reading aloud to children
TYL: Reading aloud to children | Jerry Talandis Jr. | July 26th, 2005
Hello all,
I've just come across this post to the DL back in October of 2002 that was never followed up. It's a request for references (articles or books) about reading aloud to children in an EFL context. I know some of you out there have finished or are doing TYL, so I'd like to post this message again and see if anyone can follow up on it.
Thanks,
Jerry
Hi everyone,
I'm waiting for TYL to arrive and researching a presentation on reading aloud to children in English (in Japan). I've found a lot of resources about reading aloud to children in L1 but very little in the EFL context. Can anyone recommend any books or articles? The presentation is for the local community rather than academics. So far I've found one reference to a project in Malaysia in Lynne Cameron's book (Teaching Languages to Young Learners) and am trying to track down information about that.
Karen Masatsugu
Editor's note: No one responded to my message, so I've taken it upon myself to gather a short list of some resources about reading aloud to children in an EFL context. I put this together after doing a Google on "reading aloud to children." Try doing the same if you need more.
Hoskins-Sakamoto, B. Using Readers in Kid's Classes, in ELT News.
Introduction
I still remember the first time I bought a reader for my students. I looked through all the readers in my local bookstore, and finally found one with an interesting story written at my students' level. However, when I sat down to prepare a lesson to go along with the story, I realized that I had little idea what to do, beyond either reading the story to my students, or telling them to read the story. It seemed like a waste of a good language opportunity, so I started looking for ways to get the most out of my readers (both the books and my students!).
What follows is the approach that has grown out of my initial frustration. I still consider it to be a work in progress. After an explanation of each step in using readers, I'll include a couple of the activities that my students enjoy.
While I usually follow this basic sequence, I do vary the pace. Sometimes I'll take a brief break from our textbook and devote an entire class (or more) to studying a story. Sometimes, I'll devote the last ten minutes of several classes to studying a story, breaking up the steps into manageable segments. Both ways work fine.
Guang-Lea Lee, 2003. Integrating Cultural Pluralism through Reading, in The Reading Matrix, Vol.3, No.1.
Abstract
The paper provides practical suggestions for teachers to integrate cultural pluralism in three reading strategies (1) reading workshops, (2) writing workshops, and (3) language experience approaches which make a valuable contribution to students of all cultural backgrounds.
Trelease, J. 2001. The Reading Aloud Handbook, Penguin.
Book Description:
Every child can become an avid reader, and this beloved, classic guide shows how to make it happen. Jim Trelease explains:
• How reading aloud awakens children's imaginations and improves their language skills
• How to begin reading aloud and which books to choose
• How to create reader-friendly homes, classrooms, and libraries
• How to lure children away from the television and video games
Jim Trelease has made reading aloud a special pleasure for millions of people. With this revised edition he offers a new generation of parents, teachers, grand-parents, and siblings the chance to discover the rewards-and the importance-of reading aloud to children.
DL Archive- FND TYL Reading Aloud | Abul-Hassan | September 1st, 2005
Hi Jerry,
Just been passed something that could help with that thread in the DL Archive about reading aloud to children.
It seems the TYL Portfolio Task is very much based around something called "dialogic reading." A simple search in google gives you a lot of info.
Here's a a simple intro to it, at "Reading Rockets."
Best wishes
Abul-Hassan Hannan
Riyadh
Editor's note: Here is an excerpt from the dialogic reading page at Reading Rockets:
Dialogic Reading:
An Effective Way to Read to Preschoolers
by Russ Whitehurst
Over a third of children in the U.S. enter school unprepared to learn. They lack the vocabulary, sentence structure, and other basic skills that are required to do well in school. Children who start behind generally stay behind – they drop out, they turn off. Their lives are at risk.
Why are so many children deficient in the skills that are critical to school readiness?
Children's experience with books plays an important role. Many children enter school with thousands of hours of experience with books. Their homes contain hundreds of picture books. They see their parents and brothers and sisters reading for pleasure. Other children enter school with fewer than 25 hours of shared book reading. There are few if any children's books in their homes. Their parents and siblings aren't readers.
Picture book reading provides children with many of the skills that are necessary for school readiness: vocabulary, sound structure, the meaning of print, the structure of stories and language, sustained attention, the pleasure of learning, and on and on. Preschoolers need food, shelter, love; they also need the nourishment of books.
It is important to read frequently with your preschooler. Children who are read to three times per week or more do much better in later development than children who are read to less than three times per week. It is important to begin reading to your child at an early age. By nine months of age, infants can appreciate books that are interesting to touch or that make sounds.
What is dialogic reading?
How we read to preschoolers is as important as how frequently we read to them. The Stony Brook Reading and Language Project has developed a method of reading to preschoolers that we call dialogic reading.
When most adults share a book with a preschooler, they read and the child listens. In dialogic reading, the adult helps the child become the teller of the story. The adult becomes the listener, the questioner, the audience for the child. No one can learn to play the piano just by listening to someone else play. Likewise, no one can learn to read just by listening to someone else read. Children learn most from books when they are actively involved.
The fundamental reading technique in dialogic reading is the PEER sequence. This is a short interaction between a child and the adult. The adult:
Prompts the child to say something about the book,
Evaluates the child's response,
Expands the child's response by rephrasing and adding information to it, and
Repeats the prompt to make sure the child has learned from the expansion.
Imagine that the parent and the child are looking at the page of a book that has a picture of a fire engine on it. The parent says, "What is this?" (the prompt) while pointing to the fire truck. The child says, truck, and the parent follows with "That's right (the evaluation); it's a red fire truck (the expansion); can you say fire truck?" (the repetition).
Except for the first reading of a book to children, PEER sequences should occur on nearly every page. Sometimes you can read the written words on the page and then prompt the child to say something. For many books, you should do less and less reading of the written words in the book each time you read it. Leave more to the child.
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