Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Fresh Prince]

I really need help teaching public elementary students to read. Any suggestions, tips, or advice would be appreciated.

My classes are mixed with about one-third attending hokwons and the rest just going to elementary school. The students that attend hokwons have some reading skills depending on what grade they are in, but the rest have zero skills at all.

I was told by my principal to teach phonics to every class; including kindergarten. Is this even possible?

I have the, "Let's Go," serious of phonics books but they aren't going over well with the students.

Most of the material I found on the Internet is geared towards teaching phonics to students in the UK, U.S., or other English speaking country, and assumes the students know a lot of vocabulary already.

Any ideas?

[Big Mac]

What I did was I gave all the kids in my school level tests.

Then I split every class between high and low level kids. The high level kids know how to read and can do much more advanced stuff. There's usually about 10-15 in every class. The low level kids don't even know the alphabet yet. You have to start there.

Go through each letter over the course of a month. Sing the alphabet song again and again to drive it into their heads. I usually start the class with a youtube video from Sesame Street or something where they're singing the alphabet song. Teach the sounds with every letter. This can take about a month or two, depending on how much time you have. In some classes I have to teach 20 minutes low level and 20 minutes high level, so I can only do three letters a week. With Grade 6 I can do 30 minutes so I can finish the alphabet in a month.

After you teach them the alphabet, start teaching them phonics.

--Start with short vowel sounds then move into long vowel sounds. Spend one class on each sound.
--Teach them some of the more important consonant diagraphs such as ch, sh, th.

After that use some very simple books that start are heavy on short vowel sounds.

For phonics, I use two books: Happy House Phonics 1-4 and SRA All Star Phonics A.

For Reading, I use the Reading Street 1.1 - 1.5 series and the accompanying My Sidewalks Level A books. Reading Street will start very simple and move into more and more difficult territory.

I use Reading Street 1.1 and My Sidewalks A1 for the very low level beginners. I'm using 1.4 for my higher level Grade 6 kids. Some of them could probably do Reading Street 2.1, but I don't want to scare some of them with anything too complicated.

You can also use the accompanying Reading Street Grammar and Practice Books with the higher level classes. I get the Korean co-teacher to teach these books to the higher level kids.

You don't have to buy books for every kid. Just get one of those overhead projectors that have a camera in it and project it on the TV screen. Works fine for me. You could also scan it into your computer and put it up on the TV that way.

You can photocopy pages from the SRA Phonics book for worksheets to do after teaching each phonics lesson.

All of the books I mentioned above are available in the Children's Section of the bookstore at Central City (Express Bus Terminal) in Seoul.

[lifeinkorea]

Big Mac, sounds like deja vu. I do the same, but maybe I missed what you do with the higher level students while you go over the alphabet and phonics with the lower level students. Do you have them wait? For the 1st and 2nd graders, they WILL NOT do anything unless I stand right over them directing them to write. As soon as I go to another student, they are off playing with the other students.

[Big Mac]

Actually, my classroom is set up beautifully for this system.

At the back of my classroom there is a little room where I have my desk. It used to be full of old TVs and junk. I cleaned it out and made it into a mini classroom with about 15 desks. I got an old big screen TV that was in storage and put it in there with one of those camera overhead projectors. The mini classroom has a sliding door so the kids in the main classroom can't hear what's going on in there.

While I'm teaching the low level students, my Korean co-teacher is teaching the high level students. For Grade 3, 4 and 5 I switch with her halfway through the class. For Grade 6 the kids have two classes a week, so I teach high level for one of those classes and low level for the other.

It works out really well. And this way the high level kids aren't bored to death with material that is too easy for them. Both classes are learning a lot more.