reading games

<b> Forum for discussing activities and games that work well in the classroom </b>

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mathew77
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reading games

Post by mathew77 » Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:52 am

what is a fun and unique way to make reading fun, instead of just making kids read in turns?

mat killmister

mesmark
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Post by mesmark » Tue Aug 16, 2005 11:49 am

I assume you're asking about small dialogs or short exerpts in ESl/EFL books:

You can read and read a word wrong. Then see who is the first student to hear/find the mistake. Once played several times, you can ask students to play the part of the teacher in small groups as a game.

Read as fast as you can to the class and stop abruptly. Have the students tell you the next word. (This is more of a listening and reading exercise for the students not really speaking.)

Have a reading race. Students read the exerpt 2 times and you the teacher read the same thing 5 times. I have everyone stand up and then sit down when finished. It's easier to see the winners. (The game finishes when the teacher finishes. This eliminates the problem of slow readers and their anxiety and pride.) The teacher can also read the exerpt backwards instead of more times. That's my prefered method as it's more interesting for me.

Award winners appropriately: stickers, points, a song from the losers...

I hope that helps.

Mark
www.mes-english.com

Sally Olsen
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Post by Sally Olsen » Sat Aug 20, 2005 8:29 pm

Why are you getting them to read outloud? What are your reasons?

EFLwithlittleones
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reading goals

Post by EFLwithlittleones » Mon Aug 22, 2005 12:40 pm

Ask yourself what you would like students to achieve by reading.

mathew77
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Post by mathew77 » Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:40 pm

To Sally, I am getting them to read out loud to check for pronunciation, understanding and correct emphasis. In light of this do you have any suggestions?

Sally Olsen
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Post by Sally Olsen » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:11 pm

Sounds like good reasons. So it means that you have to hear each student read to be able to judge them in some way - for reports? or for examinations. When they finally have to read, do they have to do it in front of a group or do they do it individually with an examiner? Do you have some type of criteria that you use to judge them for the report? and do you tell them this? It is highly unusual for a country to have this type of exam so I would be interested to know where you are teaching. I personally think that it is another interesting way to evaluate students but is not a garantee that you are getting the true potential of the student. Most countries don't require their students to read out loud in any other subject than English so student find it a new social practice and most are scared stiff of it. This really interferes with their performance so you don't get a true measure. In that case, I don't think it can ever be fun. If they know you are judging, it is time to be serious.
If I am completely off on this Judging thing, then it might be interesting to give over your control of the situation and have the students work in small groups and read to each other and help each other correct pronunciation, understanding and correct emphasis. Put one good student in each group as a peer tutor and circulate around the room, helping as needed. Give them as much support as you can by having them listen to a native speaker reading the passage beforehand and repeating quietly with him/her on the second read through. Of course, it would be even more fun for the reading to be useful and necessary - part of a project that they are doing where each person has gathered information on part of project and reads it to his/her small group. The final presentations for the whole class can be thorougly practised so they are well done in a kind of Toastmasters style. Hopefully the students will be told that at some time in their careers they will have to present their ideas to others and this would be good practice for that situation. If this is not true, then I will try and think of other reasons for them to speak in front of their group. It might be interesting to take a day off your classes and sit in with some of the student's classes and see how much reading outloud they do in other classes. Quiz shows are a lot of fun and require speaking out loud - there is a super Korean English quiz show that is a good model for this kind of things and the kids love it.

Senorita Daniels
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Post by Senorita Daniels » Sat Sep 10, 2005 5:54 pm

Read backwards, last word first, and first last. I learned this from a reading specialist, and it does work. They can memorize a story, but can prove that they can read by doing this. After doing this once with a good reader in my reading class, he wanted to do it all the time. It also sounds funny, so the others can laugh without hurting anyone's feelings.

Sally Olsen
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Post by Sally Olsen » Sat Sep 10, 2005 7:18 pm

It sounds like fun to read backwards but I wonder if it proves they can read. It would satisfy Matt's criteria for pronunciation, emphasis and understanding of words but this is not reading. Too many students read word by word by then can't remember what the sentence was about. If you have them read two or three sentences and then tell you in their own words what they read, it might be a better check for reading.

Senorita Daniels
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Post by Senorita Daniels » Mon Oct 03, 2005 6:15 pm

I would read backwards only after we've read the story forwards a few times at the end of the year, and my group did have one native speaker kindergartener who needed a challenge too. After I had this student read backwards, the others thought that it was cool and had to try it. At this point of the year, the one who had no English in Sept. knew the meanings of the words we were reading. The other child already was bilingual and just was learning to read. I had struggling readers read forward more than backward.

Glenski
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Post by Glenski » Tue Oct 04, 2005 8:57 pm

How old are the kids, and what level are they?

Senorita Daniels
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Post by Senorita Daniels » Mon Oct 10, 2005 5:19 pm

The kids were 5- 7 years old. The two in kindergarten were repeating the grade. All of them were learning to read. One of them is actually a native English speaker, but since he was in the same classroom as the ELL kindergartener and doing the same work, we thought that it would be easiest on everyone's schedules to just have them in the same group until someone from the state complained that the native speaker shouldn't have been in my class. Everyone was learning to read, so that kept the playing field even. The other was in first grade, and he was repeating the grade also. His old school in CA didn't realize that he needed ESL until the third trimester.

Liumayer
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I also have some good ideas.

Post by Liumayer » Wed Oct 12, 2005 1:53 am

You can find many ways to make reading fun.
For example:
Giving students some questions to discuss before they read.
Making students guess what they will read according to the topic and some pictures.
Making students draw some pictures for what they have read.
Mayer

Macavity
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Post by Macavity » Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:37 am

Something that works well and is a lot of fun is: Make a photocopy of a short story/text, then cut it up into fairly random "chunks" of varying sizes making sure that no page numbers are left showing. Next photocopy these so that each "chunk" is on a separate sheet (this stops the students looking at the way the paper has been cut for clues as to how it fits together!). Hand out the photocopies - now in a mixed up order - and get the class to put the story into the correct order. If you are using specific ESL material there are usually questions to answer, e.g. "Who was telling lies to the inspector?". You can make 2 sets and put the class into groups and see who gets the answer first, etc. My students love this sort of thing.

Rawgreenpower
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reading

Post by Rawgreenpower » Sat Nov 12, 2005 10:57 pm

in this Hakwan - the level of one of my reading classes is such that they are competing for attention now.
So in addition to working for points - and games - to creat incentives,
We are trying this week to try to add something more interesting in the mix.
So I am going to burn a CD - which in Korea kids like and then see if working in pairs that gets more comprehensio.

shelly999
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reading games

Post by shelly999 » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:39 am

Hi, I think you can design some interesting and interactive games to encourage students to read. The most important thing is to select the appropriate and interesting reading materials. These materials are not too hard or too easy. The materials should be suitable for their reading level. And the materials are closely connected with their daily life and what they are interested in. Then you can organize a discussion after they read. And you should provide a comfortable environment. When they make mistakes, you need not correct them immediately. You should encourage they tell what they think about the reading materials. Before they read, you can provide some background information to help them read.

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