Lesson plan using ABC Reading Eggs website to improve foreign language
Reading and writing are advanced language skills. Writing is based on the ability to read. Reading involves two stages: identification of letters and reading words and sentences. Reading does not stop at making a person literate; reading is essential for academics and scholarship. Developing reading skills at an early age is important and difficult. Researchers and educationists constantly strive to find out new ways for making the reading lessons effective, fruitful, and meaningful.
Different languages in the world follow different writing systems. English follows the alphabetical writing system. The letters are placed one after another, some representing consonant sounds and some representing vowel sounds. Consonant sounds generally occur at the boundaries and vowel sounds are in the middle. Whether the initial consonant sound should be shaped as /te/ or /ti/ depends upon the vowel letter that follows. Moreover, there is no one-to-one correspondence between the letters and sounds. One letter represents more than one sound. Sometimes, two different letters represent the same sound. Twenty-six letters represent forty-four sounds. Hence learners, particularly ESL learners find it difficult to read and spell English words.
The best way to tackle the alphabetical writing system is to focus on the entire word instead of concentrating on one letter at a time. Gradually, the readers become familiar with the sight of the words. Sight words are “words recognized at a single glance,” ( Gough, Ehri & Treiman, 1992). It is necessary for readers to be able to recognize words quickly, as it affects both, the reading speed as well as reading comprehension. If students have to labor with every letter while reading, they will not remember what they have read, and they will be unable to make sense of what they have read. Successful readers read with a good speed and comprehension. “Successful readers have a mental store of words and linguistic patterns to which they respond automatically,” (Hartas and Moseley, 1993).
Readingeggs.com is a specially designed tool for developing reading skills. It consists of a core reading curriculum of phonics and sight words using skills and strategies essential for sustained reading success. It provides lists of sight words suitable for different age groups. At the pre-school stage, children learn to read words and simple sentences. At the primary school stage, the scope of reading widens. The number of sight words increases. In the readingeggs system, there are specially prepared Stepping Stone Reading Lessons. Each lesson builds on the previous one to build skills in five key areas: phonemic awareness and phonics, sight words, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. Each lesson is followed by a test that assesses high-frequency sight word knowledge, phonic skills and content area vocabulary.
Sight words are embedded in stories, and enhanced by pictures, symbols, colors and animation. The tool is useful to teachers and parents. One of the principles of readingeggs.com is to seek parental cooperation.
There are twenty lessons in Clinker Castle series called ‘Storyland’, that is included in ABC Reading Eggs. Clinker Castle is the home of a royal family. They live in a castle, have a dragon for a pet and go swimming in their moat. The stories and characters are unique. Storylands opens after the first sixty lessons. It is meant for children who have begun reading. Clinker Castle lessons have activities before and after reading the lessons. Activities before lessons include talking with the children, teaching them songs and poems. These activities prepare the children physically, phonologically and linguistically for reading skills. “Students must have good phonological awareness to develop sight word vocabulary,” ( Perfetti, 1992). The lessons are followed by questions and quizzes. Successful students are rewarded with golden eggs.
“The readingeggs online storybooks reinforce the skills learned in the previous lessons with a story that makes sense and is created using high quality, full-color illustrationsthese books are read aloud by the narrator who models fluent reading to the child,” ( Pike, Turner & Leman, 2010).
Here is a lesson plan for developing the reading skills of ESL learners in a classroom situation. The selected text aims to create phonemic awareness as well as understanding of content. In this lesson, the focus is on developing sight words.
LEVEL: Primary school level
DURATION – 40 minutes
METHODS – Individual and group work
MATERIALS – Readingeggs.com, Storyland, computers
OBJECTIVES –
LESSON PLAN
Conclusion:
Reading rapidly with correct pronunciation is a skill. Using sight words is a reading strategy. The Literacy Dictionary defines skill as “an acquired ability to perform well.” However, a strategy is defined as “in education, a systematic plan, consciously adapted and monitored.” Teaching reading involves development of skills and strategies. “Teaching skills involve practice and feedback to improve speed and efficiency, which taken together amount to what we call fluency When we are teaching strategically, we help students to analyze tasks, to consider various approaches to performing the tasks, and to chose among alternative actins to reach the goals,” ( Aflerbach, Pearson and Paris, 2010).
“Reading deficiency is the most significant problem facing educators today,” (Korkut, 2010). Reading Eggs helps to solve this problem. Reading eggs tool is successful in developing the reading skills and strategies of primary level students. It takes care of all aspects and sub-skills of reading. The important aspects at the primary level are development of high frequency sight words and introduction of suitable vocabulary. Reading readiness on the part of students is also important. Telling the story before reading it prepares the students cognitively for reading. Reading is generally a mechanical and meaningless activity for young learners. ABC readingeggs stories are unique. Students find the characters and situations interesting. The colors and animations make the presentations effective. The accompanying pictures and symbols aid comprehension. Stories are the greatest strength of the reading Eggs tool. “The stories produced and shared within a social context reflect the social relations. In fact, stories are the bridge between the individual experience and social patterns,” ( Belet and Dal, 2010). By relating learning to social relations, students are able to make reading a meaningful, interesting and engaging activity. This abides by the Affective theory, according to which, learning is an emotional process. There is an cognitive-affective interconnection stated by Dornyei ( 2001). The Affective theory suggests authentic texts, which are available with Reading Eggs. The theory also implies small group activities. Reading Eggs program contains a large number of group activities. The sight words are a part of the stories, so they are perceived in a context. They do not remain mere lists of words. When embedded in stories, words become meaningful. Students get actively involved in learning. They become active processors of information. This is in accordance with Cognitive theory of Piaget. It includes problem solving tasks. Reading Eggs provides such tasks at the end of every lesson.
The stories are important in one more way. They prevent children from using rote learning technique. Students do not memorize the words mechanically. Unlike the behaviorist approach of learning as habit formation, students’ learning becomes rule-governed. The Behaviorist approach follows the process of stimulus, response, reinforcement and repetition. The students find it dull and mechanical. Reading Eggs program has tried to overcome the mechanical aspect by using stories for teaching language. The sight words serve as stimulus and trigger a search for underlying rules and patterns according to Chomsky’s Theory of Language acquisition. Another advantage of highlighting sight words is that they help students to remember the spellings of words. Students understand the structure and sight of the words and do not have to learn the spellings by heart. How well students recognize patterns depends upon how frequently they see the patterns.
The stories prove to be a readymade resource for teachers. The lists of sight words, new vocabulary and content are easily available for teaching. The readingeggs syllabus is well-planned for each age group. The difficulty level of the words and stories increases gradually. It corresponds to Krashen’s +1 hypothesis. This is because the stories are graded acoording to the maxim ‘easy to difficult’ and ‘simple to complex’. According to Krashen the output matches the input. Readingeggs material is graded and can be described as ‘modified’ input. The stories are specially constructed. They do not contain any kind of violence or negative aspects. The teachers do not need to plan extra lessons for value education. The Reading eggs stories serve as moral and ethical bases. The reading Eggs program is scientific and is based on sound language theories. They provide scope for teachers can devote time to individual learners and their problems. Readingeggs is a boon to teachers and students alike.
References
Afflerbach, P., Pearson, P., & Paris, S. (2008). Clarifying differences between reading skills and reading strategies. The Reading Teacher, 61(5), 364--373.
Belet, S., & Dal, S. (2010). The Use of Story-telling to Develop the Primary School Students' Critical Reading Skills: the Primary Education Pre-service Teachers' Opinion. Science Direct, 1830-1834.
Chomsky, N. (1972). Language and mind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gough, P., Ehri, L., & Treiman, R. (1992). Reading acquisition. Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.
Hartas, C., & Moseley, D. (1993). 'Say that again Please': A Scheme to Boost Reading Skills Using computers with Digitized Speech. Support For Learning, 8(1).
Krashen, S., & Terrell, T. (1983). The natural approach. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Pergamon Press.
Perfetti, C. (1985). Reading ability. New York: Oxford University Press.
Piaget, J. (1959). The language and thought of the child. New York: Humanities Press.
Pike, K., Turner, G., & Leman, S. (2010). Foundational Research. Reading Eggs Scientific Research Base.
Reitsma, P. (1983). Phonemic and graphemic codes in learning to read. [S.l.: s.n.].
Spiro, R., Bruce, B., & Brewer, W. (1980). Theoretical issues in reading comprehension. Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.
The Use of Story in Critical Literary Practice. (1999). Gender And Education, 8(1), 49-60.
Uluc Isisag, K. (2010). 'The efficacy of micro linguistics in developing reading skills; an integrated lesson plan'. Procedia Social And Behavioral Sciences, 698-703.
