• Reading comprehension is one of the four skills that language learners have to acquire. 

• Below are seven steps of teaching reading comprehension using VAK Model.

STEP 1:

The AIM/OBJECTIVE of the reading and comprehension lesson.

Teacher should refer to the DSKP (Year 1 - 6) for writing the Standard Learning Objective/objectives (SLO) of the reading and comprehension.

Some examples of SLO are:

Students are able to:

1. read for gist
2. read for detailed information
3. preview a text
4. use prior knowledge to understand a text
5. locate referents
6. infer meaning from context

STEP 2:

PRE-READING:

Aim is to prepare learners for the reading tasks.

1. Warm-up Acvtivity: 

Some examples of warm-up activities are tongue twister, a command drill, or a riddle. (should not takemore than 2 or 3 minutes)

2. Lead-in Activity:

Aim is to prepare learners to the reading task.

Some examples of leads-in activities are : vocabulary pre-teaching, discussing a quote related to the topic, a word list that the SS have to study in groups to guess which words will be used by the writer in the text, etc.

STEP 3:

WHILE READING:

(Strategy Teaching and Modelling)

Depending on the aims of the lesson, choose a strategy (e.g. activating prior knowledge, predicting, guessing the meaning of difficult words from the context, questioning, summarizing, using graphic organizers….) and teach it explicitly using a short text. 

STEP 4:

Strategy use/practice

1. Learners have to use the strategy that teacher explained in the previous stage. 

2. Learners  have to apply it to understand the current reading text.

****The three types of learners’ learning styles are incorporated through these activities. They can be seen as below::

• Visual learners learn by seeing
• Auditory learners prefer to learn by listening and speaking
• Reading and Writing learners like to read and take notes.
• Kinesthetic learners prefer to move and learn by doing. Most people fall into this category or a combination of this and another category.

STEP 5:

Comprehension Tasks Activities through Group Work

Aim is to enable learners to have a deeper understanding of the text read and to assign comprehension exercises such as:

1. Locating referents (i.e. what do these words refer to?)
2. Sentence completion
3. Matching
4. Comprehension questions
5. True or false statements
6. Rearranging 
7. Chart completion (information transfer)
8. Guessing/finding an appropriate title for the text

RESOURCES USE:

• Visual learners learn by seeing
• Auditory learners prefer to learn by listening and speaking
• Reading and Writing learners like to read and take notes.
• Kinesthetic learners prefer to move and learn by doing. Most people fall into this category or a combination of this and another category.
• Learners carry out the activities using appropriate Graphic Organizer such as charts, tables, I-Think Map / any other types of Mind Mapping.
• The three types of learners’ learning styles are incorporated through these activities. They can be seen as below::

STEP 6:

POST READING

1. Reviewing

Aim is to check/assess to what extent the learners understood the text that they have read and how much they can recall. 

ACTIVITIES  (PRESENTATION AND WRITING):

1. Learners are asked to retell the story they have read.
2. Using graphic organizers learners may present the main ideas of the text to their friends. 
3. Learners are asked to fill up the given chart with the most pertinent information from the reading passage.
4. Learners are asked to summarize the reading passage.

STEP 7:

CLOSURE 

(CONNECTING ACTIVITY TO REAL LIFE)

Aim: Learners have to connect what they have read with themselves, with the world, and with other related texts they have read.

Teachers in this stage will wrap up the reading lesson. by asking the follwing question:

How does the topic of the passage relate to the learners’ lives?

***OTHER SUGGESTED READING AND COMPREHENSION ACTIVITIES FOR VAK LEARNERS

• Visual– PowerPoint presentations, pictures projected onto a screen, story maps, diagram, chart, highlighters, color-coding
• Auditory– turn and talk, class discussions, have students repeat what you’ve said, use songs, chants, summarize to recap the lesson
• Reading/ Writing– use handouts, books, dictionaries, and other texts, have learners take notes, make lists, write sight words
• Kinesthetic– role-play, science experiments, STEM activities, sorting objects/ pictures, building words (play-doh, finger-tracing, magnetic letters), body-spelling and use real-life examples

REFLECTION:

Teaching Reading Comprehension through VAK Model encourages learners to participate actively in the task oriented activity. 

Using variety of resource materials such as using mind-maps enable learners’ with the three learning styles (VAK) make learning fun and effective. This enables to achieve the Standard Learning Objective.. 

All learners are engaged in the prepared problem-solving type of activities through group work and they work independently whilst teacher acts as a facilitator.

Classroom-based assessment can easily be carried out during the learning process. Teacher observes learners do their task in small groups. The lesson processes also includes the elements of the 21st century learning such as teacher acts as a facilitator, group work and presentation by learners.

References: 

1. Correlational Study Between Learning Style and Reading https://www.atlantis-press.com>article