My little English Corner

BIG THINKERS, READ!

Reading, for me, is one of my favourite skills to teach because it gives me some time to rest my throat! Actually, it is because I love reading and teach vocabulary, as this is the best way to learn new words from the context.

I learnt many strategies that are involved in the reading process and I try to develop the best strategies for each group of students (I teach English in a “small” school, so I have from 3 years old to 6^th grade). Furthermore, I have in mind different strategies depending on the grade they are and the type of text they are going to read.

In my lessons, I plan Storytelling in which I start giving a purpose, a motivation, a reason for which my students pay attention and enjoy the reading. I do this with the little ones and I always hide the book in my bag and ask them if they want to see what I brought (clearly the answer is YEEEES TEACHEEER!) They always want gifts and surprises, so I use the Paddington Bear as a motivation and he is who sends me all the “presents” and they love it. In this process, I also use predicting in which I ask students to tell me what they think is going to happen in the story using simple questions (sometimes I translate them, but I always repeat it in English after that).

Then, for the big ones, I try to use different texts and presentation ideas. For example, I help them bolding the key words from the key vocabulary we learnt (especially for the first cycle students to help them to understand what they have to look for in a picture or understand the sentence: It’s got feathers). I always teach the vocabulary and the structures orally first so when they read the text they perfectly understand the meaning (“There are two cows… Claro teacher, tengo que dibujar two cows”).

Finally, for the very big ones, I use other strategies that are more complex such as scanning and guessing word meaning. I like to “draw” on the text, so I ask them to take coloured markers or pencils and underline!

“PLEASE, read the questions first and then underline what you think it is important… Then use a colour to underline in the text where you think the information is!!! C’mon!”

It is not a teaching as guided as it is with the little students because it is more autonomous but it is still necessary and important to develop this skill to help them becoming better thinkers!