How I teach...reading
Reading allowed: making reading communal, audible, and alive.
My views on reading have changed.
I used to think reading was silent. Twenty-five students, heads down, eyes scanning the page.
Now, if you walk past my classroom during a reading lesson, you’ll hear 25 voices saying the same sentence in French.
Together.
Out loud.
Repeatedly.
It is, objectively, quite loud.
If my former self walked past my current classroom, he might quietly close the door and assume behaviour management had collapsed entirely.
But something much more interesting is happening.
Because reading is not just visual.
It is phonological.
And it is deeply vulnerable to interference from English.
The Brain Cannot Help Itself
When students see a French word, they do not encounter it innocently. Their brain immediately tries to pronounce it using English sound rules. It is automatic.
And also completely unhelpful.
Students see beaucoup and their brain offers something like “boo-coop.”
They see ils parlent and pronounce the s and the ent with great confidence.
They see fils and bravely pronounce the l.
Students will pronounce every silent letter with the confidence of someone who has absolutely never been betrayed by French before.
Their brain is doing exactly what it was trained to do.
Just in the wrong language.
This phenomenon is called L1 interference. It’s a perennial battle for languages teachers. And it is one we have to win.
Researchers such as Linnea Ehri have shown that fluent reading depends on forming secure connections between spelling, sound, and meaning: a process known as orthographic mapping. Similarly, Charles Perfetti argues that fluent readers possess high-quality lexical representations in which written form, pronunciation, and meaning are tightly integrated.
If the pronunciation attached to a word is inaccurate, the representation itself becomes unstable.
Students are not just mispronouncing words.
They are building fragile mental representations of the language.
And fragile representations create fragile readers.
The Problem with How We Often Teach Reading
For years, I did what most of us were trained to do:
Pre-teach vocabulary
Students read independently
Answer comprehension questions
Review answers
Move on
It felt productive.
Students could often answer the questions. They could locate information. They could even, with effort, explain the text.
But on the rare occasion they were asked to read a sentence or the more frequent occasions where they were asked to read an answer their pronunciation was hesitant, their reading was slow and their confidence was fragile.
And when faced with unfamiliar texts — especially at senior level — the cognitive strain was obvious.
I had to confront an uncomfortable possibility.
They weren’t reading French.
They were decoding it.
Reading vs Decoding: The IKEA Problem
Decoding is slow. Effortful. Fragile.
It looks like this:
Students move word by word.
They translate constantly.
They subvocalise inaccurately.
They hesitate.
Decoding is the linguistic equivalent of assembling IKEA furniture without the instructions. You might get there eventually, but it is exhausting, and you remain deeply uncertain about the stability of the final product.
Reading is different.
Reading is automatic.
The brain recognises patterns instantly. Words are processed in phrases. Syntax feels familiar. Meaning emerges with far less effort.
Fluency, as Norman Segalowitz explains, depends on automatising bottom-up processes like word recognition so that attention can be directed towards meaning.
We see this in first language acquisition. Children do not begin by analysing grammar. They experience thousands upon thousands of meaningful, repeated encounters with language. Over time, patterns become automatised.
Eventually, reading becomes effortless.
The same principle applies in the second language classroom.
When students encounter familiar structures repeatedly — in listening, in reading aloud, in structured input — the brain begins to recognise rather than decode.
Cognitive load decreases.
Fluency increases.
And fluency is built through repeated, accurate encounters with language.
Reading Through an EPI Lens
Through a combination of some excellent Professional Learning at my school around FASE reading and classroom (more about the former later) and applying the principles of Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI), I began to rethink reading entirely.
Reading is not separate from listening.
It is not separate from speaking.
It is not preparation for acquisition.
It is acquisition.
Reading provides structured, repeated exposure to high-frequency language in visible form. It strengthens the connection between orthography, phonology, and meaning.
But this only happens if reading is done in a way that builds automaticity.
This is where FASE reading becomes central.
FASE Reading: Fluent, Accountable, Social, Expressive
In our school, we are lucky enough to have a whole-school focus on reading. And in particular FASE reading: Fluent, Accountable, Social, Expressive.
I am going to quickly breakdown each of these elements of FASE reading. But I want to make it clear that I don’t believe these are stylistic preferences. I think they are way more important than that.
Fluent
Fluency is not speed.
It is effortlessness.
Through repeated, guided reading, students begin to recognise familiar structures automatically. They stop assembling meaning piece by piece and begin recognising patterns as wholes.
This reduces cognitive load. Working memory is freed. Reading becomes smoother, more stable, more confident.
Fluency is what allows comprehension to occur reliably.
Accountable
Everyone reads.
Everyone tracks the text.
No one disappears.
I use what is traditionally called popcorn reading.
But in my classroom, we call it baguette reading (because…reasons…).
I simply say, “Baguette, Amélie,” and Amélie reads.
The baguette is unpredictable.
The baguette keeps everyone honest.
It is light-hearted, but cognitively powerful. Every student remains engaged because participation is always possible.
Silent reading can look impressive.
But it is impossible to tell whether students are reading French, reading English, or thinking about lunch.
Baguette reading makes reading audible. And you can never have enough opportunities in a languages classroom to hear your students speak.
We also do something I call “paired reading” where students - in pairs - to read a sentence to their partner and translate it. During this activity, I like to get around the class and listen out for common pronunciation mistakes which I will go over with the whole class afterwards.
If you have ever taught EPI, these activities are just the tip of the iceberg. EPI is full of activities such as these where students are reading aloud, either to one another in pairs or to the rest of the class.
Social
Reading is not treated as a private act.
It is communal.
We read in chorus. We share pacing. We shape pronunciation together.
There is something powerful about 25 voices producing accurate French simultaneously.
It normalises effort. It reduces anxiety. It builds collective confidence.
Language is social.
Reading should be too.
Expressive
Reading is not monotone decoding.
It is expressive.
We attend to rhythm.
To phrasing.
To intonation.
Students learn that punctuation shapes meaning. That sentences have contour. That French has music (see here for an amazing podcast in French on just that topic).
This expressive dimension strengthens the connection between written and spoken language.
Students are not simply recognising symbols.
They are producing language.
Why Reading Aloud Changes Everything
Silent reading has its place. But in the acquisition phase, reading aloud plays a critical role.
When students read aloud, they strengthen the mapping between:
Written forms
Sound patterns
Meaning
This coherent mapping allows the brain to store language in a stable, retrievable form.
Without this, students often develop inaccurate internal sound representations. These inaccuracies interfere with listening comprehension, speaking fluency, and reading confidence.
Reading aloud helps align the system.
Over time, familiar structures are recognised instantly.
Decoding gives way to reading.
What This Looks Like in Practice
A typical reading sequence in my classroom might look like this:
I model the text. Students listen.
We read together in chorus.
We break the text into phrases.
“Baguette, Chloé.”
Students inevitably make mistakes and when they do it is important to correct these.
Depending on the error or the student, I might correct pronunciation gently but given what I have already said about the fossilisation of pronunciation mistakes, I think it is important to do it immediately. This is a tough one to get right because you want to build confidence. One way of softening the blow to the student involved is to get the whole class to repeat the mispronounced word correctly after you in choral response.
In any case, the goal is not performance.
The goal is automaticity.
The Payoff
Something shifts when students can read fluently.
They approach new texts with less hesitation.
They process longer sentences without panic.
They recognise familiar patterns instantly.
They trust their ability to understand.
By the time they encounter complex senior-level texts, their cognitive resources should no longer consumed by decoding. They are available for interpretation, inference, and meaning.
Reading becomes what it was always meant to be.
Not a puzzle to be solved.
Not a test to be passed.
But a means through which to acquire new language.