November 2009

volume

9•

issue

3

• CONTENTS • Volume 9 Issue 3

3 Editor’s Note 4 Children Domain Once upon a time, there was a tune. by José Luis De Paz.

6 Teaching Teens

Motivating adolescents to read by Violeta Manzanares

9 Great Teachers Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Penguin Active Reading

7 Language NET

What do we give to our students when we teach reading? by Mónica Pérez

12 Special Contributions Your child’s vocabulary: what every parent should know

by Mauricio Ortega

Todos a leer 2009 by Fabiola Alvarado & Dante Segura

16 Bulletin Board

Senior Editor: Sherry Pérez Editor: Dante Segura Design: Mpro/

LDG Marcela Moncada

Longman

Pre-Primary / Primary / Secondary Young Adult / Adult Business and Professional English Cambridge ESOL exams TOEFL / TOEIC exams Multimedia Courses Online Subscription Sites Multimedia / Video Grammar and Structure Dictionaries / Skills English Speaking World Literature and Linguistics Materials for language Teachers Longman ELT Classics Other Titles

2 • TWO

Scott Foresman

Reading Language Arts Science Mathematics Social Studies Art / Music ESL Bilingual Pre-K

Penguin

Penguin Readers Penguin Young Readers

Prentice Hall

Language Arts Science Mathematics Social Studies Modern & Classical Languages

• EDITOR‘S NOTE •

Dear Teachers: I’m sure that you will enjoy this Classroom Link, Volume 9, Issue 3 just as much I have…IT’S ALL ABOUT READING! Reading is one of those habits not too easy to develop. Here is some great information on the subject.

for you. I know you will find it mostly interesting. I highly recommend our GREAT TEACHER’S section. There is just no better way to October and November than with Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, and Penguin Readers. I love this book!

Mónica Pérez shares with us “What Do we Give to Our Students When we Teach Reading?” and Mauricio Ortega gives us the adaptation of “Your Child’s Vocabulary: What Every Parent Should Know”. Both are excellent options to check out. José Luis de Paz has great ideas for us all, in his article “Once Upon a Time, There Was a Tune”. If motivating teens to read is your problem, Violeta Manzanares has something

3 • THREE

I am also very proud to share with you our recent Reading record “Todos a Leer 2009” in which more than 40 countries participated. An awesome day it was, October 8th. Read all about it! Teacher, just keep in mind that the more we read, the more we learn. So grab a book and travel, dream, discover, learn…read! Like I said: Teaching reading is not an easy task, but a very rewarding one… Knowing how to read is one of the greatest things that can happen to a human being.

Sherry Pérez Senior Editor Classroom Link

• CHILDREN DOMAIN •

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usic plays an important role in the lives of human beings. Story-telling has often been regarded as an indispensable element for enhancing our teaching and crucial to instill a good taste for reading at an early age. Youngsters at the beginning of their school years enjoy listening to stories, but if these are accompanied by music, the story becomes a memorable experience. From classics to modern tales, music has been a determinant factor to bring characters and events to life.

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Once upon a T ime, . e n u T a s a W e Ther is

José Lu

Music

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. Acad De Paz

Classics

In the past, no story was ever conceived without music. Hoffmann’s master piece, ‘The Nutcracker and the Mouse King’, might not have been remembered in latest generations if Tchaikovsky had not added music to this marvelous story, a classic on Christmas days. In modern times, in 1936, Sergei Prokofiev contributed to the art of music and storytelling when he created ‘Peter and the Wolf’’. Different instruments brought to life the characters in this unforgettable story. Films would be a tasteless experience if producers did not take into account the importance of the soundtrack. John Williams, Ennio Morricone, and even rock bands have contributed to the fantasy of music in the stories we see at the movies.

Music

in my experience

During different sessions when I have read stories to children as one of the guest story-tellers in the program ‘READ FOR THE RECORD’, sponsored by JUMPSTART and Pearson Foundation, I have used different tunes to help children visualize the story they are reading. Therefore, I conclude that you do not need to be a musician to liven up your stories in the classroom. Nevertheless, you

definitely need to tune up your ears and be ready to engage your students in the story you want to read.

Getting Started! To have an easy-start, play different tunes, probably some musical themes from different films, and ask children to remember the movie. Then move on to musical appreciation, by playing different classical master pieces and ask your students what they imagine when they listen to the music. Try with ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ by Modest Mussorgsky; this is a beautiful and colorful master-piece that will stimulate children’s imagination.

Process Writing

in

Action!

Ask children to picture the characters and atmosphere in different situations. They should write brief notes about these—Brainstorming. Then, with your direction ask them to organize these ideas into a more coherent story— Organization. Check their ideas and ask them to work in teams to integrate and create a new version – Editing. Ask them to complete their stories and play the music while they read it Publish. Next time you read anything, try using some good music to get them hooked on your reading. Experiment and see the results, children will never see reading as tedious time again.

5 • FIVE

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• CHILDREN DOMAIN •

• TEACHING TEENS •

Motivating Adolescents to Read “M

Violeta Manzanares. Academic Consultant

otivating our teenagers in class”. During our everyday teaching how many times do we have that phrase in our mind? Think about it, many times I bet. Motivation is probably one of our main concerns when it comes to teaching adolescents. And that is not all, I’ll give you some food for thought; “Teaching Literature” Now, teaching literature and keeping your students motivated can be a real nightmare. Well, it does not have to be like that; as teachers we should look forward to new teaching horizons, new tools and fresh ideas that we can use and that can help us make a connection with our students, making the most of our classes, our teaching and their learning, because Literature is said to enlarge and enlighten the mind. In today’s world literature books have changed for our better teaching, becoming not just reading books, but evolved into collages full of images, characters, award-winning authors, great literature, and also expanding the vision and understanding of the world we live in, but most of all, effective instruction, which will help; keep our classes interesting and enjoyable for everyone in class. In Prentice Hall Literature Penguin Edition, I found a quote that I think says in very few words what we want literature to be; “something that can be read in an hour and remembered a lifetime” by Stephen Vincent Benet; which is what our new generations need and look forward to. Literature is a subject that requires: many competences, skills, abilities, love for teaching, for reading, a vivid imagination, feelings and emotions. It has to be taught naturally, so students can relate to the reading at an emotional level. One of our main jobs as teachers is to transmit our love for literature, the emotion of a poem, imagination to a fiction story, drama to a play and the courage of epic historical heroes. In addition to all the benefits of teaching literature, keep in 6 • SIX

mind that this is probably the only subject that may create a true long-lasting bond among everybody in class. Motivation, teens and literature can be a great combination especially when it is shared and dialogic (involving the learners to the reading); and it will not matter how old our students are, there will always be something there to read for every student. Literature has been part of our world forever, so I want to leave you teachers with a sense of greatness—for all the effort you put in your teaching and with the feeling that what you do for your students is important— with this thought by the Muslim scholar and philosopher Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq (702-765 AD) where he defined “literature” as follows: “Literature is the garment which one puts on what he says or writes, so that it may appear more attractive.” He added that literature is a slice of life.

LANGUAGE NET • • • •GREAT TEACHERS

What Do We Give to Our Students when We Teach Reading? Mónica Pérez. Academic Consultant

T

eaching reading is one of the most important tasks a teacher can share with students, since it is a language skill students will practice and develop during lifetime. In order to understand about reading and how to teach it, two higlights can be mentioned. Goodman’s work (1970) became the cornerstone of reading methodology (Brown 2007). He described the mental procedures that readers might follow and called them the bottom-up and the top-down processing.

• In the bottom-up process, readers use linguistic data-processing mechanisms (letters, syllables, etc) to organize and understand the information they are receiving. This can be seen as the traditional reading class.

• In the top-down process, readers draw their own intelligence to understand the text. These highlights are used in one way or another; it is only a matter of becoming aware of the benefits each one can bring. There are some theories about how to teach reading. The schema theory is among them. It says that the printed material means nothing unless it has the information contributed by the reader. This can be linked to the top-down process, in which students bring their previous knowledge in order to understand the new material. Teachers can identify the students’ needs in order to choose the focus that best suits the class and add it to the schema theory to get a meaningful class. 7 • SEVEN

• LANGUAGE NET • One more issue that can really help students is learning about the use of strategies. These are the tools they can use in order to have a better understanding of the material they are reading. Some strategies are:

• To differentiate between intensive and extensive reading. When doing intensive reading, students must understand the whole text, mainly because they need the information for a specific purpose. In most of the cases it is an academic one. As a matter of fact, 70% of the texts in the tests are non-fiction. When practicing extensive reading, students have a chance to relax and read just because they want to do so.

• Skimming is quickly running one’s eyes across the whole text, just to have an idea. Scanning is searching for a particular piece of information.

• Inferring the meaning of the words using the context is very helpful. This can help students to understand a text without using the dictionary to get the meaning of every single word they find difficult.

• Increasing vocabulary. Research has shown that the more words students know, the better understanding they can develop. In some cases great strategies are useless if they don’t have enough vocabulary. Being aware of the use of high frequency words can also be very useful. Among the benefits students get from learning reading and learning reading strategies you can find a better understanding of what they read, a noticeable spelling improvement, and a better use of grammar and punctuation. When students understand what they do, they learn to love it.

References:

• Brown H Douglas; Teaching by Principles. Longman, White Plains, 2007 • Harmer Jeremy; How to teach English. Longman Harlow, 2009 8 • EIGHT

• GREAT TEACHERS •

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The novel is for children and it was published in 1993 with the name Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas: A Novel. It is based on director Tim Burton’s famous film, released in 1993. This animated musical was one of the top ten family movies in 1993.

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Background

and themes

This story presents several themes related to values: • Collaboration: Everybody in town helped in some way to find Jack or to contribute to Christmas. • Love: Talking about love is not enough to know what it is. Love has to be felt. • Friendship: Friends can help in good and hard times. • Justice: Justice prevails and Oogie Boogie is killed. • Stereotypes: Bad and ugly are not the same thing. Appearances can be deceptive. Witches and vampires are considered to be bad characters but they helped Jack all along.

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PENGUIN ACTIVE READING Teacher Support Programme

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• Open communication: People can take action if they know what is going on. Being able to communicate is of key

importance to keep any group of people working together. • Good intentions: if people realize somebody’s intentions are good and honest, they will find a way to make things work and to correct mistakes. Discussion activities

Chapters 1–2 Before

reading

Discuss: Have students talk about the book cover. Guide them with these questions. Is it fact or fiction? What can you see? Why is there a hat? Whose is the hat? Is there love in this story? Discuss: Have students talk about what makes them afraid. Do monsters scare you? Do animals make you afraid? Imagine you’re 5 years old. What scares you? Now imagine you’re twenty. What can make you afraid? Think about stories. Which are scary stories? Why do people read scary stories?

• GREAT TEACHERS •

Guess: Have students make a list of the words they think will appear in the story. Have the students dictate the words to you. According to the number of times each word is mentioned, decide on the most popular. Ask students to keep this list while they read. Read carefully: Have students read the lines in italics after the title of Chapter 1. Who is Jack Skellington? What is he like? What’s boring? Why is it boring? What’s his dog like? Is the hat in the cover his? Who is the scariest skeleton? Have students focus on the word skeleton and Jack’s last name to see if they can find any connection.

After

reading

Guess: Have students check (•) the words they have found. Tell them to add more words to their list if they feel it is necessary.

Chapters 3–4 After

reading

Discuss: Have students discuss typical Christmas plans. If Christmas is not celebrated, think of any other important celebration. If the class is multicultural, different students can tell the rest about their celebrations. These questions can help the discussion: What do you usually do at...? What do families do? What’s the real meaning of the celebration?

10 • TEN

Guess: Have students check (•) the words they have found. Students can go back to the words they haven’t found yet and discuss why they are not related to the story. Research: Find information about Christmas. Jack wants to understand Christmas. Make a list of different pieces of information about Christmas.

Chapters 5–6 Before

reading

Guess: Have students read the title and the lines below and have them try to predict what will happen next. Guide them with these questions. What’s Jack’s great idea? What is he going to do? How is he going to celebrate Christmas? What are different people going to do to help? Have students make a list of characters and tasks. This chart can help.

After

reading

Check: Have students check their predictions. In the third column in the chart above, students write a check if their predictions were OK.

Chapters 7–8 Before

reading

Guess: What is going to happen? Have students look at the picture on page 28. Who can you see? What are they doing? Why is Jack showing Sally a picture of a Santa Claus suit? What is Sally going to do?

• GREAT TEACHERS •

After

Chapters 11–12 Before reading

reading

Check: Have students go back to their predictions about the picture on page 28. Were you right? Why is Jack showing Sally the picture? What is Sally going to do? Read carefully: Tell students to turn to page 4 and make a list of each door and its decoration. Ask students: What mistakes can the three boys make? Imagine they go to the Thanksgiving door. Can they get Santa Claus? What can they get?

Chapters 9–10 After

reading

Discuss: Have students talk about toys. You can guide the discussion with the following questions: When do children get toys? Do older people get toys? When? Why? What toys do older people like? What toys are good and what toys are bad? Why?

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Vocabulary activities For the Word list and vocabulary activities, go to www.penguinreaders.com.

u c h e P i c t ur e s

Discuss: Have students imagine a new movie is being made of the story. Ask students to discuss what actors and actresses are perfect to take the role of: Jack Oogie Boogie Sally the Mayor Santa Claus witches vampires.

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11 • ELEVEN

Discuss: Have students talk about Oogie Boogie and imagine his house. Ask students to describe his house. Why is it scary?

While

reading

Guess: What’s going to happen? Ask Ss to look at the picture on page 53. What’s going to happen?

After

reading

Discuss: Have students talk about the book cover. Go back to the questions in Activity 1. Ask students if they were right in their predictions. Research: Have students watch the movie and make a list of similarities and differences as regards: character description, problems, end of the story.

• SPECIAL CONTRIBUTIONS •

Your Child’s Vocabulary: What Every Parent Should Know Mauricio Ortega. Academic Consultant. Adapted from Dr. Camille L. Z. Blachowicz

Did

you know...

• That a young child’s spoken or oral vocabulary is about two years ahead of their reading vocabulary? • That three-year olds who are read to, whose parents’ love and value reading and take special care to explain the meaning of new words to their children, have a lifelong advantage? • That research has demonstrated that these youngsters come to preschool with more advanced vocabularies than children whose parents don’t share this passion for reading. In fact, these three-year olds have heard 30 million more words than the non-reading parent group.

What

does this mean?

Simple. It means that parents and teachers can make a difference. Even if the difference in vocabulary knowledge may seem to be a disadvantage it is not an indication of a child’s mental capacity. It is directly related to the young child’s home experience and early education. Studies have discovered that when children from homes y c a r e it low-l low-literacy homes are dren from when chil oms o r s placed in literacy rich clas rich y c a er classrooms with teachers n lit ced i a l p are ers who incorporate vocabulary read sful s e succ instruction as part of learning to come e b y a m read they may become successful readers. they 12 • TWELVE

• SPECIAL CONTRIBUTIONS •

How

can you make a difference?

• Reading aloud to children is a proven way for giving them the opportunities to develop new and meaningful word knowledge. Listening to books read aloud helps children go beyond their existing oral vocabularies and exposes them to new words and concepts. • Reading interactively or throwing a word meaning as an aside (“Stupefied means he was really surprised”) helps children understand the few words that might not be familiar to them. After reading, the child can use these words in retelling, acting out, or other playful ways (“Show me how you look if you are stupefied.”) • Books provide the gist for great vocabulary learning. And, this growth continues throughout their elementary years. • Select a topic to read that will interest your child and stimulate and challenge their learning.

Did

you know

stu

dents who read for 10 minutes That a fifth-grade student who reads a day read 622,000 independently for 10 minutes a day reads words per year 622,000 more words per year than a child who doesn’t engage in independent reading?

Start some fun.

Read a book together today!

15 • FIFTEEN

• SPECIAL CONTRIBUTIONS •

“Todos a Leer 2009” Mexico & Central America By: Fabiola Alvarado & Dante Segura

Thursday October 8th, 2009 was a very important day for us at Pearson Educación since, for the fourth consecutive year, all the staff participated actively in the JUMPSTART Foundation’s Read for the Record (Todos a Leer) campaign. “Woud you tell me a story?” means a lot more than the question itself. It is an invitation to visit new, different and marvelous worlds; to imagine, create… to dream. It is also an invitation to set the foundations for a successful future in school… and in life. The following is a summary of the activities we held on such an enriching date: With the support of Lic. Elsa Patricia Jiménez, 575 kids from the English Program in Elementary Schools (Programa de Inglés en Primarias), in the state of Coahuila, read A Very Hungry Caterpillar, along with our academic consultant José Luis de Paz. Luis Torres Morett, another of our consultants, guided 220 students from Colegio Guadalajara in the reading of Un regalo para Kiko. One of the most emotive experiences happened at CRIT (Centro de Reabilitación 14 • FOURTEEN

• SPECIAL CONTRIBUTIONS • Infantil Teletón), where 50 children with an incredible power to imagine and share read the story Un regalo para Kiko, with the help of their parents and siblings. Mónica Pérez (academic consultant) lead the reading to integrate all the participants in sharing this wonderful experience. Thank you all at CRIT! 600 children from 3 schools in Monterrey (Colegio Salvador Novo, Colegio Roberto Sada and the Kindergarden Juan Escutia—member of the Pre-School State English Program) also joined the experience. Leon and the state of Mexico are two more cities that contributed to reach the record. 250 students from Colegio Leonés and 150 from Colegio Miguel Auza enjoyed the reading of Un regalo para Kiko. We want to give a special thank you to Books and Dreams Bookstore in Costa Rica, since it served as the venue for the reading of Un regalo para Kiko. Children from the Anglo-American School, Saint Michael School, Escuela Monterrey, Escuela Metodista, Escuela Estado de Israel, and Escuela Saint Mary were engaged by the active participation of our academic consultant Mónica Coto. On behalf of Pearson Educación, we would like to thank all participants for giving us the opportunity to share this important day with you, being part of the “Todos a leer” campaign, and READ FOR THE RECORD.

15 • FIFTEEN

• BULLETIN BOARD •

GET READY FOR THE FUTURE

FUTURE…a new adult education program that puts the student at the center of the learning experience. FUTURE IS …about results and 21st century skills. FUTURE…empowers learners with the academic and workplace skills they need to get ahead by helping them make the transition to further education or career training.

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