book it: a reading contest
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BOOK IT!A Reading Contest
WHO WE ARE
• Márcia Ferreira• CCBEU • Bi-national Center• Franca SP• 1974• ± 1600 students• 27 teachers• EAO• Auditorium • Learning Center
HOW IT STARTED
• English for Today/Pizza Hut• 2000 – 2013• Beginning level students• Teachers participate• Achievement Certificates• Over ---- books read
Do you agree?
Oftentimes students enter our classroom without many reading models.
How do students learn to READ?
The best way for students to learn to read is by reading a great deal of comprehensible material.
However…
many students of English learn to read in a slow, careful manner, relying almost entirely on bottom-up strategies.
Bottom-up strategies consist primarily of combining vocabulary & grammar clues to build meaning. Whereas top-down strategies enable students to use extralinguistic knowledge.
Intensive Reading
Reading texts closely & carefully with the intention of gaining an understanding of as much detail as possible.
Reading an instruction manual
Intensive Reading
Overreliance on this reading approach makes reading slow & often painful & tends to discourage students from doing any more reading than necessary.
What do we WANT?
We want students to learn to read in a more rapid, active way so they can reach a breakthrough point where reading becomes a useful & even enjoyable skill.
Breakthrough = a sudden advance specially in knowledge or technique
Extensive Reading
The teaching of reading through reading.
Reading becomes rewarding & enjoyable enough to become an end in itself.
Reading for DETAIL. Reading for PLEASURE.
INTENSIVE EXTENSIVE
What’s the best way to understand READING?
To see it as a process of active guessing in which readers use a variety of different kinds of clues to understand a text and to take what they need or want from it, generally as quickly as possible, without intolerable investments of time and effort.
Richard Day & Jullian Bamford
Therefore…
There are strong arguments for actively encouraging students to read a lot in the target language, both in and outside the classroom.
Benefits
Becoming a competent READER.. helps to consolidate the learning that
has taken place may help to increase knowledge of the
target language through exposure to vocabulary & grammatical structures
is an important way to learn about the target culture
Extensive Reading
Pleasure Reading fluency Reading comfort zone Self-chosen material Guessing No testing
Pleasure
Students will be willing to read when the benefits gained from reading overweigh the investment of time & effort.
Motto: Reading gain, without reading pain!
http://clubs2.scholastic.com/programs/contests.shtml
Reading Fluency
One important aspect of building students’ extensive reading is training them to read more quickly.
Reading Comfort Zone
Students should be reading material that is at a slightly lower level than their current reading ability.
Self-Chosen Material
Students are more likely to voluntarily read interesting & easy materials than those which are neither.
They should choose at least some of their own reading material.
Self-Chosen Material
__________ are books of stories published specifically for learners to get extended exposure to English. They have grammar & vocabulary graded to named levels so that learners stand a chance of successfully reading them.
Readers
Simplified readers
Language learner literature (Day & Bamford)
Self-Chosen Material
Build a library of suitable material. It does not need to be large.
Persuade the school administration to provide funds.
Shelve the books by level: basic, intermediate, advanced.
Guessing
Students need to (1)______ the habit of (2)______the meanings of (3)______ unfamiliar words or (4) ______skipping over them.
(5)______ dictionary use to a (6)______. Frequent dictionary stops (7)______
reading speed & tend (8)______ break the train (9)______ thought, thus making (10)______ less enjoyable.
Answer key
(1) develop
(2) guessing
(3) most
(4) simply
(5) Keep
(6) minimum
(7) slow
(8) to
(9) of
(10) reading
Guessing
Students ask themselves: Can I quickly guess enough about the
word to keep going? Do I need to understand this word? Can I try to become comfortable not
knowing the exact meaning of this word?
But…
tell the students it is ok to stop & look up the word if they lose the train of thought completely.
No Testing
Let students read, enjoy & move on, rather than read & then have to do lots of exercises afterwards.
Check that students have read by having them fill out a book report.
Set up students for success.
Cheating
It is obviously easier if the students are reading books you have read, but between your knowledge of what a text is likely to contain and the students’ report, you can usually get a sufficiently clear idea of how well the student has done the reading.
Extensive Reading
There’s a great deal of evidence that Extensive Reading has a powerful impact on language learning.
Why run a CONTEST?
Some students are simply not inclined to read on their own, but they would read to fulfill requirements.
Required Motivation (Warden & Lin)
English Access Program45 students
10 days
490 books read
10,4 books per student
Best reader: 22 books
Setting up the Contest (1) Help students become aware of their
reading habits - good and bad - by having them respond to a questionnaire.
Reading Questionnaire
What do you think a good reader does?
A good reader
( ) reads fast
( ) understands all the words
( ) makes guesses
( ) always reads carefully
( ) does other things ______
Reading Questionnaire
Reading in your first language Do you like reading? How often do you read? When & where do you read? What kinds of things do you read? What do you like to read about?
Reading Questionnaire
Reading in English Do you like reading in English? How often do you read in English? What kinds of things would you like to
read in English?
Reading Questionnaire
English Reading Habits Do you read slowly? Do you translate into Portuguese? Do you look up unfamiliar words? Do you read aloud?
Setting up the Contest (2) Start with an all-class reading
assignment which means that all of the students in your class read the same book.
Teach students how to fill out the book report.
Book Report Form
Directions: Print out this template. Answer the questions. You may want to answer some of them while you are reading your book.
General information about the Book
Title:
Author:
Book Report Form
Type of Book:
( ) adventure
( ) celebrity
( ) children’s
( ) fantasy
( ) humor
( ) mystery
( ) romance
( ) biography
( ) nature
( ) science
( ) sports
( ) travel
Book Report Form
Main character(s):
This is a story about:
( ) courage
( ) love
( ) funny events
( ) importance of
friends
( ) jealousy
( ) happiness
( ) sadness
( ) animals
Book Report Form
Five words I want to remember from the book are:
Copy sentences from the book with the five words above:
The book was:
( ) great ( ) good
( ) ok ( ) boring
Setting up the Contest (3) Indicate to students how many books
you expect them to read over a given period.
Setting up the Contest (4) Explain how students can make their
choice of what to read. Suggest they look for books in the genre
that they enjoy.
Book Genres
FICTION Adventure Children’s Fantasy Humor Mystery Romance
NON-FICTION Biography Celebrity Nature Science Sports Travel
Setting up the Contest (5) Explain to the students how to handle
unfamiliar words.
Setting up the Contest (6) Get the library staff to participate by
informing the students of the rules & procedures to take out books.
Library Rules & Regulations You need your library card. You borrow books for one week. Your library card can be renewed after
that. You will get fined R$1,00 per day for not
returning books.
Setting up the Contest (7) Put up the contest rules & regulations in
the classroom bulletin boards.
Content Rules & Regulations
1. To win, a class (students & teacher) must read the biggest number of books.
2. If a participant does not read any books, he will automatically disqualify his class.
3. If the contest ends in a tie, the quality of the book reports will be used to pick the winners.
4. Participants must have a library card to take out books from the library.
5. For each book that is read, a book report form must be filled out completely.
Content Rules & Regulations (Cont.)
6. Teachers who have more than one class participating in the contest have to read different books for each class.
7. Book reports must be handed in to the Contest Coordinator who will decide on whether or not they will be counted.
8. You will photocopy the official Book Report Form or you may write your reports on any paper of the same size (A4).
9. The deadline for submitting book reports is (month/date) at (time).
Content Rules & Regulations (Cont.)
10. The prize will be a meal at a local restaurant of winners’ choice.
Drawbacks
Too much paper is used for the book reports
Some participants don’t like competing for a prize
Limited choice of book genres
YOUR TURN
Which small (or large) institutional modifications can be made to assist your students in becoming better readers?
YOUR TURN
Which small (or large) instructional modifications can you make to assist your students in becoming better readers?
YOU CAN…
ask students to read a lot set aside a few minutes as quiet reading time get students to fulfill requirements be committed to vocabulary building encourage students to become word
collectors teach instead of test comprehension encourage students to report back on their
readings choose activities that reflect real-life use
Concluding…
“Often it is not the big things that we do in classes that make a difference, but rather the small things that we do, and do consistently.”
Marcia Ferreira
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