By Puan Yong Wai YeeSISC+ English

PPW Bangsar Pudu

"A book is like a garden, carried in the pocket." —

Chinese Proverb

"Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be

offered to them as a precious gift." — Kate

DiCamillo

PRESENTATION STAGE

PRE-READING ( PRESENTATION)* to introduce and stimulate interest in the topic* to motivate students by providing a reason for reading* to provide language preparation for the text

WHILE-READING ( PRACTICE)* to clarify content and vocabulary of the text* to help students understand the writer's purpose* to help students understand the structure of the text

POST-READING ( PRODUCTION)* to consolidate and reflect upon what has been read* to relate the text to the students' own knowledge/interests/views* to provide a stimulus for other language activities

THE THREE PHASES IN A READING LESSON

Research demonstrates that the instructor’s role in reading is more crucial before students’ read than during or after the reading. Helping students access and organize what they already know before they read improves their comprehension during the reading. … The use of pre-reading strategies is critical to the success of understanding reading and should therefore precede the actual reading.

From Judith Longfield Metacognition and the Reading Process. http://www.indiana.edu/~e328long/doc/reading&metacog.doc

PRE-READING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY 1: PRE-READING ESSENTIALS

WHAT IS PRE-READING?

The pre-reading stage of a reading lesson

•serves as a preparatory activity before the students engage in the reading task.

•prepares the students to actively engage with the text and is critical for comprehension to occur.

WHY IS PRE-READING NEEDED?

•The different contexts, experiences, biases, and background knowledge of the students will influence how they read and how much they learn from the text that they read.

•By knowing what students bring to their reading, teachers can provide them with bridges, or scaffolds, between what they already know and what is in the text.

Pre-reading activities are usually intended to achieve one or more of the following.

Activate students’ prior knowledge to help them connect their existing knowledge to new information in the text.Build the background knowledge that is necessary to help students comprehend the text.Pre-teach vocabulary which students require to understand the text.Establish a purpose for reading by fostering student expectations about the reading and arouse their interest to read.

Why teachers are not in favour of pre-reading activities?

1. Pre-reading takes too much time away from reading.

2. Boring!

3. Pre-reading commonly focuses on the wrong information

4. Previews can ruin the reading experience.

5. Previews are rarely purposeful

A POINT TO PONDER

This is one teacher’s view about pre-reading activities: “A lot of the comprehension difficulties that students encounter when reading a text are caused by either inadequate, or often times a complete lack, of pre-reading activities.”

Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Justify your answer. 

A POINT TO PONDER

Pre-reading activities are most important at lower levels of language proficiency and at earlier stages of reading instruction. As students become more proficient at using reading strategies, teachers may reduce the amount of guided pre-reading and allow the students to do these activities themselves.

1. Speak to children about the environment around them, teaching the vocabulary of everyday objects. You may want to label items in your classroom environment so that they can see the words every day (“map”, “pencil”, etc.)

2. Choose a picture out of a magazine or unfamiliar book and have the child tell you a story about what is happening in it.

3. Make a rhyming basket with several small objects that rhyme. Have children match rhyming items, like this one I made for my daughter, by placing them next to one another. The items are, from left to right: pan/fan, jug/mug, cat/hat, fish/dish, and clock/block.

4. Play the “I Spy” game to practise beginning letter sounds. Start the game by saying something like, “I spy something that begins with ‘b’ (using the letter sound).” Later, you can expand the game to include pre-spelling skills by saying “I spy something that begins with ‘w ’ and ends with ‘e’ in the sea (whale).”

Task 2The activities in the exemplars above represent only some of the varied activities for pre-reading. Here is a list of other possible activities.•Asking questions about the titleMaking predictions based on previewing the text – title, headings, illustrations, etc.

Identifying text structure

Reading the introduction and conclusion of the text and making predictions

Using the title, subtitles, and divisions within the text to predict content and organization or sequence of information

Skimming to find the theme or main idea and eliciting prior knowledge

Reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures

Reading the comprehension questions to focus attention on finding that information while reading

Constructing I Think maps (a graphic arrangement of concepts or words showing how key ideas are related)

HELP BOX

When devising your pre-reading activities, ask yourself these questions:

What do the students know or not know about the topic?

What do the students know about the type of text?

What do the students know about people, relationships, or motivation?

What vocabulary items might pose problems to the students?

( PRACTICE STAGE )

HUNT FOR INFORMATION

READER’S THEATRE

WATCH N WRITE ( W&W )

Get into groups Read the questions Walk around the classroom `Hunt’, read and write down your answers

The winning team will be based on the most number of correct answers in the shortest time taken to complete the task.

IS THIS ACTIVITY DO-ABLE?

HOW CAN YOU ADOPT AND ADAPT THIS ACTIVITY TO SUIT YOUR LOW ENGLISH PROFICIENCY PUPILS?

The use of Readers Theatre can offer a different context in which students are exposed to texts focusing on poetry, science, social studies, or other content-related topics.

Readers Theatre is another way to enhance comprehension of text, as well as to create interest in and enthusiasm for learning.

The Readers Theatre format provides an opportunity for students to develop fluency through multiple readings of the text by using expressiveness, intonation, and inflection when rehearsing the text.

Reader’s theatre is a joint dramatic reading from a text, usually with no memorization, no movement and a minimum of props. It involves children in oral reading through reading parts in scripts.

enables students to bring a text to life

offers less confident readers support from peers and provides a genuine social purpose for attentive reading.

also provides students with models for creating 'the voice behind the page' in their own silent reading.

First an appropriate text is selected. several narrators can be allocated,

characters can be assigned to students who read their speech

‘reading’ characters may sit, stand or use a mask

Perform without the need for props, costumes, or a set!

Get in groups of 4Each group will be given a textRead the text onceOrganise and allocate characters

Each group will `perform’ their text.Good luck!!! Attractive prizes to be won.

IS THIS ACTIVITY DO-ABLE?

HOW CAN YOU ADOPT AND ADAPT THIS ACTIVITY TO SUIT YOUR LOW ENGLISH PROFICIENCY PUPILS?

WATCH AND WRITE

1. READ THE GAP-FILLING PASSAGE GIVEN2. WATCH A SHORT VIDEO BASED ON A TEXT IN YEAR 4 CALLED. ‘ THE GREEDY CROW’3. WATCH THE VIDEO AGAIN.4. FILL IN THE CORRECT ANSWER IN THE PASSAGE GIVEN

IS THIS ACTIVITY DO-ABLE?

HOW CAN YOU ADOPT AND ADAPT THIS ACTIVITY TO SUIT YOUR LOW ENGLISH PROFICIENCY PUPILS?

PRODUCTION

Post-reading activities help students understand texts further, through critically analysing what they have read.

In your groups, discuss at least one post-reading activity for all the three while-reading activities, namely ‘Hunt for Info’, ‘Reader’s Theatre’ and ‘ W & W’

OTHER SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES FOR THE THREE STAGES OF A READING LESSON

MODEL FOR TEACHING READING TO LOW ENGLISH PROFICIENCY PUPILS