Foreign language reading

My name is Ivanna and I am currently observing at Lee Junior High.  It had never occurred to me that reading would be a big part of teaching a foreign language in junior high.  I figured it would only be required in a literature or civilization foreign class in college.  The Spanish class that I am observing I noticed the teacher has implemented good reading techniques.  An activity that she did was she had the students read a paragraph about a birthday party, she then had the students translate it in their own words.  The students were able to do most of the work by themselves with only minimal help from us. In order for them to be able to accomplish this activity the students had a good background of vocabulary and adjectives in their previous lessons.  They were able to translate it by using the vocabulary they did know and using context clues.  I hope I get to see more reading strategies that will help me in my classroom in the future.