Is it advisable to develop reading skills with young learners?
Taking into
account my experience working with children from 6 to 12 years old I will say without
any doubt that it is possible and absolutely advisable but depends on teacher´s activities and the
frequency of those. Maybe is harder to develop this skill with the youngest
because at this age they haven´t learnt at all reading and writing in their L1,
but according to Ravinder reading “is a cognitive process that involves
decoding symbols to arrive at meaning" in my view symbols not only involve letters but also pictures to create a meaning and little learners are experts at doing that, reading was considered a receptive and passive task but new researches have shown that it isn't, is an active process of
constructing meanings of words and there must be interaction between the reader (audience)- reading - author.
Sometimes I don't feel confident with reading task for students from 9 to 12 years because I think that they are not ready to read by themselves and I should guide their reading because the "reader's book" that they get is quite difficult to follow the story for their level but now I got many ideas and I realized the importance of developing a pre- , while- and pos- reading task based on my students development and not to expect to read pages and pages in a single class I want to start trying with just a paragraph and then go for two paragraph and so on.
Sometimes I don't feel confident with reading task for students from 9 to 12 years because I think that they are not ready to read by themselves and I should guide their reading because the "reader's book" that they get is quite difficult to follow the story for their level but now I got many ideas and I realized the importance of developing a pre- , while- and pos- reading task based on my students development and not to expect to read pages and pages in a single class I want to start trying with just a paragraph and then go for two paragraph and so on.
However, another way to approach my youngest learners from 6 to 8 years old and that I love is "storytelling", I guess that I am good at doing it because when I see my students' face at the end of the story they look so happy and if I ask the comprehension questions about it they do it right, even though I can do it better, I enjoyed the lessons when teacher Christina was reading even a small part of the story, she made me draw the picture of the scene, and I realized that the pace of reading, the tone of voice and the intonation are key points while doing storytelling.
Finally storytelling is only one way to make reading pleasurable for students but there are many others. Storytelling must fulfill some characteristics to make it successful like intonation, body language while reading, characterization and it must be appropriated to listeners. I used to do it without considering those aspects and then I realized that my students were not able to understand the story or worse they didn´t enjoy it but it was because I used to choose story that I liked not based on my student´s preferences or the level was higher but I have tried to change those and make better decisions.
Finally storytelling is only one way to make reading pleasurable for students but there are many others. Storytelling must fulfill some characteristics to make it successful like intonation, body language while reading, characterization and it must be appropriated to listeners. I used to do it without considering those aspects and then I realized that my students were not able to understand the story or worse they didn´t enjoy it but it was because I used to choose story that I liked not based on my student´s preferences or the level was higher but I have tried to change those and make better decisions.
This is just wonderful that you have made so many connections to help with best practices for you and your students. It response to a couple of things that you said-- first of all, I think that it is best to do a variety of different types of readings with your students even the ones that are 9 years old, let's say. Sometimes, yes, read to them or guide them, but sometimes, let them try on their own (of course when you are giving them something to read on their own, give them something a bit of a lower level than if you were to read to them since you can scaffold it so that they can understand even more). And lastly, all of those aspects of storytelling are so very important, so just by considering those and then actually practicing all of that together with something that your students might really be interested in, will make all the difference in the world!
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