Teaching Reading and Writing

HI READERS!!

Welcome back to my new article. So, in this article, I want to share about Teaching Reading and Writing for Young Learners. Enjoy my article !!!

Reading

English has some skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Beside these skills, reading becomes important skill that should be mastered by students since they are still young. Reading is one of English skill that is very important that should be taught and delivered well. Reading comprehension skills can be acquired easily through positive communication between the educator and the learner (Alharbi, 2015:1258). In teaching reading, English teachers should implement good and appropriate strategies which can be a stimulus to become active students and participate in teaching and learning process. There are so many strategies in teaching reading but it should be suitable with students’ condition and learning environment. In literate societies, most normal children learn to read by the age of five or six, and some even earlier. With the exception of a small number of people with learning disabilities, reading is a skill that is taken for granted (Brown, 2004:185). Language learning certainly occurs across all subject areas, but it is more focused and direct in reading and language arts. The ability to speak, read, and write affects students’ success in all subject areas, making reading and language arts a critical area in which to apply instructional principles that will support ELLs (Haager, Klingner, Aceves, 2010:2). The age of students is a major factor in taking a decision about how and what to teach. People of different ages have different needs, competences and cognitive skills. As a teacher, we might children of primary age to acquire of more a foreign language through play, for example, whereas for adults we can reasonably expect a greater use of abstract thought (Harmer, 2007:37). It means that students from different levels need different strategy in their learning. According to Brown (2001:87), there are five categories may help give some practical approaches to teaching children; intellectual development, attention span, sensory input, affective factors, and authentic; meaningful language. Children are generally less able to give selective and prolonged attention to features of learning tasks than adults, and are more easily diverted and distracted by other people (Cameron, 2001:15). Children still need help and guidance from other people to understand things around them. Young children, especially those up to the ages of nine or ten, learn differently from older children, adolescents and adult in the following ways (Harmer, 2007:82): they respond to meaning even if they do not understand individual words, they often learn indirectly rather than directly – that is they take in information from all sides, learning from everything around then rather than only focusing on precise topic they are being taught, their understanding comes not just from explanation, but also from what they see and hear and, crucially, have a chance to touch and interact with, they find abstract concepts such as grammar rules difficult to grasp, they generally display an enthusiasm for learning and a curiosity about the world around them, and they have a need for individual attention and approval from the teacher. Children actively try to make sense, to find and construct a meaning and purpose for what adult say to them and ask them to do. They can only make sense in terms of their world knowledge, which is limited and partial. Teachers thus need to examine classroom activities from the child’s point of view in order to assess whether pupils will understand what to do or will be able to make sense of new language (Cameron, 2001:19).

Writing

When we learn a new language, writing is often the last skill we focus on. Listening and speaking take priority, and reading can be integrated into textbook exercises as we learn grammar, for example. Writing may be neglected because of persistent myths about what counts as writing (beliefs that only academic essays are writing) or fears about making errors (which are more visible than errors made while speaking). These misconceptions may derive from first-language literacy learning experiences. In many contexts, writing may be neglected because it is not included on state and standardized tests, whereas the other skills are. When learners don’t feel like they’re writing for a real audience, they become less interested in continuing with writing. Writing becomes boring, and when it’s boring, we don’t want to practice it. 

A key feature of young learners is that they are often still developing their literacy abilities in their first language, which means that they cannot draw on as much prior knowledge about text structure or rhetoric as older learners can. Young learners often have a shorter attention span and less awareness of their own future goals and needs than older learners. They are also still dependent on their family for guidance when they are outside of school, which means they are less likely to be able to seek out language models and practice opportunities on their own. Nevertheless, young learners are ready and eager to learn how to write in a new language.

4 Principles for Teaching Writing to Young Learners

When teaching writing to young learners, Try to keep a few principles in mind:

1.) Draw on kids’ sense of play and imagination: We expect children to be serious, but they like to play. If we design activities that allow them to learn a language at the same time as having fun, they will both feel more positive about the language and learn to use it for communicative purposes.

2.) Start writing from the beginning: Don’t wait until learners have mastered the language before letting them write. Even low proficiency learners can do creative things with a limited vocabulary and incomplete knowledge of grammar systems.

3.) A little goes a long way: We don’t have to teach many different things in one lesson. Instead, children learn through repeating. They even like to repeat the same activities and games because it is familiar and because they can gain skill—each time, they can do better.

4.) Focus on progress, not perfection: Children should not be expected to create perfect texts. Instead, we should value their ability to make progress and get better at what they are able to do. Provide feedback for development, and don’t grade based on error.

Writing Letters and Words:

- Tactile and tasty

- Kinesthetic letter formation and spelling

- Games and art

Using Images 

- Picture stories using PowerPoint

- Make your own manga

- Make your own manga

Grammar Games

Silly sentences:  Kids can make these kinds of sentences on their own. Make flashcards with vocabulary words (be sure to have both nouns and verbs, as well as adjectives and adverbs if relevant). Students can manipulate the cards to come up with the silliest sentences possible, as long as they maintain grammatical order. You can either provide additional cards with articles, prepositions, and other function words, or you can have students fill those in when they copy their sentences onto the board to share with the class.

Erase and replace: Write a paragraph on the board or project a text for the class to see. Students take turns replacing one word with another that fits grammatically. They can choose to maintain the logic or to change it to be humorous.

References:

http://blog.tesol.org/activities-for-teaching-writing-for-young-learners/

Alharbi, Majed Abdulkareem. 2015. Reading Strategies, Learning Styles and Reading Comprehension: A Correlation Study. Journal of Language and Teaching. Vol. 6 (6) 1257-1268.

 Cameron, Lynne. 2001. Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bharuthram, S. and Clarence, S. 2015. Teaching Academic Reading As A Disciplinary Knowledge Practice in Higher Education. South African Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 29 (2) 42-55. 

Brown, H. Douglas 2007. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. San Francisco: Pearson Education. 

Brown, H. Douglas. 2001. Teaching by Principles; An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. New York: Longman. 

Brown, H. Douglas. 2004. Language Assessment; Principles and Classroom Practice. San Francisco: Longman