Reading strategies Children differ in their reading
strategies, largely based on
where they are in their
Code breakers: focusing on decoding each symbols. literacy development
Meaning breakers: trying to construct meaning
from the text.
Text analysts: who understand that authors of texts have a particular perspective
that needs to be critically analyzed.
Text users: who understand that different text have different purposes and vary their
reading strategies accordingly.
Some reading strategies include:
Predicting: finding clues to what might come next in a text (from the cover, the
title, pictures, headings, or prior knowledge of the content)
Monitoring: determining whether one's reading makes sense, and if not, re-reading
to understand
Confirming: finding evidence of an accurate prediction teaching Young Learners
English
Connecting: making connections to prior readings, information, or experiences
Questioning: asking questions about a text while reading, which may include
Predicting: the next parts of a text
Skimming: reading to get the general topic or main points of a text
Scanning: reading to find specific information such as dates or names or answers to
questions
Distinguishing: between important and less important information
Using context clues: looking at the context (the pictures, other words, the place in
the sentence, punctuation) for better comprehension
Paraphrasing or summarizing: while reading and after reading a text
Visualizing: forming images about what has been read in order to facilitate
Comprehension
Why Include Reading and Writing in
Young Learner Classes?
EYL teachers need to include reading and writing wherever and as early as possible, for a
number of reasons:
Reading and writing can reinforce what is being learned orally
Reading expands the sources of input, and writing helps in remembering that input
Writing provides a way to consolidate learning from the other skills, and reading
helps students to see the conventions of writing
Children enjoy reading and writing if the texts are meaningful and related to their
experiences
Reading and writing help link the EYL class with home, as children bring home writing
they have done to share with their families or do homework requiring reading and
writing
Reading and writing can also link the EYL class with other classes in school, where
written language plays an important part
Writing provides another means of self-expression and, when read by others, a sense
of confidence and pride
TEACHING READING AND
WRITING
Reading can be thought of
When you read: When you write:
as preparation for writing,
-Get meaning from the -Likely to read
and writing as producing
text -Re-read
something to read
-Bring meaning with you
First and second language reading and
writing Five initial literacy steps:
1. Awareness and exploration
2. Experimenting with reading and writing
Learning to read and write is 3. Early reading and writing
difficult and complex enough in 4. Transitional reading and writing
a language the child already 5. Conventional reading and writing
knows, doing it in another
Broad areas of
knowledge in L1
Visual: about print and text direction
Phonological: about sounds represented by symbols
Lexical: about words and collocations
Syntactic: about meaning construction and making sense of words
Semantic: about social use of language as discourse
When we are developing literacy activities we need to
consider at least the following:
Has the child learned to read and write in her/his own language?
Is the child just beginning to learn to read in her/his own language?
Is that language written in the Roman alphabet, another alphabet, or
characters?
How does one read and write a text in that language (from left to right, right to
left, top to bottom)?
What skills and strategies has the child developed in making meaning from and
with text?
Focus: on written language
Phonics Activities Goal: learn the relationship between
the sounds and letters.
Some phonics activities include:
Identifying the number of syllables in a word
Pointing to words that share a common letter-sound
Sorting pictures or making a collage of objects that begin with the same
letter-sound (book/ball/boy) or rhyme (cat/hat/rat)
Sorting words that share a common letter-sound
Matching words that share a common letter-sound
Creating words from letters that have a common letter-sound
Repeating chants with common letter-sounds that are written on the board
Using predictable or patterned books
Phonics activities can also be fun
Other engaging activities include:
Singing or chanting familiar songs, chants, or rhymes while you point to the words in the
song or chant displayed on chart paper, DVD.
Creating fill-in-the-blank activities with clues
Playing Bag-lt
Paying Hang-Up
Even young learners who already read a language with a similar alphabetic system will
benefit from systematic, explicit instruction in sound/symbol correspondences in English
(Carrell & Grabe, 2002), However, to be meaningful, phonics instruction should focus
on words that children have already learned orally within a meaningful context, not in
isolation (Peregoy & Boyle, 2004). Otherwise, children may get the idea that reading is
sounding out" words, even if they don't understand their meaning. The same is true of
the names of the letters: Teach them as they fit into the context and content of the
lesson.
2. Whole language A whole language approach begins with meaning and then
language in context for further word or language study. It involves top-down
processing, in which children bring their knowledge of the world, their experiences
with oral language and texts, and their knowledge of the written language to
constructing comprehension of written texts, using four types of clues:
Grapho-phonemic clues: referring to expected sound-symbol correspondences
Semantic clues: referring to what word(s) would be expected, based on the
meaning thus far
Syntactic clues: referring to the part of speech that would be expected in a
given place in the sentence
Pragmatic clues: referring to what would be expected given the purpose of the text.
Stage of a Lesson Activity
Presentation Reading aloud
Controlled practice Shared reading
Guided practice Guided reading
Independent activity Independent reading
Considerations for
teaching reading
-Reading is the process of relating written symbols to oral language,
of constructing meaning from written text (Goodman)
-Making sense and deriving meaning from the printed word (Linse)
What is reading?
To be able to read, One of the reasons for building
units around topics is that these
a child has to: help students to develop the
background knowledge, the
Understand the alphabet vocabulary, and the structures to
Decode make sense of written texts
Develop sight vocabulary to read
fluently
Develop strategies to help with comprehension and fluency
Read the text that match her/his reading level and interest
Engage in extensive reading
Considerations for
teaching writing
Purpose: communicate idea, to interact socially with others, to remembers, as well as to
get information and learn
-The activity of composing a
Every writing assignment should have a specific: text
-It uses symbols to
Form The type of writing text or genre
communicate thought and
Audience Someone who will read the writing
ideas in a readable form
Topic Something to communicate
-It’s a thinking process
Purpose A reason to write
Approaches to teach writing
Goal: help them to construct original texts using their “intellectual an linguistic
resources” (Hudelson)
A product-based approach--focuses on the final product
Focuses on accuracy, providing controlled or guided activities to help children learn the
basis of writing, working on spelling grammar and mechanics, in a bottom-up fashion
A process-based approach—focuses on the process of writing
Approaches to teaching Reading
When we read, -what we know about making meaning (top- down
We activate two processing)
types of knowledge: -what we know about language (bottom-up processing).
THREE approaches should be considered for young learners:
1. Phonics Phonics is a bottom-up approach to processing a text.
2. Whole language It focuses on the smallest unit of text: the letters.
3. Language The goal is to help children decode written language, using
experience the sound-symbol relationships they have learned, either in
isolation or from other words
The best practices in teaching reading provide:
Clear guidance on developing children's speaking and listening skills
Direct teaching of phonics as a primary means of teaching decoding (reading)
and encoding(writng/spelling)
A "broad and language-rich curriculum" (p. 16) that takes full account of
developing the four interdependent strands of language speaking, listening
reading, and writing-and enlarging children's stock of words within which to
include phonics
Multisensory phonics instruction that engages, motivates, and excites young
learners
A focus also on word recognition (sight vocabulary) and comprehension
Phonemic -Children need practice in
discriminating English sounds
awareness -training helps children to
understand the rules of English and,
activities: over time, helps build reading fluency
The following are some activities to help young learners to become aware of English
phonemes.
Learners should listen and:
Identify the first sound in a word (/b/ in boy)
Identify the last sound in a word (/t/ in kite)
Identify the common sound in a series of words (/i/ in see, me, tree)
Identify the word that doesn't rhyme (dog, fog, leg)
Change one sound for another in the beginning (cat to hat), middle (cat to cut),
and end of words (cat to can) to create new words
Separate the sounds of a word (sat into /s/, /ae/, /t/)
Blend separate sounds into a word (/s/, /ae/, /t/ into sat)
Delete a sound (sat to at)
Phonemic awareness
Blend initial consonant clusters (/st/ in stop)
activities can be fun.
Identify final consonant blends (/st/ in first)
Kauffman (2007) provides a number of ways to make phonemic awareness instruction
enjoyable and motivating for young learners.
She suggests, for example:
Using traditional rhymes
Going on a Rhyme Hunt
Playing Match Mates
Developing riddles
Playing Odd Man Out
Playing Bouncing Ball
Playing Rhyming Words Walk-About
