...Extensive Reading: Why? and How? Timothy Bell timothy [at] hsc.kuniv.edu.kw Kuwait University ------------------------------------------------- Abstract An extensive reading program was established for elementary level language learners at the British Council Language Center in Sanaa, Yemen. Research evidence for the use of such programs in EFL/ESL contexts is presented, emphasizing the benefits of this type of input for students' English language learning and skills development. Practical advice is then offered to teachers worldwide on ways to encourage learners to engage in a focused and motivating reading program with the potential to lead students along a path to independence and resourcefulness in their reading and language learning. ------------------------------------------------- Introduction: The Reading Program An extensive reading program was established at the British Council Language Center in Sanaa, Yemen. An elementary level class of government employees (age range 17-42) was exposed to a regime of graded readers, which was integrated into normal classroom teaching. Students followed a class reader, had access to a class library of graded readers, and had classes in the British Council library, which gave them access to a collection of 2000 titles. Questionnaires were used to examine students' reading interests, habits and attitudes, both prior to, and following the program. The class library contained 141 titles in the published readers of some major publishers...
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...Action Research Context Colleen Whylie Shovanna Holman In 2007, thirty four percent of New York Public School fourth grade students were reading below basic reading levels (National Reading Report, 2007). This shows that schools need to experiment with different literacy programs that will improve reading skills and fluency. Using technology-based literacy (E-Books) can increase student’s reading skills and fluency because technology is interactive, includes visual and audio effects, which can help students, stay focused while reading. My research topic is based on literacy in the classroom and how well children interpret reading with technology. The classroom consist thirty-three children of different race and background. Teachers will have classrooms set up with smart boards and iPads so each child will get individual learning. The location of the school is located in Bronx New York. The National Reading Report has been showing a high percentage of below basic reading scores on the fourth grade-reading test in New York City Public Schools. The City can try implementing new literacy programs to help increase student-reading scores. Upgrading literacy technology is one way schools can attempt to increase the literacy scores of the student population. Electronic books are one type of literacy technology that schools use to improve technological literacy in the classroom. These books have a variety of video animation, sound and voice effects, which hold student’s attention...
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...Literacy Blog Adult literacy means ‘’ using printed and written information to function is society, to achieve ones goals and to develop one’s knowledge and potential’. It also means being in a state of being literate especially in reading and writing. In 2003 the U.S department of education did an estimate in adult literacy and there were 93 Billion adults in USA who had basic and below literacy skills. People living in poverty, Adults who didn’t finish high school and foreign born are mostly in this category. Adult literacy is very important. Adults who are literate are employed with a full time job, can read to their children, use internet and access information just like its mention in the National Coalition for literacy. People with literacy tend to hide it and not tell anyone because they think others will taunt them about it but it’s better to get help like tony said in the video ‘’There is no shame in getting help’’. People just need a reinforcement. It is hard at first to tell everybody just like how tony said ‘’ I had the number for so long in my pocket but never called’’ but then he decided to get help and now has improved so much in his writing and reading. Adults with literacy think they can hide it and don’t realize that it’s inevitable because this plays a huge part in their life. Work cited pwcottawa. "Adult Literacy Learner Shares His Story." Youtube,com. N.p., 09 July 2011. Web. Kutner, M., Greenberg, E., Jin, Y., Boyle, B., Hsu, Y., and Dunleavy, E...
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...Reading is an afterthought. You do it everyday nearly constantly: the morning news, a menu, street signs, and a book before bed. A problem with reading is that not everyone learns at the same rate and can be left behind if they do not read at their expected grade level. For this reason, I decided to join SuperStar Literacy as a volunteer. SuperStar Literacy is a nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California. It aims to improve the reading skills of underprivileged students in the Bay Area. The organization hopes to lower dropout rates and create a stable foundation for later learning. I was able to join the organization as a student tutor and had one of the best experiences of my life. Two of my friends and myself would go to a...
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...Maximizing independent reading: helping students think within, beyond, and about texts in a reading workshop • A literate life is carefully constructed from early experiences in setting that have characteristics like these: o Reading is seen as a productive and valued activity in the place children live and work. o People in children’s lives talk with one another about reading. o Wide varieties of text are readily available • Independent reading is a context within which children can see themselves as readers and build habits that can last a lifetime. • Learning first, then achievement, then testing The goal of independent reading • An important part of teaching literacy is providing daily opportunities for students to read, on their own, books they have selected themselves. • Independent reading help students: o Learn to exercise choice as a reader o Develop the habit of spending significant time reading. o Processing a large number of text on a regular basis Kindergarten and Grade 1 o Children Behave like readers Remember and think about the ideas in the text Internalize the language Expand vocabulary by using the text o Independent reading activities may include: Rereading poems students have experienced in shared reading Rereading books previously experienced in shared reading Rereading from individual/group book boxes Reading with partners Reading with a partners – single text Reading selections from the classroom Late...
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...Dawn Shakespeare February 18, 2014 Synthesis of Literacy According to Street (2006), what may be deemed as the “New Literary Studies” may in fact represent a new tradition about the nature of literary, stressing not so much on literacy as a mental technology (applied technology) or a set of qualified skills and competencies but rather on “what it means to think of literacy as a social practice”. In their paper “Toward a Theory of New Literacies Emerging from the Internet and Other Information and Communication Technologies,” Leu et al. (2004) arrive at the same conclusion. According to them, the three basic elements of literacy – reading, reading instruction, and literacy instruction – are undergoing abrupt changes as new technologies acquire new literacies to fundamentally alter the ways in which literacies are exploited for the good. Street’s model does not isolate cultural and ideological assumptions that underlie this ‘new autonomous model of literacy.’ The purpose of which cannot be overstated. Recent research in new literacy studies suggests literary practices vary across cultural spaces and thus the effects of the different literacies vary by context. For Leu et al. (2004), new literacies not only change intermittently (with the emergence of new communication technologies) but also as responses to certain cultural challenges. However, the emphasis is different. In Street’s paper, the emphasis is on engaging social literacies with social acts (inside and outside the...
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...How Children Learn To Read Krisy Green Ashford University Author Note This research assignment is being submitted on March 4, 2013 for Professor Lisa Edmunds EDU411 Reading & Cognition course How Children Learn To Read The success of a child’s educational future is dependent upon their ability to read, and without their ability to read, a person cannot enjoy all this world has to offer, such as reading about world history, reading a letter from a friend, or learning a new language. Reading unlocks doors that would otherwise be locked forever. In recent years, there has been a great deal of debates on the methods used to teach our children how to read; parents and teachers need to determine whether the whole language, phonics, or the combination of both methods is the most adequate approach for teaching children how to read. Thomas Hopkins Galluadet first developed the whole language method in the early 1800s. The method was originally developed for deaf mutes because they were completely unaware of phonetic sounds for letters. The whole language method teaches children how to read with complete words, rather than breaking them into parts or syllables. Children are repeatedly drill with simple words until they can recognize the by sight, and then they are introduce to more complicated words. The whole language approach is considered more creative and interesting for a child who is eager to learn. In a whole language learning environment...
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...Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 Background of the Study In today’s global world, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored since English is the most common language spoken everywhere. Besides, English is a widely studied foreign language (Richards & Rodgers: 1995). So English is learned not only as a single language but also as a key medium of instruction to decide upon the students’ further life to be competent enough to cope with the 21century(Genenen: 2011). In the EFL context, language learning is seen as a process that requires opportunities for learners to participate in communication where making meaning is a primary goal. Reading is one of the language skills which students need to develop and the most important of all the four language skills. Students’ academic success and their language proficiency depend largely on their ability to read and comprehend the textbook and notes they receive in different subjects (Getachew: 1996). Though reading is not the only skill to be taught in the language classroom, it is definitely the most important for many ESL/EFL learners (Grabe2002). So, reading in a second or foreign language setting continues to have an increasingly important role. Traditionally, reading comprehension lessons have centered on a passage of text followed by questions. But the questions were usually designed to find out whether the students had understood, rather than to facilitate understanding. In other words, they were devices for testing...
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... That isn’t to say that these common bonds are not important because they ultimately became the catalyst that lead me to my “sponsor of literacy”. In her essay Brandt refers to Joseph Kett’s description of the intellectual atmosphere available to young printing apprentices of antebellum America. “Because printers also were the solicitors and editors of what they published, their workshops also served as incubators of literacy and political discourse.” (Brandt 44) In my own personal experience I can draw many parallels to this type of atmosphere. Even though my formative years on my journey to literacy was wrought with many challenges and struggles, it was exactly this type of unique experience that propelled and inspired me when I applied for an internship at TransCapital Bank of Moscow. My time at TransCapital Bank, much like these printing apprentices, began to motivate me in a way that changed my personal path to literacy forever and ultimately my place here at The University of Miami, and my seat in this classroom. I think it is also important to look at the foundation my school system provided for me. Starting with elementary school and at a very young age my teachers used their influence to push us as students to learn to read and to excel in this endeavor. It started with reading out loud in front of my peers. I remember a distinct pressure placed upon me by both the exercise and myself to make sure I was not going to struggle reading in front of my classmates...
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...life that distinguish us from humans of 5000 years ago. Literate engagement is also associated with forms of belief, commitment, and consciousness that shape modern personality. Yet the study of writing--its production, its circulation, its uses, its role in the development of individuals and societies, and its learning by individuals, social collectives, and historically emergent cultures--remains a dispersed enterprise. Inquiry into skills, practices, objects, and consequences of reading and writing is the concern of only a few people, fragmented across university disciplines, with no serious home of its own. How is it that all this enormity is the interest of a few linguistic anthropologists, a very few psychologists, an occasional sociologist, scattered cultural historians and scholars, some applied linguists, some education researchers, and an increasing but still limited number of people in the teaching of writing in higher education? It is as though universities had no departments of psychology--in denial that cognition and affect were significant and worth organized energetic inquiry--or no departments of sociology--denying that society had any significant and regular impact on our lives worth studying--or economics, or mathematics, or physics or biology. These disciplines address fundamental issues in the...
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...Domestic Research on Backwash of English Language Testing: Review and Prospective —— Analysis of Six Major Journals of Linguistics from 2003-2013 Contents Abstract ……………………………………………………………………….....1 1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………….......2 2 The Scope of Information Retrieval ...…………………………………….....3 3 Current Situations of Washback Research………………………….……….3 3.1 Research Amount……………………………………………………….....4 3.2 Research Methods………………………………………………………....4 3.3 Research Content……………………………………………………….....5 3.3.1 CET 4& 6………………………………………………………………5 3.3.2 TEM 4&8………………………………………………………………6 3.3.3 NMET…………………………………………………………...…..…6 3.3.4 Language Testing and Washback Resear….………………………...…..…6 3.3.5 Others…………………………………………………………...….…..7 4 Problems of Current Research on Wachback………………..……………….7 4.1 Quantity ………………………………………………………………….....7 4.2 Content …………………………………………………………………......7 4.3 Objects ………………………………………………………..…...……......8 5 Suggestions and Prospective for Future Research on Washback…..…….......8 5.1 Research Objects…………………………………………………………….8 5.2 Research Methods……………………………………………………….......8 5.3 Research Content……………………………………………………………9 6 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………9 References……………………………………………..………………………....10 Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………..….11 Abstract: ...
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...The importance of reading On many of the other pages of advice on this site I have emphasized how important reading is as far as learning English is concerned. However, there is a further, very important reason why ESL students should try to develop their reading skills: Educational researchers have found that there is a strong correlation between reading and academic success.* In other words, a student who is a good reader is more likely to do well in school and pass exams than a student who is a weak reader. Good readers can understand the individual sentences and the organizational structure of a piece of writing. They can comprehend ideas, follow arguments, and detect implications. They know most of the words in the text already, but they can also determine the meaning of many of the unfamiliar words from the context - failing this, they can use their dictionary effectively to do so. In summary, good readers can extract from the writing what is important for the particular task they are employed in. And they can do it quickly! Educational researchers have also found a strong correlation between reading and vocabulary knowledge. In other words, students who have a large vocabulary are usually good readers. This is not very surprising, since the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read extensively, and if you read extensively you are likely to be or become a good reader! So if you want your child to be successful at school encourage him or her to read. Reading non-fiction...
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...Originally published in The Literacy Practitioner (Volume 4, # 1, February, 1997). Literacy Volunteers of America - New York State Communicative Competence and Second language Teaching: Lessons Learned from the Bangalore Project A review of N.S. Prabhu (1987) Second Language Pedagogy by N.S. Prabhu. 1987. New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press N. S Prabhu's objectives in Second Language Pedagogy are twofold: to present the “communicative comptence” theory of second language acquisition, and to describe the Bangalore Project which consisted of a small number of elementary and secondary English classes in India. This five-year project, which illustrates the importance of grounding practice in theory, is relevant for adult ESL programs like Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA) because of its transition from direct instruction to communicative competence through “meaning making” in real contexts. Prabhu’s book is full with provocative insight about second language acquisition (SLA) that practitioners and theorists would do well to explore whether or not they agree with all of Prabhu’s assumptions. One purpose of the Bangalore Project was to develop a methodology in a “sustained teaching” environment consistent with theory in part as a way of refining the theory, but also to shape practice according to a specific theoretical framework. This kind of interaction between theory and practice is a special concern among teacher researchers in the United States (Cochran- ...
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...Miscue Analysis Rhonda Lacefield EDU K-555 Instructor: Sherrie Ashley 12-7-11 Language and Reading Assessments Student Demographics Zavvyona is a 9 year old female who is currently in the fourth grade. She receives instruction in reading, math, science and social studies in a fourth grade classroom daily. Reading instruction is considered Balanced Literacy with provisions such as guided, shared, and independent reading, literacy centers, and writing workshops. Student does not have an Individualized Education Plan, therefore is not in need of special education services. After reviewing current and past marking period grades this student does have a weakness in the area of reading. Most of the student’s weakness is in the area of comprehension. Running Record Assessment Since Zavvyona is a fourth grade student but has trouble with comprehension, I decided to begin at Level A with Running Record Assessment. The results of the assessments are as follows: Level A (32 words – 0 error): 100% accuracy, 100% comprehension Level B (55 words – 0 errors): 100% accuracy, 100% comprehension Level C (79 words) – 1errors): 99% accuracy, 95% comprehension Level D (129 words – 2 errors): 98% accuracy, 95% comprehension Level E (198 words-5 errors): 89% accuracy; 95% comprehension, 100% vocabulary Level F (220 words-4 errors): 90% accuracy, 85% comprehension, 100% vocabulary Miscue Analysis Determining Independent Reading Level Based upon the above results, Zavvyona...
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...portfolio | |Subject: |EML110 English Curriculum: Understanding Language and Literacy | | |This subject introduces foundational concepts about language and literacy as sociocultural practices, and theories and models of language acquisition and early literacy | | |development. Students will explore contextual factors that impact language and literacy development such as cultural and linguistic diversity, and the influence of | | |globalisation and new technologies on literacy teaching and learning. Students will critically engage with English Curriculum documents to understand the intent and | | |organisation of English through the strands of language, literacy and literature. Students will develop core practices related to collecting, analysing and interpreting | | |data in order to understand children's early language and literacy experiences in a range of contexts. They will connect these experiences to pedagogical approaches that | | |support literacy learning in...
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