Author Topic: How to make reading classes interesting? (Read 495 times)

thecomedytiming · « **on:** April 18, 2016, 03:05:58 PM »

Hi Waygook! So I'm a first-time teacher, teaching elementary 3-6. For grades 5 and 6 my school's got me teaching 'reading lessons': this involves using easy-reading books, not a textbook. I'm unsure what they want exactly; my CT's talked a bit about phonemics and natural stress/rythm, but I'm unsure how to teach that from these books. My CT is also new to this school and says she's never done anything like this before either, so she tends to just let me run the lesson (which I'm ok with). My current LP is as follows: picture/video to elicit interest (of the characters/themes) intro the TL on a powerpoint and go through with students doing call-and-response. Then I read out loud to them (my CT wants this, I dunno if it helps) and then they read. Then we do a worksheet (wordsearch/scramble/questions) and a game. Usually I finish by boarding any mistakes I've noticed and going through these with the students.
The problem is, this is pretty dull. Can anyone give me any advice for how to spice things up a bit?

oglop · « **Reply #1 on:** April 18, 2016, 03:23:11 PM »

interestingly, i've just started doing reading lessons myself. my classes range from kids who are fluent, to kids who can barely string a sentence together!

a good strategy for you might be to do something like this

pre-reading - some talking activity related to the text
blocking voabulary - explain / drill any vocab you think they will not understand
gist - get students to read the text (or a part of it) quickly. they answer a couple of general questions about the text as a whole
comprehension questions - make your own questions to check they understand the text. yes/no or one-word answer questions might be best.
follow-up - some speaking task related to the text

reading *is* a bit boring. that's why you make sure the activities before and after the reading are fun

i dunno..getting them to read it aloud to each other? i don't really like doing this. i feel they are more concerned about speaking/pronunciation than comprehending- and it's a reading lessons, not pronunciation class. when you read something, how often do you read aloud? probably rarely, right?

eggieguffer · « **Reply #2 on:** April 18, 2016, 03:56:26 PM »

Quote from: thecomedytiming on April 18, 2016, 03:05:58 PM

Hi Waygook! So I'm a first-time teacher, teaching elementary 3-6. For grades 5 and 6 my school's got me teaching 'reading lessons': this involves using easy-reading books, not a textbook. I'm unsure what they want exactly; my CT's talked a bit about phonemics and natural stress/rythm, but I'm unsure how to teach that from these books. My CT is also new to this school and says she's never done anything like this before either, so she tends to just let me run the lesson (which I'm ok with). My current LP is as follows: picture/video to elicit interest (of the characters/themes) intro the TL on a powerpoint and go through with students doing call-and-response. Then I read out loud to them (my CT wants this, I dunno if it helps) and then they read. Then we do a worksheet (wordsearch/scramble/questions) and a game. Usually I finish by boarding any mistakes I've noticed and going through these with the students.
The problem is, this is pretty dull. Can anyone give me any advice for how to spice things up a bit?

It's not clear exactly what the texts are you're using but if they're elementary kids and the texts are fiction you can do a mixture of story telling and quiet reading. Follow Oglop's advice for the reading alone sections and make the reading aloud sections more interesting by using realia, puppets, pictures, actions, maybe some TPR, plenty of questions and getting them to predict what's going to happen next.

Dave Stepz · « **Reply #3 on:** April 18, 2016, 04:17:43 PM »

Quote from: oglop on April 18, 2016, 03:23:11 PM

pre-reading - some talking activity related to the text
blocking voabulary - explain / drill any vocab you think they will not understand
gist - get students to read the text (or a part of it) quickly. they answer a couple of general questions about the text as a whole
comprehension questions - make your own questions to check they understand the text. yes/no or one-word answer questions might be best.
follow-up - some speaking task related to the text

reading *is* a bit boring. that's why you make sure the activities before and after the reading are fun

i dunno..getting them to read it aloud to each other? i don't really like doing this. i feel they are more concerned about speaking/pronunciation than comprehending- and it's a reading lessons, not pronunciation class. when you read something, how often do you read aloud? probably rarely, right?

It is a strange one. Making students read, you get the good ones who can settle down and do it and then the ones who aren't interested. Usually the need to concentrate can be broken by the ones who don't want to do it, and obviously you want everyone to participate to make the class successful.

I had to teach some reading classes to my middle school girls last year and this was with classes of 36 students. Ranging from excellent to not so good. The fiction story was about fast food. So generally the lesson procedure was:

*Intro asking students about fast food etc.
*Have the potential blocking words with Korean translation on the board, drill the pronunciation too.
*Give the students a few minutes to read the first page, quietly, while I walk around monitoring. As if there are any problems.
*Then get all the students to read out loud.
*Then give out some white boards to the students. One between two.
*Then I will ask questions on the text, can be grammar, comprehension etc. Some of the questions involved drawing too, based on comprehension, to try and include the lower level students.
*Then repeat for page two.
*Quiet reading, then all aloud and then questions with answers on the white boards.

In the end, the reading was good, almost all of the students participated which was important to me. Just a dead straight reading would have been a death to the class, as most students would just panic if they saw a whole page full of writing. Break it up and give a few active activities.

tccostello · « **Reply #4 on:** April 18, 2016, 06:22:15 PM »

I actually make alot of reading games for my reading classes. Board games and card games where the students can get into groups of 2-4 tend to make it more interesting.

The activities I will attach were made for the proper textbooks, but you can probably substitute sentences from whatever books you're using.

Stone flicking game (the students get in groups of 2 and flick a stone from the start box, and read where their stone lands)

Memory Game (you know the card game memory where you need to find the same picture twice? You can do it with words, too. In this one, I use sentences and their corresponding pictures - I also attached an instructional PPT)

31 game (students can read 1,2 or 3 sentences, and the one who reads number 31 wins.

thecomedytiming · « **Reply #5 on:** **Yesterday** at 04:49:50 PM »

Quote from: oglop on April 18, 2016, 03:23:11 PM

interestingly, i've just started doing reading lessons myself. my classes range from kids who are fluent, to kids who can barely string a sentence together!

a good strategy for you might be to do something like this

pre-reading - some talking activity related to the text
blocking voabulary - explain / drill any vocab you think they will not understand
gist - get students to read the text (or a part of it) quickly. they answer a couple of general questions about the text as a whole
comprehension questions - make your own questions to check they understand the text. yes/no or one-word answer questions might be best.
follow-up - some speaking task related to the text

reading *is* a bit boring. that's why you make sure the activities before and after the reading are fun

i dunno..getting them to read it aloud to each other? i don't really like doing this. i feel they are more concerned about speaking/pronunciation than comprehending- and it's a reading lessons, not pronunciation class. when you read something, how often do you read aloud? probably rarely, right?

The idea with reading it aloud is that I can pick up on any mispronunciations they're making when I monitor them (stressing the wrong parts of words etc) and it helps me notice who hasn't understood the explanation of the TL/KE. I've tried getting them to read individually, but it's a really mixed bag. Some ss finish super fast but others will still be on page one. Thanks for your comment though, it's really helpful! Could you recommend any speaking exercises?

thecomedytiming · « **Reply #6 on:** **Yesterday** at 04:52:08 PM »

Quote from: eggieguffer on April 18, 2016, 03:56:26 PM

Quote from: thecomedytiming on April 18, 2016, 03:05:58 PM
Hi Waygook! So I'm a first-time teacher, teaching elementary 3-6. For grades 5 and 6 my school's got me teaching 'reading lessons': this involves using easy-reading books, not a textbook. I'm unsure what they want exactly; my CT's talked a bit about phonemics and natural stress/rythm, but I'm unsure how to teach that from these books. My CT is also new to this school and says she's never done anything like this before either, so she tends to just let me run the lesson (which I'm ok with). My current LP is as follows: picture/video to elicit interest (of the characters/themes) intro the TL on a powerpoint and go through with students doing call-and-response. Then I read out loud to them (my CT wants this, I dunno if it helps) and then they read. Then we do a worksheet (wordsearch/scramble/questions) and a game. Usually I finish by boarding any mistakes I've noticed and going through these with the students.
The problem is, this is pretty dull. Can anyone give me any advice for how to spice things up a bit?

It's not clear exactly what the texts are you're using but if they're elementary kids and the texts are fiction you can do a mixture of story telling and quiet reading. Follow Oglop's advice for the reading alone sections and make the reading aloud sections more interesting by using realia, puppets, pictures, actions, maybe some TPR, plenty of questions and getting them to predict what's going to happen next.

Thanks, that's really helpful! What's TPR? I'm teaching them 'Step into Reading' books from Random House

stuman · « **Reply #7 on:** **Yesterday** at 06:54:01 PM »

TPR is Total Physical Response.

maximmm · « **Reply #8 on:** **Yesterday** at 08:40:26 PM »

I had some luck using my smartphone google speech function - to check students' pronunciation. You have a bunch of sentences on the board, and get students to read each sentence and see what google picks up. I'd say that google speech recognition software is actually pretty good - and if you do read a sentence correctly, it displays it as such. But if you are not pausing at the right places and saying the words clearly it displays an absolute mess.

This works well in small classes - and it would have worked even better if I could get my phone hooked up to the large screen, so that all students would be able to see the results of their readings. (I assign points for words/sentences pronounced correctly - and deduct points when google displays gibberish.

Aside from that.... our school had a similar thing with books a year ago, when they got big money in order to buy books. One of the main conditions for getting that dough was to show the ministry of education how those books were used. So, at the end of the semester, we had this golden bell show which lasted a few periods - and the winners got some sort of certificate.

But yeah - when it comes to regular reading games - there's always elimination game (search for the template), catch the sentences (this is often used as a writing activity, but can also be used for reading). speed charades (the game I posted here - look at my comments history - I made a comment on it yesterday). It's all rather basic - but then.... we can't expect them to make book reports, can we?!

lukedanieljones · « **Reply #9 on:** **Yesterday** at 09:56:02 PM »

I find that asking the students make predictions about the text makes them more interested and focused when they are doing the actual reading.

Author Topic: How to make reading classes interesting? (Read 495 times)

thecomedytiming

How to make reading classes interesting?

oglop

Re: How to make reading classes interesting?

eggieguffer

Re: How to make reading classes interesting?

Dave Stepz

Re: How to make reading classes interesting?

tccostello

Re: How to make reading classes interesting?

thecomedytiming

Re: How to make reading classes interesting?

thecomedytiming

Re: How to make reading classes interesting?

stuman

Re: How to make reading classes interesting?

maximmm

Re: How to make reading classes interesting?

lukedanieljones

Re: How to make reading classes interesting?

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