Teaching YL to read: first steps

Greetings to everyone Learning how to read is one of the most important things a child needs to learn to do by the age of 10. The reason is that everything from vocabulary growth to performance in all major school subjects is linked to reading ability. Are you teaching YL to read and don’t know where to start? In our today’s newsletter you can find out more about how to help your students recognize and learn first letters, and then words, using different techniques!

Teaching YL to read: first steps Imagine what your life would be like if you could not read. Reading is one of the most essential skills to any person not only in the academic context but also almost in all areas and at all stages of our lives.  According to UNESCO Institute for Statistics report, 50 years ago, almost one quarter of youth lacked basic literacy skills compared to less than 10% in 2016. However, 750 million adults – two-thirds of whom are women – remain illiterate. They lack basic reading and writing skills. 102 million of the illiterate population were between 15 and 24 years old. Deficient or non-existent basic education is the root cause of illiteracy. Therefore, teaching reading has to be one of the priorities in elementary education.  Teaching young learners to read in a foreign language might be quite challenging, especially if the alphabets of the two languages are different, e.g. if L1 uses symbols other than Roman. What do we as teachers need to do to help them develop their reading skills? First of all, create a positive, fun, success-oriented learning environment. Your classroom might be the only place where young learners can hear and see English. You can use: Labels – labeling children’s trays, desks, coat hooks, as well as furniture and objects around the classroom and school. Posters – colorful posters are especially eye-catching which could include a rhyme to learn or advertising something, e.g. reading, cleaning teeth, alphabet, numbers, colors. Messages – with the information you use at every lesson e.g. Today is … (day of the week), Homework, Weather (sunny, rainy, windy etc.), Feelings (happy, sad, hungry etc.) More English in the classroom – try to reduce using L1 in the classroom, this will help your students get used to the sounds of the new language and make meaningful links to its sound system. You can use videos, songs, TPR chants etc. Children who can already read in L1 generally want to find out how to read in English. They might  already know how to decode words in L1 to get meaning from the text. And we need to help them learn to decode in English in order to avoid transferring their L1 decoding techniques and end up reading English with the home language accent. Before they can decode English, young children need to know the 26 alphabet letter names and sounds. As English has 26 letters but on average 44 sounds (in standard English), introducing the remaining sounds is better left until children have more experience in using language and reading. A young learner teacher, teacher trainer, author and consultant, Olha Madylus suggests that after creating the motivating atmosphere we should follow with: introducing letters internalizing letters recognizing letters learning words If you follow the links above, you will find selections of activities and games to help students recognize and learn first letters, and then words, using different techniques. INTRODUCING LETTERS. Olha Madylus says, “It is possible to introduce letters after only a few hours of English classes as long as the children have already been introduced to English vocabulary – they understand the meaning of words and are able to recognize the word when it is spoken. Doing a little regularly and incorporating reading and writing into every lesson is a good idea. It gives the lesson variety and students are not overloaded”. We have already written about Phonics Approach in one of our previous newsletters, it helps students match the sounds with the written letter and is far better than teaching only the names of the letters.  INTERNALIZING LETTERS.  It is crucial if the student’s L1 has an alphabet different from English. Students have to become familiar with the shapes of letters and then they will be able to begin manipulating them.  The best way to do this is by using the body and space rather than pencil and paper activities. It  helps to give children a strong imprint of the shape of letters in their mind’s eye. You can try Body Letters, Tracing Letters, Air Writing, Letter Sculptures, Letter Collages. https://vimeo.com/105264620  RECOGNIZING LETTERS.  The best way to process the letters with your students is probably through Recognizing Letters Games. You will find more games for teaching alphabet here. LEARNING WORDS. Learning how to read words children are already familiar with is a good place to start. This might include their own name and other concrete nouns that can be prompted by using pictures. Images can help a child in the beginning by prompting him or her to recognize the word they are reading. It helps if words are large enough and printed in bold, easy to read font.  In the beginning, too much text can be overwhelming for a new reader. Make sure there are not too many words on a page and start by having them sound out single terms before progressing to phrases and sentences. It is recommended to start with: Sight words Word families Phonic Skills: blends, digraphs, glued sounds Sight words are typically shorter words that come up very frequently in text and sometimes they don’t follow predictable spelling rules. Some examples are: look, yes, the, do. It’s better to know them by sight rather than trying to sound them out. One of the best ways to practice sight words is through the use of predictable or patterned text. These are books where each sentence is the same except for one word which can be inferred with the help of a picture. Kids get lots of practice with the sight words and are proud to be reading sentences. Sight word practice can include flash cards, hunting for the words in books, and using games. Word families. Teach kids that if they can read the word “can,” then they can also read “man,” “pan,” and “fan.” 2-letter word families are perfect at this stage (-am, -at, -et, -en, -it, etc.). You can use word wheels, nursery rhymes, rhyming words activity books, printable minibooks etc. Phonic skills are the next step after learning the individual letter sounds which is just a foundation.  Blends: Two letters that are frequently together in words, both letter sounds can be heard. Examples are bl, tr, sk, dr, sm Digraphs: Two letters that make a new sound (sh, th, wh, ch, ck) Glued Sounds: These are a blend but are 3 letters and come at the end of a word (all, ell, ill, ull, ank, ink, onk, unk, ang, ing, ong, ung) There are plenty more phonics patterns and rules but this gives you a lot to work on with beginning readers. This video demonstrates a variety of activities you can use to support the development of phonics skills and reading fluency. Skills focused on are digraphs and consonant blends, segmenting and blending, and reading fluency. To sum up, beginning to read in English goes easily if young children already know the language they are trying to read. Many children work out by themselves how to read in English if they have shared picture books with adults or learned rhymes, as they are likely to have memorized the language. Reading what they know by heart is an important step in learning to read as it gives children opportunities to work out how to decode simple words by themselves. Once children have built up a bank of words they can read, they feel confident and are then ready for a more structured approach. From Grade Education Center