Reading activities for Reading Workshops
Reading plays a very important role in second language learning. It not only provides a source of satisfaction and pleasure, but also serves as a means to seek information; to acquire, develop and apply knowledge; to develop thinking skills; to enhance language proficiency and to broaden life experience. Yet learning to read is not an automatic process. Pupils need to be taught to read. Teachers can adopt different strategies and techniques to help pupils acquirereading skills and encourage them to develop positive attitudes towards learning to read, andlater on, reading to learn.
To help pupils make a positive start towards learning to read, it is essential to establish a context in which pupils feel confident about their abilities as readers.Teachers can make use of the Reading Workshopin this aspect.In the following pages, explanations and suggestions on different reading activitiesare listed as reference for teachers, including:
Storytelling
Reading aloud
Shared reading
Supported reading
Independent reading
Readers’ Theatre
Dramatisation
Poetry appreciation
Non-fiction reading
Teachers can use these activities to engage pupils in whole-class, group and individual work in the Reading Workshops to promote a learning to read and reading to learn culture.
Storytelling
Purposes
Storytelling is a basic form of communication. We tell stories and anecdotes every day. Young children especially love listening to stories. Pupils can understand the flow of the stories told by simply listening to the teacher.Through storytelling,pupils
understand the structure of stories
develop skills in listening for meanings
understand and respond to characters’ experiences
learn how to talk about their own experiences and imaginative ideas
Techniques and tips
Voice and sound: Make sure your voice is loud and clear. Explore different ways of using your voice for different roles, emotions, etc. Practise the art of the pause—to create suspense, to underline an image, to invite a laugh.
Props: Use simple and fancy props to help telling your story. Be creative with the objects you use, whether it is a stuffed toy for an animal, a box for a cave, or a ribbon for a river. You can even involve pupils to develop props with you for a role-play.
Gestures: Experience with your gestures, but don’t usebig actions or be very dramatic. Each story offers different possibilities for gestures, and each storyteller has his/her own approach. The key is to do what works for you and be natural.
Repetition and audience participation: Notice any gestures or repeated phrases in the story. These are the clues for inviting audience participation. Have pupils repeat those gestures or phrases with you. If there is a song or a chant that you can use in the story, invite pupils to sing with you. Repetition in a story helps to involve your audience to take part in the storytelling.
Practice makes perfect: Practise your story and rehearse it for a few times in front of a mirror or an audience. All skills need time to develop and improve. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. The more you do it, the better you would become. A sense of humour and of timing in telling a story will also grow with practice.
A good heart: The two very important tools of a storyteller are warmth and sensitivity. To tell a story that pupils would love, one needs to be warm and sensitive to them. Learn to respond to your audience and you will experience the same in return.
Reading aloud
Purposes
Reading aloud refers to the teacher’s demonstration of reading wordsand pausing to reflect punctuation from a variety of text types. Reading aloud time is relatively short as compared with storytelling. Reading aloud
enables pupils to enjoy books they cannot yet read
shows pupils how to read aloud with fluency
introduces to pupils a great variety of books
involves pupils of various levels and abilities
Techniques and tips
1Draw pupils’ attention to or start a discussion on the book cover to help them predict what they are going to hear, e.g.point to the picture on the cover and ask pupilsWhat can you see? / point to the title and ask What’s the title of this book? / ask pupils to find out who the author and illustrator of the book are.
2Read the whole book or part of the text aloud using appropriate pace, intonation, pause and stress. Pupils can read their own copy of the text while listening to practise their reading skills.
3Do not ask too many comprehension questions at this stage. Ask only questions that stimulate pupils to think more about the content.
4Invite pupils to read the text with you.
Shared reading
Purposes
Shared reading refers to the process of reading aloudthe same text by both teacher and pupils at the same time. It is an important teaching component of the emergent reading programme that convinces young children that they can read. Through shared reading, pupils
learn from the teacher who serves as a model
build on previous experiences of language and books
know that message is preserved by print
pay attention to the conventions of print
understand that pictures contain meanings that interact with and support the printed message
realise that book language is different from oral language
know that words have individual visual features
use pictures to facilitate meaning construction
Techniques and tips
1Provide some stools in the classroom and train pupils to take out their own stools when shared reading time comes, or prepare a mat for pupils to sit on in the English Room.Alternatively, you can arrange the tables and chairs in the classroom in a way so that there is a ‘base’ for stories.
2Tell pupils to sit around you. Make sure that everyone can see the words and illustrations of the book clearly.
3Read the title and engage pupils in a very brief discussion about the illustrations on the book cover. Tell them to predict the content using the illustrations.
4Read the entire text for the first time, pausing only to allow pupils to examine and savour the illustrations and language. Point to the illustrations for better understanding of the content when necessary.
5During the first re-reading of the text, encourage pupils to join in the reading. During subsequent shared reading time, pupils should be more involved and their voices should become more confident.
6Texts are revisited over a period of three to four days,depending on pupils’ interest and level of engagement. Ask pupils to revisit the illustrations, locate each spot on the main character and share in the reading.
Supported reading
Purposes
When pupils have acquired some skills and strategies in reading, they can try out and experience what real reading is like within a supported environment. Teachers can let them take control of the first reading, and provide only support and guidance during the process. Supported reading
makes pupils learn and practise strategies for making sense of a piece of text
allows pupils to read, talk and exercise critical thinking skills as they go through the text
allows pupils to develop their awareness of the styles, structures and organisations of certain text types
cultivates reading habit
enables teachers to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses in pupils and thus provide appropriate support
Techniques and tips
1Give pupils a brief introduction of the book.
2Draw pupils’ attention to the book cover and let them predict the content.
3Ask pupils to read a portion of the book aloud or silently according to their abilities, e.g.emergent readers read aloud and/or share read one page of the book with you, developing readers read aloud one page at a time, fluent readers read a page silently before proceeding to the next page.
4Highlight words and structures used in the text.
5Guide pupils to read through the whole book by employing the same steps.
6Discuss the story plot and characters in greater depth.
7Discuss, evaluate and reflect on the story and compare with other books.
8Highlight the features of different text types such as style, organisation and grammar.
9Engage pupils in follow-up activities as an extension of the story.
Independent reading
Purposes
When pupils have the ability to read a whole book at one go, they can try reading on their own. Teachers only briefly introduce the book, providelimited guidance and highlight features of the book in the course of reading. Independent reading
enables pupils to practise and further develop their literacy skills
builds fluency through re-reading
encourages reading from a variety of sources
develops critical thinking and problem-solving skills
Techniques and tips
1Give pupils a brief introduction of the book.
2Draw pupils’ attention to the book cover and let them predict the content.
3Highlight the features of specific text types and introduce the skills and strategies used to read the text.
4Ask pupils to take special note of the grammar and vocabulary commonly associated with a particular text type.
5Tell pupils to read silently.
6Discuss, evaluate and reflect on the bookwith pupils and compare it with other books.
7Discuss the contentof the book in greater depth.
8Engage pupils in follow-up activities as an extension of the content.
Readers’ Theatre
Purposes
How often have you asked your pupils to read out the book you’re ‘doing’ in class? And with what result? Inaudible voices, monotonous and meaningless deliveries—these are the pitfalls ofreading out that, instead of enlivening the text, kill it stone dead.
Ask young pupils to do drama, on the other hand, and the result is often far more enthusiastic. But drama involves a lot of extras —props, scenes, and space to perform—not always available. And, of course, it requires a script, whereas you may well be reading a story with your class. Not only is the story in the ‘wrong format’ for acting, but it may involve actions and scenes that are too complicated to stage.
Readers’ Theatre offers a way of combining read-aloud with elements of drama to create participation and active engagement with a text. It requires little in the way of materials and, with the right text, little preparation. When pupils become familiar with the activity, they can take on the role of adapting a text for Readers’ Theatre by themselves without much difficulty.
Techniques and tips
Readers’ Theatre is a reading activity. It provides oral practice and reading with meaning, aids pupils to visualise the scenes of a story, and helps them empathise with the characters, by bringing the text to life. It does this by involving the pupils in participatory story-telling.
The degree of pupil participation can vary. A developmental approach could involve gradually giving more autonomy to pupils as follows:
1In the early stages, or more junior classes, you may start by asking pupils to join in and read chorally certain repeated lines in a story.
2In the next stage, pupils may be assigned to read out the spoken lines in a story as you narrate. Pupils learn not to read out tags such as he said, she answered. They should begin to be aware of the difference between dialogue and narration.
3Pupils then may be assigned roles, such as particular characters or narrators of the story, in an adaptation of the original text. Alternatively, they can be asked to highlight or underline parts in the original text, either character dialogue or narration. At this stage they may start to learn selectivity, identifying, for example, parts of the narrative that may be cut to avoid slowing the story. They are also helped to understand how certain intonation, gestures or facial expressions could be used to match the dialogues.
4Finally, pupils may be put into groups to work out an adaptation of a story by themselves for performance to the class.
In a Readers’ Theatre performance, there is no need for props or actions, nor for memorisation of lines. Performances should be rehearsed, with constructive feedback given. The emphasis is on understanding and vocal interpretation of a written text with the ultimate aim of developing oral fluency and the habit of active reading.
Dramatisation
Purposes
Essentially what children are doing when they dramatise a story is pretending to be the characters, or even the objects in that story. They engage in the story using their voices, their bodies and their feelings. Add in sets, costumes, props, face paints and music and it becomes a creative activity involving textual analysis and emotional response—and a fun way to master the language of the text.
Dramatisation of a narrative is not easy though: stories typically contain a mix of action, description and dialogue. To dramatise a story is to tell it in dialogue and/or action. There is generally no ‘narrator’ to explain things to us. Drama ‘shows’ rather than ‘tells’ the story.
Different story texts lend themselves to different dramatic treatments, e.g.an action-packed story may lend itself well to mime. However, the main aim of the exercise is to comprehend and interpret the text. Stories can be interpreted in a variety of ways: visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. Dramatising a story is a multi-sensory experience, providing opportunities for the application of multiple intelligences.
Dramatising a story for performance provides excellent opportunities for pupils to exercise their creativity and to work collaboratively. But above all, it provides scope for the development of communicative skills. Because drama creates physical and emotional contexts for language use, it provides pupils with the opportunity to use language authentically. Pupils are also made more aware of the importance of gesture, facial expression and tone of voice in giving meaning to words. And it provides a purpose for memorising stretches of new language!
Techniques and tips
Teachers can use a number of drama techniques to help pupils understand the text and to make it come alive:
Charades: Words and expressions from the story are mimed in a game of charades, in order to promote understanding and reinforce vocabulary.
Mime:While the story is being read aloud, pupils perform the actions.
Puppetry:You or pupils tell the story using puppets, as a non-threatening introduction to characterisation.
Freeze-frames:Pupils are asked to select a scene from the story and work in groups to ‘make a still picture’of it, to help the class visualise the action.
Hot-seating:A pupil takes on the role of one of the characters in the story and is interrogated by the class. The pupil must answer the questions in character. The questions and answers can move beyond information given in the story, and thus the beginnings of improvisation.
Script-writing:Pupils transform the text-type from narrative to playscript, paying attention to conventions of the genre.
Poetry appreciation
Purposes
Poetry is one of the three major genre divisions of literature (the other two being narrative fiction and drama). It is characterised by the musical patterns of sounds which are based on the natural qualities of the spoken language. Its distinguishing features are rhythmic movement and musical devices.The primary importance in poetry is the evocation of feelings and state of being.Through appreciating poetry
pupils have a love of musical speech and the repetition or patterning of sounds
pupils are motivated to love the English Language and the English classes especially when poetrygives a lot of pleasure
phonics can be taught in context
pupils are taught the ways to express their feelings
the use of figurative language can be introduced
the typical rhythms of the English Languagecan beassimilated
Techniques and tips
1Point out the poem title and the name of the poet to pupils. See if pupils can guess the meaning of the poem just by looking at the title.
2You can read the poem to pupils once, emphasising on the rhymes and rhythms. Poems are best to be chantedif possible. Point out words that rhyme (if there were any) and read them with pupils.
3Help pupils understand the poem literally. Ask questions like Do you know who is speaking in the poem? What does this person feel? Explain words that are new to them. If there are examples of figurative language or imageries, bring them to the attention of pupils. Finally, tell pupils that all the above elements help us understand the meaning of the poem. Let pupils talk freely about what they have learnt from the poem.
4Read the poem with pupils. In order to get the musicality of poetry, note the pitchand the stress. Note also the line as a rhythmic unit. When teachingpupils to read the poem aloud, stop only when there is a break indicated by punctuation.
5When pupils read/ chant/ sing out the poem, let them stand up and read/ chant / sing the poem together using gestures or movement. Let them understand that they should read it in a way so that the meaning can be conveyed.