Korean Job Discussion Forums

[yingwenlaoshi]

Anyone teaching these books?

I'm finishing up "Hungry Plants" and have done "Helen Keller", "Thomas Jefferson's Feast" and "20,000 Baseball Cards Under the Sea". Level 4.

It seems they're too difficult. I'm teaching to a class mixed with one grade 4, grade 5's, and grade 6's. Getting through the books is a task and I have to do a lot of translation. The grammar is just too hard. It depends though. "20,000" was good and I made up my own questions. I never got a work book with it and it's a story. So I was able to ask "What's you favorite part of the story", "Who's your favorite character", etc. But when you get to something like "Hungry Plants", there's no story. It's all science. And the workbooks for it, "Jefferson", and "Helen Keller" are pretty hard. They have to make their own sentences and do a summary. I have to walk them through it too much.

I'd really like to dummy it down.

[ddeubel]

Do you do the 5 finger rule/thingee? Meaning, if the students encounter 5 words they are unfamiliar with on a page -- they should chuck the book. Just not worth it.

You want to kill two birds with one chop. Get students to encounter challenging language and structure by reading and also enjoy and want to read a lot. You can't do it, if the reading is too high a level. It should always be well under what you think is the right level -- in my opinion.

You can try my book nook and leveled readers on my site. They have worksheets accompanying most of them. Using songs / pictures is also a great way to facilitate reading.

DD

[yingwenlaoshi]

Is anyone teaching this series?