Enabling a Culture of Reading and Writing

Setting Learners Up to Succeed

ATER Conference 5th June 2015

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Common Perceptions and Misconception• Reading isn’t relevant to today’s youth

• We underestimate how much reading kids actually do

• Digital literacy is replacing ‘traditional literacy’ and it’s a good/bad thing

• Parents and teachers don’t set the right example when it comes to reading

• In Africa, kids are reading and writing more than ever before

• Personally, I read more than enough for pleasure

• How much reading are kids allowed/encouraged to do for pleasure?

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Different Kinds of Reading

• What have you read recently?

• What different kinds of texts do you read?

• Do you read them in the same way? Why/why not?

• What kinds of reading do young learners do in school? Is this the

same as the reading they’ll do outside of the classroom?

Why/why not?

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Reading Task

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The grifty snolls cloppered raucingly along the unchoofed trake. They were klary, so they higgled on separately. “Mi psar chwar”, quipped one. And “Psar, psar!” quipped the others. When they reached the sikanta, they all nettered silently. They all felt cansaggy.

Comprehension?

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1 Who cloppered along the unchoofed trake? ______________________

2 How did they clopper? ______________________

3 What was the trake like? ______________________

4 What did one of them quip? ______________________

5 How did the others answer? ______________________

6 What did they do when they reached the sikanta? ______________________

7 How did they all feel at the end? _____________________

 

What does this exercise tell us?

Stages of a Reading Lesson: Planning and

Sequencing

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Tips for a Reading Lesson

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• Get the students warmed up by getting them to think about what they already know about the topic

• Give them a chance to check any predictions that they made

• Give them a chance to react to the text as a reader

• Make it explicit what skill you are developing

• Always give them a task!

• Give them a task focusing on general understanding

• Think of comprehension questions that can’t simply be lifted from the text: an element of challenge is motivating!

• Grade the task, not the material

All images © Mat Wright

Thank You