Teaching Reading and Writing
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Today, I am going to tell you about "Teaching Reading and Writing"
Reading and writing are dynamic and interactive process. They requires strategies and skills to make meaning and create printed text. For many, reading and writing also known as literacy. Different from speaking, writing and reading are not naturally have by children. Children usually learn to read and write when they on kindergarten through third grade.
Before young children will find success in what is typically considered “real writing,” they need time to explore the writing process through fun experiences like salt box writing and other playful activities. Young children are still developing their fine motor skills so the strength and motor control isn’t always on par with what it may seem like a child is ready to do. There are some activity how to introduced writing to young learners.
Writing is a complex skill to develop and master, focusing on both the end product and the steps to arrive there. Writing skills only develop when young learners are taught how to write and are given opportunities to practice these skills and strategies.
According to Linse (2005) Writing tends to be somewhat neglected in the classroom, but it is an essential part of language development. Good writing skills are based on good reading skills, you need to recognize words in order to write and use them comprehensibly.
There are some reasons to develop writing skills with young learners:
- Many young learners will not have fully developed their own L1 writing skills, and these strategies may not necessarily transfer to writing in English.
- Writing allows young learners to practice new vocabulary and structures.
- It allows for a high degree of personalization and creativity.
- It provides young learners to take risks and try out new language, with more “thinking time.” Writing skills equip young learners with a solid base for future development and learning.
- A focus on writing tasks in the classroom creates variety and caters for different learning styles
- Teachers can diagnose learners’ strengths and areas to develop in terms of vocabulary, structure, spelling etc.
- Focusing on this area can instill the joy of writing from an early age.
- Talking and Singing Activities
- Use rhyme whenever we can.
- Use phrases like ‘snug as a bug in a rug’ or make up rhymes about things you’re doing – for example, ‘putting fish in the cat’s dish’.
- Sing nursery rhymes with your child. Nursery rhymes teach your child language, rhyme, repetition and rhythm. You could try ‘Baa baa black sheep’, ‘Miss Polly had a dolly’ or the ‘Alphabet song’.
- Repeat sounds your child makes, or make up sounds and see whether your child can copy them. For example, ‘Cows say moo. Can you say moo?’
- At mealtimes, talk about the food you’re preparing, what you’re doing to it, how it tastes and what it looks like.
- Talk about objects outside the house – for example, the rustling of leaves, or the sounds of the birds or traffic. Ask your child to make the sounds for wind, rain, water, airplanes, trains and cars.
- Play games like ‘I spy’ using colors. This can be fun, especially for preschoolers. For example, ‘I spy with my little eye, something that’s green. What’s something green I might be looking at?’
- Talking activities
- Play word games that encourage your child to learn sounds. For example, ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with f-f-f. What do you think I’m looking at that starts with that sound?’
- Ask your child about words that rhyme. For example, ‘What other words sound like car?’
- Ask your child to make a sound or sound combination, then think of words with that sound. For example, ‘What’s a funny sound? Mo? What sounds can you make with mo? Moan, mope, moat … ’.
- Talk about the past. Ask your child to tell you something they enjoyed doing at school that week. Talk about the future. Tell your child what you’re going to do on the next day or on the weekend, or ask your child to tell you what they need to do before bed.
- Give your child simple instructions to follow, and ask your child to repeat the instructions back to you. Gradually increase the number of steps based on how many your child can follow. For example, ‘Go to your room. Get your hairbrush and a towel’.
Cameron (2001) gives a very useful list of ideas for creating a literate environment in the classroom. Literate environment should motivate students and emphasize the importance of speaking, reading, and writing as this may be the only place young learners see print in the foreign language. This list includes:
- Labels – labelling children’s trays, desks, coat hooks, as well as furniture and objects around the classroom and school.
- Posters – colorful posters are especially eye-catching which could include a rhyme that is being learnt, advertising something, e.g. reading, cleaning teeth
- Messages – Keep remind them to do their homework or ‘Don’t forget to bring …’ Reading aloud – by teacher or older child
Some other activities that will help to make reading ‘pleasurable’ (Arnold 2009) which is crucial for success in literacy, include:
- Focusing on reading fluency may include timed repeated reading (Nation, 2009).
- Running dictation (in pairs, so all learners are involved in reading). Learners making their own story books (or comics) to share with each other (Wright, 1997, p.114-130).
- Creating backstories for character in a puppet family and creating a class binder to refer back to when reading peers stories about the family. This can be developed over a semester with learners taking in turns in small groups to create dramas to share with the class in written form, so peers read, and can be followed through with role plays.
- Motivation – ask your learners to bring in materials they enjoy reading – whether it is football results, recipes or song lyrics, use these as a springboard for discussion and reading.
- Make it purposeful – if learning food lexis, bring in packets / tins of food, read where different kinds of food originate from, and classify them by country or by noun basis (countable/ uncountable). (Ellis & Brewster, 1991, p.57).
- Extensive reading - is where learners read a lot of easy material in the new language. They choose their own material and read it independently from the teacher. (Krashen, 1988). This develops confidence in their abilities and promotes an enjoyment of reading for pleasure.
Well,
I think, that's all that I can share with you about teaching reading and writing for young learners and I hope this information can helpful us to teach young learner in reading and speaking. So, I can be confidence when I will teach the young language learner.
Don't forget to share your own information how to Teaching English in Reading and Writing for Young Learners in the comments column below, so we can get more some information each others. and tell me also what are the challenged that u got when you teaching the student and how to overcome it?
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