Job Discussion Forums

[Tom Le Seelleur]

What ways do you get students, especially nationals, to start the reading habit?

[Tom Le Seelleur]

I think I will answer that first!

At present, most of my students that I teach reading to ( 4 groups ) have very little experience of reading at all. In research it is estimated that an average UK student will have read 36 books by the time they have finished secondary school. The same research suggested that the average for the UAE student was 36 pages.

Many of the Emirati students I teach and have taught have never read a book in their entire life apart from the Holy Quran. Their world knowledge and in fact their general knowledge of the Middle East is extremely limited. Hence the need to focus on the enjoyment of reading. Instilling the reading habit and the necessity of getting students to realize the benefits of being better read. Added to the problem is of course the need for students to read 3 long texts for their IELTS exams on a broad range of topics and having to speed read and accuratly answering 40 questions.

For me I try to get the students to read - very little feedback ie book reports or summaries or vocabulary work as this may impede the 'enjoyment' element so necessary. My child of 5 has read far more than all of my students put together and they are all over 18 years old.

By introducing students to simplified graded readers especially non fiction as they are going to also study science, maths, IT and engineering, male students (research supports) prefer to read factual texts. Focusing on readers and short stories from SRA's, the internet using sites like English-to-go, onestopenglish or A-Z, I can nurture a growing desire to read more and more and broaden their horizons, this in turn increases their awareness of the world and therefore the areas of reading covered by IELTS - education, health, environment, technology, crime and so on.

I bring a selection of books to class as well as short SRA's and newspaper articles. Students browse, find a comfortable place to read (this is not done in a classroom but rather a quite large area with plenty of comfortable seating). The students are then expected to read quietly and silently until they finish. A sense of achievement that within the time of one class or an hour they have read a book. Get them to do this five times a week and you have students finishing 60 or 70 books a term. It works with a lot of coaxing, persuation and playful bullying.

[007]

[Zoot]

007 - Rome wasn't built in a day. Great, good on you Tom for starting this discussion. I for one would very much like to hear the results of your efforts at the end of the term. For those who struggle with trying to encourage students to read, take a look at the literature available about boys and reading in the western world. By the way, Tom, what are SRAs?

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

[Tom Le Seelleur]

SRA
This is a reading laboratory that is very successful in building confidence in reading for K-12

http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/sra/rl_index.html
Is a good starting point.

[Neil McBeath]

On the intensive courses at SQU we MAKE them read.

I do not think that it is the best method at all, but it at least gets students to do some reading.

Every eight-week block, students at the higher levels are required to rad three graded readers, and they are then given very basic multiple-choice/yes-no questions on the plot and the main characters.

The only way to get a high score is to have read the book, and kept the story in your head.

At lower level we require them to do book reports, but the problem there is that you cannot always be sure if the report is original work, or if an older relative/friend has done most of the work for them.

Interestingly, after a while some of the students begin to realise that readinbg is actually quite fun, and once you have got to that stage, the battle is nearly won.

[Sunburnt Individual]

I've found that enthusiastically giving a tagline or introduction to a topic or novel in class prompted a surprising number of kids to go and find the information for themselves. I dropped some hints about the nature of Lord of the Flies and at least half a dozen boys ended up asking me about it/borrowing it from the library/buying it. It wasn't all the same few kids that normally do all the classroom reading, either.

I tend to do that with general topics as well. I taught a lesson about the invention of the light bulb and mentioned that Edison's life was really interesting. A few kids picked up a biography or at least Googled him.

This is all in English, though. I don't know about getting kids to read in Arabic or any other native language they may have. Wasn't there some research that showed parents that read tend to have kids that read?

[Tom Le Seelleur]

Who are the reading gurus around the world? Who is the leading researcher on reading. Is anyone undertaking research into reading here in the UAE?

[carlen]

I was having a similar discussion with a fellow professional working in school reform in the UAE. We come to the conclusion that high school students would benefit with intevention from some well trained Elementary teachers. These people really are the specialist when it comes to teaching reading. Good topic, I will follow it with interest. Non readers is a huge problem here and as everyone has recognised, everything starts with reading.

[johnkg]

The battle has to begin with creating an enjoyment of reading in Arabic. Surely only then can reading for pleasure be attempted in the foreign language of English. At present, reading in English for most lower level students is a tedious chore demanded by endless teachers, most of whom are not specialists in dealing with this problem even though they have ESL qualifications. The variety of cognitive challenges lower levels face in coping with English words strung together, right to left, with x% unknown vocabulary, strange names, baffling cultural references.... it is little wonder we struggle to light the reading flame. The earlier poster hit the nail on the head - start from elementary schools. The best we can do is provide our students with content that interests them and hope??????

[Iamherebecause]

Try this link to the Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading:

http://www.ials.ed.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/EPER.html

Has a focus on use of graded readers.

[uaeobserver]

The students I met with (tutoring) didn't read much --- but they are certainly literate.

I think they absorb information in different ways. In fact, my western/teenage kids are different, too. Sure --- it's a rare moment they're without a book --- but they'd prefer xbox to a book, any day.

Question becomes, then --- how do you incite students to read? I guess you find out what interests them.

For my kids ---- I confess ---- I once told my 9 yr old there were naked girls in the National Geographic magazine, and that he couldn't read it. Well - he picked it up really quick --- and read the whole magazine. Turns out, he learned about a lot of stuff ---- and asked if he could read it next month. (the naked girls were from Haiti --- and weren't the kind of naked he was thinking --- but he quickly forgot about that --- besides 9 year olds don't think the same way as 19 year olds).

What interest Emiratis? For boys ---- cars. Try giving them a really good car review. Read the below ---- now write your own.....

http://www.latimes.com/classified/automotive/highway1/la-fi-neil23-2009jan23,0,2175456.story

[Sheikh N Bake]

It's a fun piece but the language is a bit sophisticated and the humor culture-bound to the US. Consumer Reports' car reviews report Just the Facts, Ma'am in a straightforward manner and my students loved it. I used CR car reports for writing too. CR runs these reliability rating charts with colored dots going from all black (much worse than average) to all red (much better than average). I am explaining this because I can't copy and paste it here, but I can paste the criteria CR uses:

Reliability History - Mercedes-Benz S-Class

Trouble spots by year 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08

Engine Major
Engine Minor
Engine Cooling
Transmission Major
Transmission Minor
Drive System
Fuel System
Engine Minor
Electrical System
Used Car Prediction

So, students get a profile of reliability variables, in a chart, and I let them summarize the chart in any way they wanted, and also had them compare two different cars. This is obviously both a reading and writing exercise.

[Tom Le Seelleur]

http://www.yearofreading.org.uk/wikireadia/index.php?title=Main_Page

If you enter wikireadia you will open up a world of reading ideas and promotions including the national year of reading 2008, and an even greater site from nlt

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/nltprojects/index.html
Check out reading Champions, Reading Connects