Reading Workshop(10:00-12:00)

Presenters:• Judy Kwok, Officer of School-based Curriculum Developme

nt (Primary) Section• Phyllis Wu Wai Po, Canton Road Government Primary Scho

ol

“Professional development involves more than learning knowledge and skills. ..Professional development amounts to more than a slick, self-managed portfolio of certificates and achievements accumulated as individual credits…

Teachers who are personally and professionally developed have evolved a strong sense of themselves as teachers and as people. Their ego boundaries, their sense of identity, are secure enough for them not to feel flooded, invaded, or overwhelmingly vulnerable when they are challenged by, evaluated by, or asked to work with other adults…”

“Teaching in the knowledge society:education in the age of insecurity”

By Andy Hargreaves

Food for Thought

What is a teacher’s role in a reading workshop?

What are the possible strategies to encourage prediction?

What to do if the text is too easy or too difficult?

Issues to address

Texts

Students

Construct meaning

Teachers

• Choose appropriate books for the students (of high interest level, not too easy or not too difficult)

• Deploy various reading strategies like reading aloud, shared reading, supported reading and independent reading to assist students to read

A teacher’s role in a reading workshop

Professional judgment:

Students

Texts

Construct meaning

Teachers

• the books are chosen by last year’s English teachers

• the books are either too difficult or too easy

Possible challenges •Arouse students’ interest in reading•Help students become good readers

“Vygotsky believed that if you give a child a task, like reading a book, and he does it, then you have taught him nothing. The child could already do the task, as that task was in his current zone of actual development.“…if you give a child a task to do and he cannot do it, then you have the chance to teach. If the child cannot do the task alone but can do it with a more expert person’s help, then the task lies in what Vygotsky calls the zone of proximal development.Vygotsky argued that we can teach students something new only when the task is within their zone of proximal development.”

“Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies”By Jeffrey D. Wilhelm

• Use prior knowledge to make sense of new information• Ask questions about the text before, during and after rea

ding• Draw inferences from text• Monitor comprehension• Use fix up strategies when meaning breaks down• Determine what is important• Synthesize information to create sensory images

“Developing expertise in reading comprehension”Pearson, P.D. Roehler, L. Dole, J., & Duffy, C. (1992)

What does a good reader do?

• Using KWL to encourage prediction (non-narrative text -info book)

• Using pictorial cues to encourage prediction

What are the possible strategies to encourage prediction?

KWL Strategy

(know, what to know, learned)An instructional reading strategy that is used to guide students through reading (pre-reading, while-reading, post-reading activity)

A KWL ChartK – Tell me everything you know about … (pre-reading activity)

W – Tell me what you want to know about… (pre or while reading activity)

L - Tell me what you learnt (post reading activity)

KWL Strategy

(know, what to know, learned)Purposes:

• Elicits students’ prior knowledge of the topic of the text

•Sets a purpose for reading

•Helps students to monitor their comprehension

•Allows students to assess their comprehension of the text

• Provides an opportunity for students to expand ideas beyond the text.

http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/readquest/strat/kwl.html

Case 1: T.W.G.Hs. Leo Tung-hai Lee Primary School

Level: P.6

Module: The World around us

Text : Popclock: the world at six billion (information text)

No. of sessions: 7

IEPCI –close your eyes and imagine the scene, character, events

What can you see, feel, hear, smell? Share your thinking with a partner.

E- Elaborate –tell, describe, or give details of what you “see” in your mind.

P- Use these ideas to make some predictions or guesses about the passages to be read

C- Read to confirm or change your predictions about the passage.

The Reading Teacher

Vol. 58 No. 4

Dec 04/Jan 05

Case 2: Canton Road Government Primary School

Level: P.4

Module: New Welcome 4B (Unit 7 At home & Unit 8 Moving house)

Text : The old woman who lived in a vinegar bottle(narrative text)

No. of sessions: 7

Discussion time(3-4 in a group, 5 mins)

• Bear in mind the standards of your students, how would you conduct the lesson to encourage prediction?

Don’t just focus on reading, integrate with other skills like speaking, writing and listening

What to do when the text is too easy

Ask students to rewrite the ending of the story

The fairy was very cross. ‘I gave you a little house. Then I gave you a castle. But you have not said THANK YOU!’ So the fairy made the old woman go home to her vinegar bottle.

Wong Hoi Yan P.4A

The fairy made the old woman in the bottle. The old woman was sad. She looked at the sky because she wanted had a fairy came. A witch came to her home. The witch looked like a fairy. They made friends. They witch took old woman all the money. The old woman was sad and angry.

Kiki Kwok P.4A

So the fairy took the old woman returning her vinegar house. And then the fairy did not make her dream come true. Finally, the old woman stayed at home alone. Until one day, a hurter called David arrived there. And then he met with the old woman. They started to fall in love each other. Moreover, he decided to marrige with her as soon as possible. Also, the fairy hoped that they could live happy. And then the fairy gave them a big castle.

Discussion time(3-4 in a group, 3 mins)

• Bear in mind the standards of your students, how would you teach “The Happy Prince”?

Don’t aim at using the same strategy to cover the whole text, use various strategies to maintain students’ interest

What to do when the text is too difficult