Reading, at least for quite a few people I have met, has always conjured images of a teacher asking students to “read pages 74 to 85 for tonight”, a student having to answer a number of questions from memory on what she or he read, or a means of giving students grades for “speaking”.
Some of us, however, have been reading, even at a very young age, purely for pleasure and entertainment. We read stories, signs, ingredients on a cereal box and instructions on a shampoo bottle. Alongside our reading for pleasure and entertainment, we picked up new words in different contexts, a wide variety of everyday and specialized writing models, as well as stimulated our inquisitiveness when we wondered why we could consume iron in our cereal, but could not eat steel wool as we would cotton candy.
When we read, we are able to experience events and situations that have not actually happen to us, some of which could be dangerous. We can experience all of those from the comfort and safety of a recliner, bed, or favorite relaxation spot. We can share the experience of a boy who was involved in a plane crash when the pilot suffered a heart attack such as in the story of “Hatchette”, or on a more positive note, a person who went from rags to riches through hard work and perseverance.
Through reading, we become aware of different cultures in the world both past and present, from the bloody rituals of the Aztecs to the serenity of Mahatma Gandhi as well as personalize other people’s experiences when solving everyday problems and resolving conflicts. The more we read, the more we become knowledgeable and develop our ability to process our knowledge, which enables to project into the future and make the right decisions when the need arises.
Another area that we develop through reading is values. Reading, especially stories and novels, gives us insights into values such as respect and honesty as well freedom and responsibility.
Our brain thrives on experience. First hand experience is when we solve our own problems or when we see the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time. Secondary experience is when we hear or read about them. Given our life span and limited means, it is difficult to accumulate a wide range of first-hand experiences. Our ancestors had it even worse than us. They had to tend to everyday necessities which limited their scope of experiences to for example, tending livestock and farming.
However, through secondary experience of reading, we can accumulate more in a few hours than in lifetime. We can find out more by reading about the Golden Gate Bridge than by driving across it. We can share the dreams of the designer and the tragedies of those who worked on it. We can experience the problems faced and the solutions found. We can read in awe about the sheer magnitude of the structure and develop in ourselves a can-do attitude. What’s more, we can come back again and again to re-experience it by using a wonderful human ability called reading. Yes, our brain is vast and thrives on reading. Over a century ago Emily Dickinson captured in a poem what brain science is only peeking into in the present.
The Brain is Wider
The brain is wider than the sky,
For put them side by side,
The one will the other include,
With ease, and you beside,
The brain is deeper than the sky,
For, hold them blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do,
The brain is just the weight of God,
For lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.
Emily Dickinson
According to some researchers, the brain is bigger than the universe. The number of atoms in the universe is estimated to be 10 with 100 zeros after it. The average brain contains 10,000,000,000 individual neurons or nerve cells. Each neuron can interact with other neurons in not just one, but many ways. In 1974, the number of interconnections was estimated at 10 followed by 800 zeros! 10,000,000,000 neurons each with the possibility of interacting with another neuron in 10 followed 800 zeros ways renders a number that googleplex cannot even begin to describe! Yes, Emily Dickinson was right. Our brain is bigger than the universe and the brain thrives on experience which life and reading can provide.
So how can we implement reading for pleasure in a classroom milieu? Classrooms in many other parts of the world are formal and may still be a long way from the relaxed places we would like them to be. But there may be a way to get around that.
In order to help children get a profound reading experience, some of the things children can do when reading are:
· Solve the problem in the story in a different way.
· Talk about the parts they liked best.
· Tell how characters felt/what they thought at different parts
of the story.
· Hypothesize how things could have been different.
· Talk about similar incident that happened to them.
· Predict how things may develop in the future.
Due to lack of space in this article, a lot of details on the actual implementation procedures have not been included which will described in a subsequent article. They will include management skills, such as how the instructions are given to the students, using group voice level, forming groups and when and where the teacher should interfere in the process.
But one thing is for sure reading is an unbeatable learning experience.
What is the difference between a skill and a strategy in language learning?
Mental skills: A skill is the ability of the human mind to process information in a system methodical way. (addition, subtraction, reading between the lines, etc.)
Physical skills: A skill is the ability of the human body to carry out tasks and jobs that require repeated physical training. (Basketball, driving a large truck, swimming, singing etc.)
A doctor who is a surgeon needs both mental skills (to find the reason for an illness), and physical skills (the ability to cut open and perform the operation.)
Why do we need to learn a skill?
Obviously the skills that we need to develop are the ones we will need for work or personal satisfaction. If you love reading, you will want to read as many books as you can in a short time and so you will want to develop reading skills. But if you want to drive a large truck as a job, you will need to develop the skills that will help you park, overtake, back up the truck but you will not need to develop extensive reading skills.
What are strategies?
To understand ‘strategy’ you need to understand ‘plan’. A plan is ridged and does not allow for unpredicted changes. For example, if you ‘plan’ for a battle in a war, you will certainly lose. The enemy and the conditions do not always follow all your plans. A ‘plan’ is a set of steps and conditions that are always within a predictable frame. However, a ‘strategy’ allows for new and unpredictable conditions. That’s why there are battle ‘strategies’ rather than battle ‘plans’. See the example that will come below.
Why do we teach strategies?
Obviously life is made up of unpredictable conditions and unforgiving environment. Teaching strategies can improve the ability of a human to deal with his surroundings in a more effective and efficient way.
What reading strategies does a good reader use?
What people are going to read is usually unknown or why would they read it. Reading strategies fall into three main categories.
1 What should we do before we start to read?
2 What should we do while we are reading?
3 What should we do after we have finished reading?
Since there are many different genres and text types, it is not easy to follow a plan. Instead you use strategies that you can adapt to the different texts you are reading.
How can you identify the reading strategies that you need to teach the students?
There are many strategies. The best way to identify them can be by thinking what your mind is doing at each stage of the reading. Another way is to ask me J.
How should we teach reading strategies?
Again it’s difficult to explain this briefly. However one of the best ways is to model the strategies for each type of text and genre.
When assessing reading, what do we focus on? Content? Strategies?
Well, when assessing reading, I think the focus should be on skills and strategies, but only if these are the reasons to make meaning of what is being read. However, if the reason is data and information and ability to gather that information, as in science, history and social sciences, then content takes precedence over in the assessment.
How do we teach a reading text?
The process is a complex and lengthy one. However, in short, reading is the ability to extract details, information and ideas and make sense out of them. Extracting details is usually on a sentence level.
A. A simple sentence usually contains up to six details. For example, a simple sentence can tell us
1 who or what does the action,
2 the action,
3 who or what is the receiving the action or the result of the action
4 how it is done,
5 where it is done,
6 when it is done.
Thus, the first step in teaching reading is to extract the details from a sentence in a text.
B. The second stage is to extract information. Instead of looking at the parts of the sentence, the sentence is one complete idea. The idea could be an opinion, a conclusion, a description or a comparison. The list is longer, but this a good place to start.
For example:
I like the blue jacket. (opinion)
You must be Abdullah’s brother. (conclusion)
The blue jacket is nicer than the red one. (comparison)
It is a big white car. (description)
Thus, the second step is to help students see a sentence as a complete idea.
C. The third stage is to see the whole paragraph as an idea which is supported by smaller ideas which occur as sentences. Example:
Finding the main idea
Know that the paragraph is comparing two things.
How do we adapt difficult texts?
There are no difficult texts. There are difficult and complex activities tasks.
For example, you can give a newspaper article to a kindergartner and tell him to find the letter ‘s’ and circle them.
You can give a children’s story to a university student and tell him to rewrite it as script for a film or a theater production. We try not to adapt the text but change the level of the activity that you give.
How do we choose the words in the text to teach?
The words that we choose are the words that are important to get the details in a sentence or the idea of the whole sentence.
To be continued....
There are a number of things to keep in mind when designing teaching that will help students learn English.
Students speak to other students during the class period. [Design several tasks that require the student to tell another student something. For example, when you ask the students to make sentences, ask them in pairs to tell each other their sentences and the student listening should make sure that the sentence is correct. Make sure you use any opportunity to have the students talk to each other such as meaning of words, making sentences, reading aloud etc]
Students read their own writing, writing of other students, and writing of authors to themselves and to other students. [for example students take the sentence that another student wrote, and reads to a third student] Remember, all the students are doing this at the same time not just three persons.]
Students write for themselves, other students and to a general audience. [For example, the students writes the main idea so that she will have a better memory of it. Or she will write the main idea of a document she has and give it to classmate that has a different document. Or she can write the main idea of a document and put up the title of the document on the wall and inform others to read it. "Read ...... It's about ...main idea..
Students listen to audio, video and other students for a reason or a task that they do during the listening. [for example in pairs, one student reads the text, and the other whose book is closed, listens and writes the main idea. When they finish, they switch and the second student reads a different text and the first student writes the main idea.]
It is important that the teacher write the instructions that she will give the students to do any of the above tasks well before class and not at the last minute. This way she can adjust the level of English to be suitable to more students. Another important thing is to decide how each student will hear or read the instructions. Will the teacher tell the students the instructions? Will the teacher pass out the instructions on slips of paper? Will the teacher put up the instructions on a power point?