VI.

CREATING LEARNING
ENVIRONMENT FOR
YOUNG LANGUAGE
LEARNERS THROUGH
READING AND WRITING

Arriane Kris M. Manalastas

Instructor
Reading
• Reading is a set of skills
that helps meaning
making by decoding the
printed word, thus, in
order to read learners
must be able to decode
the printed words and
also comprehend what
they read (Linse, 2005).
What is Reading?
Reading is
decoding,
comprehending
and
interpreting.
 What is Reading?
Decoding:

❑Decoding is the process in which

learners read and recognize the
written symbols making up the
words. Decoding is also making sense
of individual words within a context
for getting meaning.
❑Phonics instruction helps to
recognize individual sound-letter
correspondence to defeat
challenging aspect of decoding.
 What is Reading?
Comprehension:
Reading requires higher
order of understanding the
meaning. Comprehension may
vary from reader to reader.
Different readers may respond to
a single text in different ways,
thus, how to analyze and
synthesize the information can be
best constructed through a well-
designed instruction.
What is Reading?
Interpretation:

❑After decoding and comprehending the

written text, thinking/talking about it is the
complementary part of reading process.

❑Through the interpretation of learners,

reading process is completed. The teacher
can make assessment on the base of the
interpretation of learners to decide on
whether the text is read and understood
appropriately or not.
 Developing Literacy

Posters – colorful posters

Labels – labelling children’s
are especially eye-catching
trays, desks, coat hooks, as
which could include a
well as furniture and
rhyme that is being learnt,
objects around the
advertising something, e.g.
classroom and school.
reading, cleaning teeth

Messages – for homework Reading aloud – by teacher

or “Don‘t forget to bring…” or older child
 1. Focusing on reading fluency may include timed
Some other repeated reading (Nation, 2009). Running dictation
activities that will (in pairs, so all learners are involved in reading).
help to make
reading 2. Learners making their own story books (or
pleasurable comics) to share with each other (Wright, 1997).
which is crucial
for success in 3. Creating backstories for character in a puppet
family and creating a class binder to refer back to
literacy, include: when reading peers stories about the family.
Tips:
• Motivation– ask your learners to bring in
materials they enjoy reading – whether it is
football results, recipes or song lyrics, use these
as a springboard for discussion and reading.

• Make it purposeful – if learning food lexis,

bring in packets / tins of food, read where
different kinds of food originate from, and
classify them by country or by noun basis
(countable/ uncountable). (Ellis & Brewster,
1991).
 Reading Activities
• Reading a Story

Reading stories such as simplified and authentic ones in reading classes is one of the most
enjoyable activities. This activity is mostly implemented by teachers, then learners. When
teachers read stories aloud, the learner can learn how to read the story.

• Reading a Class Story

Some traditional fairy tales that they are familiar with such as Little Red Riding Hood can be
read to motivate them to read (top-down processing). Since learners have familiarity with the
themes of such stories, they can comprehend the story easily. Therefore, they are good
resources for teaching reading to young learners.
 • Reading Familiar Nursery Rhymes and Songs

This activity can be very effective in reading classes.

Sample Reading
Since most of the children learn nursery rhymes and songs in
Activities
their mother tongue, they can read and learn them easily (top-
down processing).
 Reading Techniques
Reading Aloud:
This technique can be useful for beginners in a language.
Reading aloud can be carried out individually or in small
groups. It can be used as an assessment tool to check
pronunciation and intonation.
While reading a dialogue text, reading aloud can be done in
pairs. Sometimes teacher can read the text and learners repeat
it. Such reading can encourage readers and build up self-
confidence.
Silent Reading:
Most people read silently in their daily lives. For young
learners, it may also prompt conscious language development
and comprehension. Thus, they can understand the reading
material by bottom-up/top-down processing. After the teacher
reads the text loudly, learners may be asked to read the text
silently in the classroom.
Example of Reading Activities:
A. Pre-reading Stage

1. Tell the students that you are going to read a

story. Teach them the unknown words given in the
story. You can teach the words by drawing, showing
the pictures you have prepared, or miming.
2. Repeat the words to make your students
recognize the sounds of the words (word
recognition)
3. Ask the students to match the written words with
the pictures on the board to check whether they
have understood the words.
 Example of Reading Activities:

B. While- Reading Stage

1. Tell the story by acting out.

2. Use the pictures you have prepared while you are
telling the story.
3. After telling the story, hand out the photocopies of
the story to the students.
4. Read the story loudly to the class. While reading
the story, act out the story again.
 Example of Reading
Activities:
5. Have the students read the story silently (silent
reading)
6. Ask one or two of the students in the class to
read the story (reading aloud)
7. Choose three students to read the story. One is
reading the parts of donkey, one is reading the
parts of the man, and the other is reading the
descriptive parts of the story (reading aloud)
8. Repeat this reading activity a few times with
other students.
 C. Post- Reading Stage
Ask questions about the story to check
whether the students have understood it.

Example of a. What are the names of the animals in the

Reading story?
b. Who lives in the stable?
Activities:
c. Who lives in the house?
d. Why does the man shout?
e. Why does the donkey want to live in the
house?
f. Why can’t the donkey live in the house?
 1. Hand out some sheets on which
the parts of the story are written and
ask the students to put them into the
correct order.

2. Put the sheets on which you have

Procedures: illustrated the story and ask the
students to put the drawings in the
correct order and tell the story with
their own words by looking at the
drawings.

3. Let the students find the words on

their own in the puzzle given
(bottom-up processing)
End of Chapter VI-
Lesson 1
 How do you define writing for young learners? Is it
writing a paragraph, sentence, or a word?

Teaching What are the challenges associated with teaching

writing in English language classrooms at primary
Writing to schools?

Young Why is it difficult for the learner to learn how to write

in English?
Learners
What should the teacher’s role be to facilitate learning
how to write in English?
 Writing and Young Learners
❑ For young learners, writing in English is the most
difficult skill to develop for many reasons. First of
all, young learners’ writing habits are not fully
developed in their home languages. Hence, they
cannot really succeed in writing in English
accurately.
❑ Secondly, in addition to the differences between
Turkish, Philippines, and other ESL countries and
English punctuation rules, English spelling
system poses a big problem for them simply
because a single sound (or a single phoneme)
has many different spellings (paw, poor, pore,
pour, daughter, Sean) as exemplified by Harmer
(2001).
❑ Apart from the difficulty posed by the nature of the
language being learned, students’ personal states
pose additional problem that hinders their
development in writing.
 Writing as a process involves:

Theories to 1. Thought-showering or brainstorming’ notes,

ideas, words and phrases about a topic

Consider in 2. Categorizing and ordering the ideas according to

the task requirements
Teaching
Writing to 3. Writing a first draft

Students 4. Revising the first draft by improving content and

accuracy

5. Implementing the improvements in the re-

written text
 Literature on young learners’
writing activities suggests that
writing activities tasks should:

1. Brainstorm for ideas and vocabulary together as a

group or class (Kim, 2003)
2. Require the students to exercise imagination (Cuenca &
Carmona, 2012)
3. Lead to published material (Linse, 2005).

Note: This is more likely to result from young learners’

eagerness to touch, feel, and show what they have
accomplished in their classrooms (Remember how
children love showing and talking about the pictures they
draw or poems they write in the classrooms).
 Writing as a Product
The end goal is an authentic task (e.g. writing to
inform, to thank etc.) Success is gauged by the
accuracy of the content and accuracy of the text.

Accuracy focuses on:

1. Grammar and vocabulary

2. Spelling and punctuation
3. Legibility and appropriate genre conventions

Content focuses on:

1. Conveying information successfully to the reader

2. Providing enough detailed information
3. Logically ordering ideas
4. Using appropriate register
5. Originality of ideas
Note:
It is the teacher‘s responsibility to
develop writing tasks for young
learners that are enjoyable, full of
practice, meaningful, purposeful,
social and supported (Reid 1998).
Challenging your learners and
exploiting collaborative opportunities
all combine to provide a learning
environment where writing is both
valued and enjoyed.
 Sample Writing Activities

1. “What is a….?” writing game

Procedure:

Ask a question and write on the board. (i.e. What is a

cloud?)
Ask students to brainstorm ideas and write their ideas
down. Inform them that they can be as imaginative as
possible. As long as their ideas tell us something about
a cloud, it is fine.
After the students complete their responses, they
exchange their opinions with their classmates. (Some
possible answers are: It is a) white b) a sheep (in the
sky) c) water d) cotton balls e) light f) a happy boy. / It
has a) many shapes b) colors c) cloud friends d) a big
nose.
 Sample Writing Activities

2. Guessing games

Procedure:

Ask students to write three facts about an animal, place, city or

object.
Students then say and write their clues for their friends to guess
what that animal, place, city or object is. For example: one
student writes/ asks about the hospital by writing these: 1. It is a
large building. 2. Sick people stay there. 3. Doctors and nurses
work there.
End of Chapter VI