Eight Reading strategies for Emergent Readers

We all want our students to be able to read fluently, be confident readers and enjoy reading,  but we all know it is not that easy. The following strategies, adapted for the Israeli EFL classroom from a book called "The Reading Strategies Book" by Jennifer Serravallo, will help young learners acquire reading 

habits that are sure to help.   

1.  Word treasure hunt!

This strategy is all about exploring the pages and looking for "words/letters/pictures that I know".

Teacher can say…

Let's look at the page, see any words that you know?

Show me the words you know on this page.

Treasures can be:  a, I, and, the etc…

2.  Be an explorer

When we start teaching our students to read short texts or enjoy short books, we can apply a cute, non-threatening strategy that will ease their way into reading whole texts. Have students explore short stories or books (perhaps have them explore just one short story that you would like to start teaching) and find the "hidden treasures". Hidden treasures can be anything from "Ants can cut leaves" to "The car is blue"!

Teacher can say…

What can you find?....Do you see anything on this page?.... What do you see at the bottom of the page? …. Not so fast! I think there is more on here...

3.  Moving fingers across the page.

This will work well for 4^th or 5^th grade EFL students. Students use their fingers across the whole page and say what the page is mostly about. Then they zoom in on the small details saying one thing for each part they find. This will help students find the key sentence and the supporting details in a text.

4.  Linger finger

Move your finger around the page and stay in one spot for a long time. Say something each time your finger lands in a spot. Students are not supposed to rush, they need to stay in one place, that's why it is called "linger finger". Staying in one place will make the eyes and the mind focus on one spot and dig deeper.

5.  Use Pictures

If we want students to start reading a book, we can use the pictures as stepping stones. Students can look at the pictures in the book and try to tell the whole story from the pictures. It can also work well when we want them to review a story that we read earlier in class together. Students need to rethink how those pictures connect and retell the story.  

6.  Characters do and say

On every page we will try to say what the character does and what the character says.

Teachers can say…

"what do you think this character is saying"?

Look at the picture: what's he doing?

7.  Stop on a page / paragraph

In a short text, students can stop after every paragraph and bring the story to life by using the face, body and voice. Then students should add words to explain what they are doing.

Teachers can say…

Show me with your face and body- What's the character doing now?

Talk like the character.

8.  Express the Emotions

Think about how the character is feeling on this paragraph. Students can figure out many times the emotions of the characters from the pictures and then they can act it out. It is better to model the way kids should act it out by using two very different parts in the text like the beginning and the ending.

Teacher prompts

How did the character feel? Show me.

Yes, your voice matched the character's feeling on that page! Good!

 You can also send me a friend request on facebook.

          Hili

Sources:  "The Reading Strategies Book" by Jennifer Serravallo, 2015, Heinemann

tags: english, efl,