Most Common ESL Reading Problems

melissaredhead · Post by **melissaredhead** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:04 pm

In your opinions and experiences, what are the most common reading problems affecting ELL's? Phonological, cultural? What do you think?
Thanks

joshua2004 · Post by **joshua2004** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 11:46 pm

I think the biggest and most troublesome problem facing any ELL student is a perception that they "can't" learn another language. This happens to many students who learn English through bad teaching practices. For example: they are over corrected, corrected but don't understand the correction, told they are dumb or stupid (it happens!).

cgage · Post by **cgage** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:40 pm

It depends on where they come from to a certain extent. Those who have another alphabet have a tremendous amount to overcome. All of my students are Latino. Not only do they have the same alpha, the also share a number of cognates. My students can already read in English. So their problem can be almost reduced to that of AMerican students that can't read well. And that is lack of interest or motivation. Find out what they're interested in and provide them with books on that subject. If you want to see some boys read real fast, give them some dinosaur books. Also, computer phonics games are extremely popular. My students beg to play the games. Little kids like rhyming stories especially about animals. Examples: Is Your Mama a Llama? or More Spaghetti I Say. They memorize quickly and will repeat with you, following the text with their eyes thus gaining skill.
good luck