Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello everyone!
I am seeking for a good site that will help students cope with reading comprehension for EFL students that are below the average level.

Some of my students have problems understanding what they have read. In order to comprehend the text they start translating the text word for word to their mothe tongue. The problem with this is that some texts cannot be taken literally word for word and the result is that they don't understand the meaning of the text. Furthermore, translation takes a lot of time and they waste precious time in exams translating leaving them with little time to answer the reading comprehension questions.

I would appreciate any advice.
Thank you very much

There are many parts to reading comprehension. The students need practice in all of it.
First they need to read and understand the questions. Questions are often tricky and can be misinterpreted so they need a lot of practice in answering the different kind of questions. They need to understand each one and how to answer. Using old exams, you can analyze the questions and how to answer each one.
Then the students have to go through the reading, understanding the first and last sentence of every paragraph. The most important information will be in these sentences.
They need to be able to figure out the most important noun and verb in the other sentences.
If they have read and understood the questions, they will be able to answer the questions as they read through. Most questions are asked in the order that the paragraphs present the information.
They should read as much as possible in their own language so they have background knowledge in many subjects so they can guess what might be included in the paragraphs.
Finally, they have to able to summerize the information for that last questions that asks for a summary or opinion on the subject.
They need to recognize that English usualy uses many words for the same thing so they will encounter woman, her, the female, hers, the person in question, etc. but still be talking about the same thing. They need to learn the words in a good Thesaurus.
They need to recognize the different styles of writing for Math, Science, etc. as well. See Berverly Derewianka's books for help here.
You can go through old exams as if they were buildings and take the strucutre apart so they can see how they are built. Then they can apply this to building in their own writing.

Dear Sally!
Thank you for your prompt reply!
I will use the advice you have given me.