Teaching Reading & Writing

1. Teaching Reading & Writing

2. Why teach reading & writing in EYL classes ? • Human brains are naturally wired to speak or listen; they are not naturally wired to read and write. With teaching, children typically learn to read and write at about age 5 or 6 and need several years to master the skill. Speaking Is Natural; Reading and Writing Are Not

3. Reading

4. Children don't learn to read just from being exposed to books. Reading must be taught. For many children, reading must be taught explicitly and systematically, one small step at a time. • Researchers have made a lot of progress in determining how to teach reading more effectively, but it really comes down to the effectiveness of each individual teacher. Teachers make the difference.

5. Print Awareness • Children who have an awareness of print understand that the lines on a page represent spoken language. They understand that when adults read a book, what they say is linked to the words on the page, rather than to the pictures. • Print awareness is understanding that print is organized in a particular way –for example, knowing that print is read from left to right and top to bottom. It is knowing that words consist of letters and that spaces appear between words. • Print awareness is a child's earliest introduction to literacy.

6. Early Reading Methods • There is a variety of methods used by teachers to teach reading to young learners. These are two essential approaches: • The phonics method • The whole language method

7. 1. The Phonics Method • Phonics is one of the oldest and most well-known methods for teaching children to read and write English. • In phonics instruction, children are taught the sounds of the letters. What is important is that the child comes to associate the shape of the letter with the sound it makes. Once individual letter-sounds are mastered, children are taught how to blend them together to read words. • Because mastering the sounds of letters may be boring to young children, it is important to keep lessons short and lively. A variety of reading games should be included to keep the child engaged.

9. 2. The Whole Language Method • With the whole language method, children are taught to recognize the sight of the whole word, rather than its letter parts. Theoretically, the method goes from the whole to the part. • Flash cards and graded readers are features of this approach.

11. FLOWER CAT

12. Fluency • Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately and quickly. Fluent readers read aloud effortlessly and with expression. Their reading sounds natural, as if they are speaking. Readers who have not yet developed fluency read slowly, word by word. Their oral reading is choppy. • Fluent readers recognize words and comprehend at the same time. Less fluent readers, however, must focus their attention on figuring out the words, leaving them little attention for understanding the text.

13. Vocabulary • Vocabulary plays an important part in learning to read. Beginning readers must use the words they hear orally to make sense of the words they see in print. • Consider, for example, what happens when a beginning reader comes to the word MOTHER in a book. As she begins to figure out the sounds represented by the letters m,o,t,h,e,r, the reader recognizes that the sounds make up a word that she has heard and said many times. • It is harder for a beginning reader to figure out words that are not already part of their speaking vocabulary.

14. Activities to help children read: • 1- ‘Look and say’: they point to words as you Read aloud. • 2- Match pictures and Cards: learners match the written word to the picture on the board • 3- Read &Do: give learners short written instructions on cards to follow e.g. Point to the window • 4- Reading independently: asking children to read alone and find certain information.

15. Writing

16. A child's writing development parallels their development as a reader. • Part of print awareness is the realization that writing is created with instruments such as pens, pencils, and markers. • Children begin to imitate the writing that they see in the environment. • At first glance, the efforts of a young child may look like meaningless scribble, but a closer look at these early attempts at writing will reveal something more.

17. Activities to help children write and spell words and phrases: • 1-Copying selected words and phrases from books. • 2- Labeling pictures or objects. • 3- Question and Answer: children write questions in pairs about a picture they all can see. Then, the teacher takes the pictures down, and the pairs give their questions to another pair to answer from memory, in writing. • 3- Finishing comments: • (e.g. At the end of the story, Cinderella and the prince lived ………) • 4- Gap-filling activities: • (for example, she puts her ………..….in the slipper)

18. How can we encourage learners to read & write? • Provide a comfortable reading area with good lightening in your class and a space for children to write and tools to do so. • Provide books for you students that are related to their special interest. • Label objects such as tables, chairs, door, window, plants, by word cards. • Make posters containing commonly used phrases such as “sit down”, “come here” or a calendar with the names of the days and months. • Introduce letter cards or magnetic letters to encourage playing with letters an letter combinations to make words.

19. •Praise and respect all efforts –no matter how small. • •Have short English texts, with pictures on cards ready that children can read. • •Read a variety of books aloud to children regularly from story to big books. • •Accept that pupils will make handwriting and spelling mistakes. These mistakes can be corrected over time with practice. They are not as important as the children’s effort to communicate. • •Talk about reading and writing with children. • •Let children have fun while learning to read and write.

20. Assignment • How can I make reading and writing an enjoyable experience for my learners?‟