Reading: Oral or Silent

Oral or silent reading, should this even be a question? When reading in a class, there can be a choice by the teacher (unless offered to the students) whether to read out loud (orally) or in their head (silently). These are types of reading performances that the teacher chooses from. There are advantages and disadvantages to both oral and silent reading. Notably, however, most ESL classrooms use silent reading. How come? What are the disadvantages of oral reading? Are there no advantages to reading out loud?

One advantage of oral reading is that it allows teachers to hear how well their students read. Oral reading can be run as an informal (or formal) assessment for students. “Oral reading is an instructional strategy that can help students improve a variety of reading skills” ("What Is Guided Oral Reading?", 2017), and therefore provides opportunity for these skills to be observed and assessed. The teacher listens to how they are processing what they read. A teacher can decipher what the student is good at and where they are struggling.

Another advantage of oral reading is that it provides teachers with the opportunity to give a pronunciation check to their students. Just because a student might read in their head does not mean they are not pronouncing a word. When it comes time for them to read a text, their comprehension of pronunciation can be clearly seen and observed by the teacher.

The last advantage I want to mention is that oral reading can help highlight a particular passage in a text. Especially if the passage is short, by reading it out loud, students have the words repeated and fresh in their mind. Discussion around a specific text can flow easier and with greater focus.

Some disadvantages to reading orally are that it is not a very realistic activity. The majority of a student’s reading life will be silent reading. Rarely is a person called upon to read a text orally. Because of the lack of reality in oral reading, it is often avoided by teachers.

When oral reading students easily lose their attention and can become distracted by just about anything. I think we have all experienced this at one point or another. I find this true in a situation as simple as when a teacher begins reading off their notes word for word I lose interest. It seems fake to me and I think I can just return later and read whatever they just quoted (which I usually never do).

Oral reading is recitation more than any sort of interaction and participation. It is a rather unhelpful activity for a group of students to hear a fellow student struggle through a text that they can all read in front of them.

There are many advantages and disadvantages to reading orally. Each teacher must decide on their own accord whether to incorporate it into their lessons. Personally, I would encourage the majority of reading to be done silently. However, highlighting text or having students focus on a specific passage by orally reading it, is helpful and should be used at times. It takes a wise teacher to know when to integrate oral reading, when is too much oral reading and when to just stick with silent reading. The key to remember when thinking about oral reading is that “engaging oral reading is about both reading powerfully and listening attentively” ("Six Tips for Successful Oral Reading", 2000).

Bibliography

Brown, H. D., & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (Fourth ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Sebesta, S. (2000, November 04). Six Tips for Successful Oral Reading. Retrieved from https://www.teachervision.com/six-tips-successful-oral-reading

What Is Guided Oral Reading? (2017, August 23). Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-guided-oral-reading