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IF KIDS READ WHAT
THEY LIKE, THEY WILL LIKE READING...
"An extensive reading
program should include
a library book session once a week for at least twenty minutes. This is in addition
to the reading that the pupils should be doing at home during the week..." - from
the official booklet - "Changes in the English Bagrut" - published in TEECH
(Teaching English Effectively in Classes that are Heterogeneous), edited by English
Inspector Judy Steiner, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, 1994, Israel :
’It is important to include
a Reading Program for all levels of English. Reading broadens horizons culturally,
emotionally and linguistically, stimulates the pupils' imaginations, and fosters
confidence in their ability to meaningfully react to what they have read.
Teaching the Reading
Program integrates
the four skills and improves overally proficiency"...
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Back of the cereal boxes school of
reading...
"Mary Leonhardt, a high
school English teacher in Concord, Mass., comes
from the comic books, sports pages, back of the cereal boxes school of reading to
which so many parents of reluctant readers belong.
Author of "Keeping Kids Reading," she says, "In elementary school,
we are so concerned that the kids like the books they are reading, but by junior
high, that all flies out the window."
In 28 years of teaching, Leonhardt has not found any book that all the students in
a class will enjoy reading. She took a survey once and assigned the most popular
book on the survey. But the minute it became assigned reading, students claimed to
hate it. So she just tells them to read.
Read anything. Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Rosamunde Pilcher. Anything.
And if they want an A or a B in her class, they have to read a lot of it." -Susan
Reimer, The Baltimore Sun. |
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REAL BOOK TASKS
"Real books are defined
as books not written especially for the teaching of English.
Some whole language projects guidelines indicate that no "formal" teaching
of grammar should take place; and that instead of students buying a grammar book,
the money will be used to buy "real" books...
This makes extremely good sense to me - if you doubt that this is good practice,
go into an elementary school that doesn't have an English library, and one that does,
and see the difference in how the students work.
My students like hearing/ reading/ experiencing real books much more than trying
to get through texts that weren't developed with their needs in mind.
And I have the freedom to help them "experience" those books with whatever
aids I choose to develop or use. |
This includes taking relevant words and phrases out of the text and teaching them
about how they are constructed, how they sound and how we read them.
And my students like this more because it is more relevant--it helps them read their
favorite stories." -Ellen
Serfaty.
FREE BOOKS : out-of-copyright books sites on the Internet:
Project Gutenberg
- making texts available free
to everyone! Just download and read.
Online library of literature
- trying to bring real books
to people through the Internet.
Wiretap Electronic Text
- more authors.
And here's another good one. |
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First, we have 15-20 minutes of silent
reading once a week in class (when we have a double lesson).
There are always kids that forget to bring their books, so they reread the
chapter we're working on in class.
We have a nice library in my school as well as the town library. We received a present
last year of 9,000 shekels to add to our small library. We ordered so many individual
books as well as class sets.
We even have cassettes for children with learning disabilities.
We decided to make some kind of order as far as levels go. Every company sets their
own level but level one in one company isn't the same in another.
We put them in comparison level order and put colored tabs to avoid confusion, on
the pupils's part as well as our own. The town library agreed to do the same.
I want the children to read for enjoyment as well as to enrich their english
and broaden their horizons.
I don't want to force them to read on a certain level, although I don't want them
to take advantage of the situation.
I strongly suggest a three color level for a certain class.
I explain that if the book is too hard they won't enjoy it and if they don't see
several new words, the book is too easy. |
Now down to the nitty-gritty.
They know about 6 weeks in advance when their book task will be. In the past, they
wrote their book tasks at home. I can tell dozens of stories like the rest of you
about the work I received. I decided that I can't trust most of them.
Therefore, I decided that all work would be done in class. When we have a double
lesson, they bring their book and a dictionary.
Every time they get different work to do. They can't plan in advance nor will
anyone else's work help them. In the end, their work is their own and it's really
hard to fake. Grading is the next headache.
The last work my pupils did, they had to choose only 2 long questions to answer.
Each question therefore was worth 50 points. At the end of the question sheet, I
made a point breakdown, which I filled in as I graded it.
Question #1: Spelling 5 pts, Grammar 7 pts
Vocabulary 8 pts These are overall ratings.
Contents 25 pts. Presentation 5 pts.
I give book tasks about 3 times a year. After Passover, my pupils give oral
lectures instead (not about books)... - Cindy Y., Givat Ze'ev Jr. High, Israel English
Teacher's Net.
"When you sell a man a book
you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue--you sell him a whole
new life." -Christopher Darlington Morley (1890-1957), Parnassus on Wheels,
1917. |
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