Why and how should before reading activies be done?

It Says:

 A B-D-A centered lesson that includes activity and discussion before reading reduces the uncertainty that students brings to an assignment.  Before-reading activities get students ready to read, to approach text material critically, and to seek answers to questions they have generated about the material.  The before reading dimension of a lesson… has also been called the prereading phase of instruction.  During this instructional phase, a teacher often emphasizes one or more of the following: (1) motivating readers, (2) building and activating prior knowledge, (3) introducing key vocabulary and concepts, and (4) developing metacognitive awareness of the task demands of the assignment and the strategies necessary for effective learning.

I Say:

Given a reading assignment without preparation can be confusing and intimidating for students.  They will not know where to begin in their thoughts.  They will not know what they are reading, or how to read it.  It is thus necessary that teachers do activities before a reading to prepare students for the reading.  The students will then be more willing and able to do the reading, and will get more from the reading by understanding and appreciating it more.

And So:

I think that this is very good advice for teachers.  When giving out readings, I think that I would typically have just previewed it by saying what the students are reading.  This might help the students know what to expect content-wise, but not style-wise.  It also would not necessarily motivate them in their reading unless they knew and were already interested in the subject.  I will thus need to work on being able to motivate students to read by explaining to them the importance of the reading and how it is interesting and relevant.  I will also need to preview any difficult and unfamiliar vocabulary in the reading.  If students do not understand a word, they will probably just skip over it, and then miss out on a piece of the reading, and might not understand it as well.  Similarly, I will need to help activate students’ prior knowledge as it relates to the reading.  If I, as their teacher, do not activate their prior knowledge, they might not relate the reading to what they know.  I will thus also be teaching them how to relate new information to old information as a skill, in addition to relating it for the particular assignment.  What I will need to learn more about, though, is teaching students about the skills they will need to use in reading a certain piece.  I am just not comfortable, yet, that I could recognize what skills students will need to be able to do to read.