Reading a Newspaper Article
Margaret Lo and John Pill
IATEFL Learner Independence Worksheet 2
With just one newspaper article you can learn about an interesting topic, pick up new vocabulary,
learn about the author's writing style, discover interesting new grammatical patterns, as well as
practise your reading skills.
1. Choose a newspaper article that looks interesting.
2. Read it quickly. What is it about in general? Use your own words and write one or two
sentences only.
3. Read the article more carefully. What was interesting, enjoyable, upsetting or funny (etc.)
about it?
4. Now look more closely at the meaning of the article.
5. Choose three or more of the following to do.

Summarise the text in your own words.

Choose a paragraph that was difficult to understand and write what you think it means,
i.e. rewrite it in your own words.

What is the writer's point of view? What words show you his/her viewpoint?

Suggest another title for the text.

Write down any key vocabulary or phrases and try to guess the meaning. Then check in a
dictionary

Underline the words or phrases that show how paragraphs or sentences link to each other.

Make inferences: choose some sentences or paragraphs and draw conclusions What do
you know (outside of the text) about the topic.

Underline and write down any reference words and say what they refer to
Reading a Text
Richard Denys
IATEFL Learner Independence Worksheet 2
You can use these questions for any text you read. If you keep your answers and look at them again,
they will help you remember what the text was about.
1. Look quickly at the text to get an idea of what it is about. Now write not more than three
questions which you think the text will answer.
2. Read the text quickly to try to find the answers to your questions.
3. Now read the text more carefully:
a. If the text has quite long paragraphs, write down the main ideas of each paragraph.
b. Write down the words which you did not know before you read the text but which
you now understand.
4. After you have read the text:
a. Try to write down three pieces of information you have learned or three ideas you
have met.
b. Did you find the text interesting? Why/why nor?
c. Was the information in the text useful to vou in any way? If so, how?
2. Now look more closely at the structures used in the article. Choose three or more of the
following to do.
a. Choose part of the text and underline all the main verbs. Say what tenses are used.
Why are they used) Say whether they are active or passive.
b. Choose part of the text and underline all of the main subjects. Do you see any
patterns?
c. Note down the vocabulary from the text that connects to its topic and categorise them
in some way.
d. Underline prepositions or particles and the nouns, verbs or adjectives that they are
connected to. Are there any that are new to you) Can you make new sentences using
these phrases?
e. How many nouns have adjectives 7 How many do not?
f. Underline the relative clauses How many are there?
g. Choose a very long sentence and identify the main clause and all the subordinate
clauses.
h. How many uncountable nouns are there?
i. How many countable nouns are there?