Job Discussion Forums

[ContemporaryDog]

I have 3 classes at my school, all Grade 1. They all do very well in class when it comes to learning materials and identifying new words, etc orally. But we've just done our midterm exams and some didn't do as well as I'd hoped. My assistant says that the main problem area is that they are still having problems reading.

Anyone got any tips on how to help this aspect of their learning?

[ilunga]

My grade 1s are only just starting to learn to read. They came from the kindergarten three months ago where they only concentrate on oral English.
Last year I found that the Grade 1s improved considerably towards the end of the spring/summer term so maybe you just need to give them time.

[ContemporaryDog]

[Roger]

It is new to me that foreign teachers teach English writing to grade 1 students in China; great say I!
I wouldn't hesitate for a second to do dictations, preferably as competititve exercises on the white/blackboard.
Seize on the opportunity to reinforce their awareness of grammatical accuracy - man/men, child/children, booik/books.

[ContemporaryDog]

[MyraG]

I have taught students to read successfully from 4 years of age using phonics. But my school teachers basically phonics

[MyraG]

I have taught students to read successfully from 4 years of age using phonics. But my school teachers basically phonics

[Roger]

ContemporaryDog,
have you thought of dictating to your students whole passages?
When IO hear "our students can read and write" I find that the assessment doesn't square with reality; their teachers dictate SINGLE words and are satisfied when their students can kind of re-create the exact same word with the exact sam spelling. However, words change inside a sentence, and you couldf kill two flies with one pebble: dictating a whole little story (in simplified English) reinforces their theoretical grammar in a practical way, and it helps them to come to grips with the phonetic setup of words.

Chinese teachers also fail to instruct their students on when to use capital letters, and what punctuation marks to use.

[no_exit]

The problem I have found is that many of the students don't really know how to read phonetically. They memorize English words the same way they would memorize a Chinese character. For native English speaking kids this usually comes much later. I clearly remember when I learned how to read -- first sounding out words that are obviously phonetic, like cat, rag, dog, bad, and then later moving on to phonograms (the "oo" sound, the "oa" sound, the "ea" sound, the "th" sound, etc.). Of course English phonetics aren't as perfectly regular as some languages, but if you have a grasp of the fundementals, you can approach a new word and have an immediate idea how it is prounounced.

I recently started privately tutoring a 9 year old boy and a 12 year old girl. They had learned some extremely basic English previously, but if I gave them a new word they had no clue how it should be pronounced -- they would just start wildly guessing. So, starting last week, we went back to the alphabet and I started teaching them all of the phonetic sounds for each letter. This week we did dictations, focusing solely on the sound and the spelling of the words, deliberately chosing words they could sound out, rather than words they had already memorized (words like rat, hand, lad, bug, hit). Once they have mastered the basic vowel and consonant sounds of the alphabet we'll move on to phonograms, and once they have phonograms, dictation of sentences and passages. So far it seems to be working quite well. They can "sound out" new words which I give them, provided we have learned the sounds already, and are already well above their peers when it comes to being able to read new words out loud (they have not learned the phonetic symbols yet either, and I don't think I want to teach them to them at this point. I want them to learn the sounds of the actual alphabet, not memorize yet another set of symbols).

I have often wondered practically none of my Chinese students have any concept of phonetics. It simply isn't very practical to go about reading English words the same way you would a Chinese character. Older, more advanced students tend to pick up on the concept eventually, but wouldn't it be a lot better if they were taught how to read properly from a younger age?