silent reading is of great help in developing
reading skills. Students do not have to pay attention to the exact pronunciation of
words, they will try their best to focus on the ideas of the texts. Therefore, they can
cover the greatest possible amount of the text in a shortest possible time. Furthermore,
through silent reading, students can all read at their own speed. If they do not
understand the sentence or an idea, they can go back and read it again. So silent
reading is a very effective in the reading comprehension process.
Lewis and Hill (1985:110) find out that “the simplest method of reading,
frequently forgotten by language teachers is silent reading. It is the method we
normally uses with our native language, and on the whole the quickest and most
efficient”.
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However, the nature of silent reading skill is far from uniform. It varies
according to the use to which it is being put.
In sequence, the depth and detail of understanding, of comprehension increase
as we go though the ways of doing silent reading. In all, silent reading is a useful
technique in a reading comprehension process applied to students to exploit reading
lessons and it is also a good way to help teachers control the class.
I.2.2.2. According to the purposes of reading
I.2.2.2.1. Skimming
Skimming is commonly used in reading comprehension. It is one of specific
reading techniques necessary for quick and efficient reading. There have been many
definitions of skimming.
Grellet (1981:19) states that “when skimming, we go through the reading

In addition, Grellet (1981:19) gives a more detailed definition of scanning:
“When scanning, we only try to locate information and often we do not even follow
the linearity of passage to do so, and scanning is far more limited since it only means
retrieving what information is relevant to our purpose”.
These authors have the same point that while scanning reader does not need to
read form cover to cover, they only look for the information they want by running their
eyes rapidly along the lines. It can be practised with the great range of texts such as
dictionaries, maps, advertisements, labels, etc. This kind of reading is very useful in
reading selectively.
In general, both skimming and scanning are effective techniques for quick and
efficient reading. It is advisable to make use of them to improve reading
comprehension skills for students in reading classes.
I.2.2.2.3. Intensive reading
Intensive reading is also widely used in a reading class. It is an effective way to
explore the text, to go deeply into the meaning and the organization of the text.
According to Grellet (1981:4) “intensive reading means reading short text to
extract specific information. This is an accuracy activity involving reading for details”.
In addition, Nuttall (1989:23) writes “intensive reading involves approaching
the texts under the close guidance of the teacher…, or under the guidance of a task
which forces the students to pay great attention to the ext. the aim of intensive reading
is to arrive at a profound and detail understanding of the text: not only of what is
means but also of how the meaning is produced”.
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From the mentioned opinions intensive reading’s aim is to achieve full
understanding of the logical arguments, attitude, and purposes of the writer as well as
his linguistic means to achieve these purposes.
Sharing the same opinion with Nuttall, Brown (2001:312) defines “intensive
reading is usually a classroom oriented activity in which students focuses on linguistic
or semantic details of a passage. Reading calls students’ attention to grammatical

nature of the two approaches as they can help him in providing his students with
suitable reading activities to develop their reading competence as well as set
appropriate preparation for them before tackling the text.
According to Brown (2001:199), “in bottom-up processing, readers must first
recognize a multiplicity of linguistics signals (letters, morphemes, syllables, words,
phrases, grammatical cues, discourse makers) and use their linguistic data-processing
mechanism to impose some sorts of order on their signals”. In other words, the reader
derives the meaning from the black marks on the page by recognizing letters and
words and working out sentence structures. Bottom-up approach can be used to make
sure that the readers have understood the plain sense of the text correctly by reading it
again and checking the vocabulary, syntax, etc. It is of great help in developing the
reader’s detailed comprehension; however, in order to get full understanding, it must
be used in conjunction with top-down processing.
From Nuttall’s perspective “in top-down processing, we draw on our own
intelligence and experience - the predictions we can make, based on the schemata we
have acquired to understand the text” (1989:16). The top-down approach gives a sense
of perspective and makes use of all that the readers bring to the text: prior knowledge,
common sense, etc. Obviously, they do not have to read word by word but rather use
their background knowledge, ecperience, interest,… to see the writer’s purpose, get
the likely trend of the argument or predict what is coming next in the text. The top-
down approach can be used effectively in the pre-reading stage. As detailed work on
the text is more rewarding after students first get a global impression of the kind of
text as well as a rough idea of the way it is organized.
Some recent researches on teaching reading have also shown that a combination
of top-down and bottom-up processing, or what has come to be called interactive
reading, is almost always a primary ingredient in successful teaching methodology
because both processes are important. Nuttall (1989:17) also highlighted “in practice, a
reader continually shifts from one focus to another, now adopting a top-down
approach to predict probable meaning, then moving to the bottom-up approach to
check whether what is reading is really what the writer says”.

Constructing new background knowledge as well as activating the existing
schemata are the main goals that the pre-reading activities must accomplish.
Therefore, teachers should select suitable activities in order to support their students
prior to reading.
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I.2.5. Stages of a reading lesson
The process of teaching a reading lesson is often divided into three stages
commonly known as pre-reading stage, while-reading stage and post-reading stage.
Each of these stages carries its own features and purposes and requires different
techniques and strategies (Williams, 1986:37).
I.2.5.1. Pre-reading stage
The pre-reading stage aims at activating or building students’ knowledge
related to texts’ topics. It also help students to become familiar with some of the
language items needed in the process of interpreting texts. Another goal of the pre-
reading stage is to interest and motivate student to read.
In general in the pre-reading stage, it is necessary to set a good preparation for
students, provide them the sense of what they are going to do in their reading lesson.
I.2.5.2. While-reading stage
While-reading stage is regarded as the main part of a reading lesson. In this
phase, students have opportunities to understand the text thoroughly and clarify its
content in detail. The aims of this stage focus on making the students anticipate in the
process of understanding the whole text, and interpreting exactly what the author
wrote. In addition, it helps the students break up the organization of the text;
understand the text structures; classify the text content and recognize the writer’s
purpose and attitude. This stage also trains the students to think about other ideas
rising from the text and to form judgement and opinions on the basis of the fact
presented. Moreover, it helps the students improve their reading speed and techniques.
Besides, this stage offers an opportunity to apply effectively what they have learnt
from the text to their purpose of study and communication. Last but not least, this

I.3. Overview on the pre-reading stage
I.3.1.The importance of the pre-reading stage
Pre-reading stage plays an important part in the whole process of teaching a
reading text since it is of great help in motivating students and setting them a good
preparation before reading. Williams (1986:37) mentioned that the pre-reading stage
aims at introducing and arousing interest in the topic, motivating learners by giving a
reason for reading and providing some language preparation for the text.
What Williams poited out is just general function of the pre-reading stage. They
will vary depending on each particular text. In other words, not all of these aims will
be relevant for all texts. In some cases, there may be no particular language problems;
therefore teachers have no need to provide language presentation for the text. In the
case that language presentation is needed. It does not mean that teachers should
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explain every possible unknown word and structure in the text. This is due to the fact
that there are some new language items students can guess meaning on their own in
the process of reading text. Doff explained “they can guess the meaning of many
words from the context. An important part of reading is being able to guess the
meaning of many unknown words, and it can help students to develop their reading
skill by giving practice this” (1988:59).
The teacher can ask students some useful questions to prepare for effective pre-
reading phase such as: What knowledge, ideas, or opinions might the students already
have on this topic and how can this knowledge be exploited? How many grammatical
items and vocabularies should be taught? How much time may be spent on the pre-
reading activities? What tasks can be given to students before they read? Answering
these questions will give teachers clues to ways of introducing the text and motivating
learners.
I.3.2.What to do in the pre-reading stage
For each particular text, the teacher will have specific activities; however, there
are three main things that are often applied in the pre-reading stage in cluding

According to Rivers and Temperly (1978), reading skill is not a single skill but
an integrated language skill. Firstly, reading is related to writing. That is when students
are asked to summarize or continue the reading material such as resume, end of a
story, short descriptions of the characters, etc. Secondly, reading is concerned with
listening comprehension. Students may listen to a story, a play… than read it or read
first and “listen to a worthwhile reading or dramatic presentation of what they have
read. The aural element adds vividness and life to the reading unit” (Rivers and
Temperly, 1978:259). They further note that “practice in direct reading of a text which
is readily accessible to the students at their present level of knowledge, while they are
simultaneously listening to a taped model reading it in meaningful and expressive
segments, can help students develop useful habits of anticipation and syntactic
identification in both of these skills”.
Thirdly, that is integration of reading and speaking. Reading materials serve as
a fundamental source for oral presentations as they can base on these ideas they have
read to discuss or debate for their own purposes. This is the best way for them to share
what they have been reading with others.
To summarize, those combinations between reading and, writing, listening,
speaking comprehension should be put into serious consideration when teaching and
learning English as a foreign language.