Reading

The next updating is about the topic of Reading. This skill is the second one students have to deal to, after starting to listen in the new language. It is considered the easiest skill to learn. As our teacher told us, we should make reading an enjoyable activity to students and instill in learners the enthusiasm for reading. The main idea is that their learning process may be reinforced and they can enrich themselves on cultural terms. 

It is better to create habits about reading different topics and themes in general, but a motivating factor could be to start this activity with attractive books to students. Tell them they can read a book or story whenever they have time: pupils don't usually get tired or bored of good stories.

There are a number of different ways to approach the introduction of reading in a foreign language, such as phonics, "look and say", whole sentence reading or language experience approach. Let's see in more details what these approaches are about:

Phonics: it is based on teaching pupils the letters of the alfabet and the different combinations of sounds. 

Look and say: it is based on words and phrases, as for instance the flash cards.

Whole sentence reading: based on the recognition of whole phrases and sentences which have meaning in themselves. This stage should be encouraged as soon as possible. 

Language experience approach: based on the child's speaking. 

So, what is the best option to choose?

There is no one, right and useful way to learn reading. Each person has his/her own method, because the overall goal is the same to all students: to read and to learn by reading in a profitable way. So that, all these approaches are a way into reading and are not an end in themselves. Probably, you will use all of them through the reading adquisition process. 

Finally I would like to share some useful and creative ideas and strategies that Iñaki recommended us in our Didactics class. Here is the list:

- Illustrations and phrases: the best way for the little ones. At this stage, grammar and complex structures don't mean anything to students, the focus in put on visual ideas. Pictures mean much more than words themselves. 

- Reading a story from a book: a possible starting point. It is essential to establish a connection between the spoken and the written language, so that you must point to the word. 

- Reading a class story: which has been created by the students, so that everybody participate in the process. 

- Reading familiar songs : a good strategy to know the lyrics

- Reading aloud: by doing it in class, students can obtain a continuous feedback or "checking" of their advances from the teacher, and they should become less shy and get used to speak in front of their classmates, as a cooperative group. It is done in smalls groups or...

- Reading individually: so students gets teacher's full attention to his/her task. 

Reding aloud individually or in small groups = high priority of this kind of reading for all ages. 

- Reading dialogues aloud in pairs or groups: personally I believe it is a good strategy to develop, because students can help each other with words they find difficult to pronounce. When I was a learner, I usually used this method.

-  Silent reading

- Do not use "google translator", do not be a dictionary: teacher must not translate literally words meanings. A good habit is to guess, infer or deduce by context the approximate meanings of the words.

-  Share by reading: to read in teams and groups the writing exercises promotes cooperative learning ad teamwork. 

- I love you, Mary! / I can't stand that jerk!: the use of funny notes to make the learning process more interesting and less stressful