TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS READING

Teaching Young Learners Reading

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Reading

Introduction

Objectives

+ info

References

Teaching Reading

Quiz

Introduction

Although reading and writing "are very demanding and take time and patience to learn," they "are extremely important for the child's growing awareness of language and their own growth in the language" (Scott & Ytreberg, 1990, p. 5) - Joan Kang Shin and JoAnn Crandall (Teaching Young Learners English)

Objectives

At the end of this presentation, you should be able to

describe the nature of the reading process;understand the functions of reading in the YL classroom; describe techniques for teaching reading to YL.

READING

Learning to read is complex and difficult enough in a language the child already knows; doing it in another language is even more difficult.

Reading, together with listening, is sometimes referred to as a passive skill. However, both skills are anything but passive.

DAVID NUNAN (teACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS)

READING

What is Reading?

Reading is a process of relating written symbols to oral language, of constructing meaning from written text (Goodman, 2005), or "making sense and deriving meaning from the printed word" (Linse, 2005, p. 69).

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Joan Kang Shin & JoAnn Crandall (Teaching Young Learners English: from Theory to Practice)

READING

BOTTOM-UP AND TOP-DOWN PROCESSING

When we read, we activate two types of knowledge: what we know about making meaning (top-down processing) and what we know about language (bottom-up processing).

READING

Several key questions need to be considered when teaching reading to younger second language learners. These include:

• What is the developmental stage of the child?
• Can the child already read in his / her first language?
• What is the child's level of oral proficiency in English?
• Does the child have a physical impairment or visual problem that may affect his/her ability to learn to read?

READING

In academic contexts

reading and writing are taught, not only to equip learners with skills that will be used outside the classroom, but also to develop their intellect.

For some individuals, visual learners, for example, learning to read is a vitally important educational skill as they learn and retain information by seeing it.

READING

Reasons for including reading and writing in the YL classroom:

• reading and writing can reinforce what is being learnt orally

• reading expands the sources of input and writing helps in remembering that input

• children enjoy reading and writing if the texts are meaningful

• reading helps learners see the conventions of writing

• reading and writing help link the English class with home as learners show their work to their families and are required to read and write while doing homework.

TEACHING READING

VIDEO

Watch this 6:30 video about teaching reading. What do you think about the teaching strategies proposed?

Reading involves two skills:

READING WITH UNDERSTANDING

DECODING

TEACHING READING

Don't worry if it takes some time before these two skills come together, with primary learners reading remains a two-stage process for some time. You should, therefore, adapt the reading activities to the age and skill of the students and this may well mean that some members of your class are ready to read before others.

- Susan House (An Introduction to Teaching English to Children)

TEACHING READING

At primary level the emphasis is on listening and speaking. It is advisable to treat reading and writing exercises as listening and speaking exercises first.

e.g. if students have a reading comprehension exercise to do, read the text aloud or play the recorded audio first while the students listen. Read the questions aloud while students listen and then ask them do perform the reading and writing exercise individually.

TEACHING READING

Activities for more advanced readers (word to text level)

Activities for beginning readers (word level)

Activities for more advanced readers(word to sentence level)

examples

examples

examples

TEACHING READING

Our goal as a teacher should be to encourage and enable young learners to read independently and to motivate them to want to read a variety of texts.

READING

Reading Strategies

We read many different types of texts for different purposes and we do so in different ways. We read for enjoyment, to keep up to date with news of our friends, family or country, to get the gist or for specific information. We will have to help our learners, especially the older ones, to use a variety of reading strategies as they read.

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TEACHING READING

Young learners should be exposed to a variety of texts:

Short informational texts

Comic strips and cartoons

folktales, fairy tales and stories

Letters, e-mails, greeting cards and text messages

Schedules and displays of basic information

Menus and recipes

TEACHING READING

Extensive Reading

There is an enormous range of guided reading material on the market designed to encourage children to read in English.

Readers and storybooks encourage learners to read longer pieces of text without pausing and worrying too much about details, usually for pleasure. They also help them learn language outside the standard corsebook language and the classroom environment.

TEACHING READING

Choosing readers and storybooks

Choose books that will be interesting to your students.

Do not choose books that will be too difficult as they will discourage learners.

Choose books with pictures to help understanding. Children are encouraged by books that look attractive.

Some readers have accompanying audio files. These can be very useful to encourage children who do not like reading.

TEACHING READING

It is possible to use a number of activities throughout the reading process

PRE-READING

WHILE-READING

POST-READING

To conclude

Reading and writing are active and complementary activities.

Reading is an interactive process, involving the reader, the tex, and the writer.

Reading can be thought of as preparation for writing and writing as producing something for others to read.

QUIZ

Let's see how much you know about Reading and Teaching Reading to Young Learners

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QUIZ

QUESTION 1/5

........ may provide beginning readers with practice in decoding at word level.

graded readers

skimming and scanning

word games

QUIZ

RIGHT!

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QUIZ

QUESTION 2/5

The process in which children activate their knowledge of the language while reading is called...

reading strategies

bottom-up processing

top-down processing

QUIZ

RIGHT!

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QUIZ

QUESTION 3/5

.............. activities help learners activate their background knowledge and prepare them to read a text.

WHILE-READING

PRE-READING

POST-READING

QUIZ

RIGHT!

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QUIZ

QUESTION 4/5

"Talking about their favourite charater in the story" is an example of a ................ activity.

PRE-READING

WHILE-READING

POST-READING

QUIZ

RIGHT!

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QUIZ

QUESTION 5/5

The following can help support beginning readers, except........

pictures

translation of the whole text

listening to someone reading the text

QUIZ

RIGHT!

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Congratulations! You've concluded this presentation.

REFERENCES

REFERENCES

House, S. (1997). An Introduction to Teaching English to Children. Richmond Publishing. Nunan, D. (2011). Teaching English to Young Learners. Anaheim University Press. Shin, J.K. & Crandall, J. (2014). Teaching Young Learners English: from theory to practice. National Geographic Learning. Mackay, R. Strategies for Teaching Reading 1: Teaching Reading to Young Learners. YouTube, uploaded by OUPIndia, 7 Jan. 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MS-5k-yj2w. Accessed: 24 Mar. 2021.