Lesson 4: Listening And Reading: Prepared By Kinsley Ng Sen Fa, Segi College Penang, Program Dece

Lesson 4: Listening and reading

prepared by Kinsley Ng Sen Fa, Segi College Penang, Program DECE

LISTEN!

The goal of good language art program is to guide the young child toward development of advanced listening skills. – E.g. simple rhymes and repetitions and purposeful listening experience.

Responding to stimuli •Awareness •Focus •Discrimination

Stages of listening process

Organizing the stimuli •Sequencing the sound •Synthesizing •scanning

Understanding the meaning •Classification •Integration •monitoring

Appreciative listening

Purposeful listening

-The child finds pleasure in hearing music, poems and stories. It’s personal for each child

The child follows direction ands and gives response

- light listening

Discrimination listening Some of the ways children listen Creative listening - The child’s imagination and emotions are stimulated by her listening experience. Encourage free expressions and action.

Critical listening - The child understands, evaluates, make decisions and formulate opinions. Teacher poses critical question to create conflicts - Socratic method

- The child becomes aware of changes in loudness and pitch. Sounds become differentiated in the environment. The child is able to discriminate the speech sounds.

Learn new skills, such as singing new songs or finger play

Do something for themselves

Tell another how to do something

Purposeful listening activities: encourage the child to listen in order to

•Recall details •See how many names or facts that can remember

Carry a message

Operate some type of toy or equipment

•Moving to music Play background music for certain pursuits

Chanting

Appreciative listening activities – light listening Tapping, clapping and other sounds making activities

•Discuss sounds, rhythm and music

Talking about happy, sad or funny feelings that sounds produce

A probable outcome or guess is prompted A problem is discussed and solutions are offered

Critical listening activities – comprehension + evaluation

Errors are discovered or detected

Personal preference or dislikes are discussed

Group votes are reviewed and outcomes are anticipated

Be a role model Bend and lower ourselves when listening to children

LISTEN to them!

Clear and simple instruction, with a sequence of what comes first, next and last

Use signal to get their attention – toys, or anything produces pleasant sound

Stimulates interest – finger play, short rhyme Encouragement, eye contact and smiles, “it seems everyone is listening; it’s time to begin.”

Teachers’ skills

Silent pause before beginning an activity

Reading !

VS Fun reading - being read to

Imitative reading

Drilling on repetitious reading to train decoding without actual comprehension or appreciation Overemphasized Technical reading

Not age-appropriate Could endanger the child’s budding interest in reading

What precedes and what follows the reading activities

How is this book relevant to children’s lives

How to arouse their interest? – not every child is interested in books

How to gauge their understanding? When considering reading activities…

How to build on their future development

Picture books – big book,

Novelty books – sensory experience, stamp and pasting books, activity books

Teacher/child-made books – self-rewarding and offer sharing experience

Types of books …… and their advantageous features Wordless books – encourage children’s narrative skills

Non-fiction books – provide facts and discussion (how things work and function)

The whole language approach

The natural approach

Reading-teaching methods ! Literature based reading approach

Decoding phonetic approach

Reading-teaching methods !

There is no proven best method. It boils down to the teachers’ enthusiasm and understanding of the method used

Being read to at a young age – the awareness that talk can be written and written talk can be read

Associate with child’s own life – writes own name and significant others of his family – child finds out sound similarities and makes comparisons with unfamiliar words

Ideally: one-to-one child reading – difficult because of group size and multiple responsibilities expected of teachers

Print-rich environment – Teaching reading…

Reading and writing develop as complementary skills – Environment is the most important teaching aid! Give print experience to children.

Environment is the most important teaching aid! Give print experience to children.

Introduce literature elements – knows parts of a book and their functions, components of literature (setting, plot, characters, theme, moral of story)

The natural approach A child learns to read in a literate society as he learned to walk Exposure to classic literature and childauthored literature (writing) are important Encouragement of children’s creative writing as a meaningful approach. E.g. use children’s photos to arouse interest. Can incorporate other approaches such as phonic, linguistic, or sight-word recognition.

The whole language movement Advocates offering children in meaningful and functional literature in full literacy text – appreciative reading! Not worksheet or dotted handouts Writing, listening, reading and speaking activities grow from a child’s experiences / interest and inseparable. Spontaneous conversational exchanges are typical and seen as enhancing / extending learning Focus on meaning not language

Look and see method Identify and memorize words by their shapes and configuration.

Probably confused similar words, such as “June” and “Jane”, Saw” and “Sew”.

Children who are good at noticing slight difference and who have good memories seem to progress and become good readers

Literaturebased approach May use basal reading series or children’s literature Literature permeates the curriculum. Discussion, art, drama and writing related to stories are encouraged

Emphasizes comprehension and sense of the story structure. Children are encouraged to ask questions and give comments

Decodingphonetic approach Based on teaching children the 44 language sounds (phonemes) – 26 alphabet letters and combinations (graphemes) Teach phonemic awareness – words are composed of individual sounds. When children know which sounds are represented by which letter, they can read unknown words. Some words are sight words (car, write)

Evaluation and criticism Whole language approach does not enquire planning and management – lack of instruction in phonics - inability to assess children’s learning progress

Decoding-phonetic approach emphasizes technical reading at the expense of meaningful and appreciative reading – many English words are irregular (sight words)

The print, not the pictures in a book, tells the story

There are alphabet letters

Punctuation makes words have meaning Spaces in printing are there for a reason

Words are clusters of letters Some important cues children gradually understand concerning print…

Alphabet letters exist in uppercase and lowercase

There are first letter and last letters in words