Decoding is what we start to teach as soon as our children learn their ABC's. They are learning the symbols so that they can crack the code. A child who struggles to make sense of letters will not be able to decode words, and the struggle to decode words means that they'll have trouble comprehending them, too. Once decoding is secured, a child starts to read more smoothly and with less effort.
This will allow the cognitive parts of reading to fall into place more easily. In a Charlotte Mason home, we skip the comprehension questions and worksheets and instead use narration as a comprehension tool. We can assess what a child remembers by asking them to narrate after each reading. If a child can't tell back, there are several different possibilities as to why.
Maybe they aren't paying attention, they didn't understand the book, or they are disinterested. Eventually, through repeating the act of narration, our children will learn to pay attention and be able to remember what they read. I highly recommend Karen Glass' book, Know And Tell , to help develop a better understanding of narration. I first learned about metacognition as a young language arts teacher in an intermediate school, before test scores became the leading lady in education.
Metacognition is a fancy way of saying, "Thinking about thinking. It allows us to predict what might happen next, recognize that we haven't been paying attention, and make inferences that the author didn't state outright. What does metacognition look like in a Charlotte Mason home?
Talking about books. You may wish to have students read the passage again silently to focus on its meaning before moving on. Practice More With reading lessons it is important to ensure that students understand the material as well as any new words.
To check vocabulary you can ask students to match synonyms, antonyms or pictures or ask them to complete sentences with the correct vocabulary words. To check overall comprehension, you can start with some true or false questions.
Be sure to ask students why a particular statement is true or false when checking the answers. You can also have fill in the blank sentences or basic comprehension questions in this section. Produce Prepare some discussion questions related to the reading and some that require students to use key phrases in their answers. For beginners, discussions will be quite challenging but intermediate and advanced students will gain a lot from discussing their thoughts and opinions.
In smaller classes there will be more opportunities for students to share their viewpoints while with larger classes you may simply have to ask who agrees or disagrees with a particular statement and then call on three or four students to express their opinions.
Review Ask students to summarize the readin g or what they learned in class. If you have not already done so, you can also have students search for the topic sentence and discuss why students chose certain sentences whether they chose correctly or not.
Reading is a key part of learning English and these lessons give you an excellent opportunity to introduce topics of your own. Be careful when selecting an article. It is important that your students are interested in the material. They will be more active in the discussion if they feel strongly about a particular topic.
If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English. Short speaking Listening Writing activities The focus of the lesson may be on reading a particular passage but having a diverse lesson plan will enable students who are good at other aspects of English to still participate and feel confident in their abilities while working to improve an area they are weaker at.
Ask learners to explain their answers before giving feedback. They may be surprised at how much they can tell from the layout alone.
See a demonstration of this activity in the A2 Key for Schools teacher guide to developing reading skills , Part 1. Good readers read texts in different ways, looking at the layout and headings, and reading quickly to get a general feel for the text skimming , before reading more intensively or to find specific details scanning.
When setting up reading activities, explain which reading skills should be used for each task. Our guides tell you which skills you need to use in each exam task. For example, should learners read every word carefully, or try to locate specific information as quickly as possible? Elicit why.
This increases learner awareness of different reading skills and when they are helpful. Develop scanning skills by getting learners to find words in a competitive activity. Partners race against each other to find a word or piece of information to win points. See an example of this activity in the B2 First for Schools teacher guide to developing reading skills , Part 1. A good reader is often able to guess the meaning of an unknown word. Learners who know to look for clues in the text are more able to work out the meaning of new words and continue reading independently.
Help learners identify key information about unknown words which can help them make better guesses about their meaning in this competitive, collaborative activity. Start by giving learners texts with some words blanked out. Groups work against the clock to identify as many ways of filling each gap as possible. They must justify their suggestions, ensuring they fit grammatically and make sense — award points accordingly.
See an example of this activity in the B1 Preliminary for Schools teacher guide to developing reading skills , page Good readers think about what they read and make a note of new vocabulary.
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