Voloin Galina

READING ACTIVITIES I
Reading Aloud A student's performance when reading aloud is not a reliable indicator of that student's reading ability. A student who is perfectly capable of understanding a given text when reading it silently may stumble when asked to combine comprehension with word recognition and speaking ability in the way that reading aloud requires. In addition, reading aloud is a task that students will rarely, if ever, need to do outside of the classroom. As a method of assessment, therefore, it is not authentic: It does not test a student's ability to use reading to accomplish a purpose or goal. However, reading aloud can help a teacher assess whether a student is "seeing" word endings and other grammatical features when reading. To use reading aloud for this purpose, adopt the "read and look up" approach: Ask the student to read a sentence silently one or more times, until comfortable with the content, then look up and tell you what it says. This procedure allows the student to process the text, and lets you see the results of that processing and know what elements, if any, the student is missing

II
Pre-reading: There will be some pictures related to global warming all over the classroom, students have to think what pictures mean and give an opinion of what they think global warming is about describing the pictures. Short video about global warming. While reading: Students will read a text about global warming First students have to read once the text, highlight the vocabulary they dont know and make a glossary with the help of a dictionary.

The terms "global warming" and "greenhouse effect" have become common topics of conversation worldwide. Synonymous with climate change and pollution, this issue is the contributor for mass speculation. Every individual has the ability to help ensure the health of our environment and awareness and education is the first step. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the sole fault of large corporations that our environment is in crisis. It is us, the individual consumer. Without our need and demand, these companies would not be producing ecologically harmful products. Information is our best defense and making more environmentally sound decisions

our best offense. There are many substitutes for products and merchandise that would be more environmentally safe, it is just a matter of knowing what they are. Waste and Recycling: it is very beneficial to use recycled paper or to use products that are manufactured from ecologically managed forests. According to Seventh Generation "if every household in the US replaced just one roll of 1000 sheets of toilet paper with recycled toilet paper, could save 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space, 155 million gallons of water and avoid 62,000 pounds of pollution". It has been said that it takes roughly 19 trees to make one ton of paper and that the usage of one ton of recycled paper will save approximately 17 trees. Of course there is the importance of recycling your trash, separating the cans, glasses and papers. After reading: Role play: the course will be divided into two groups, a group defending the reasons linked to the development of global warming and the other group will defend the position that the world is becoming more polluted and full of environmental problems because of global warming. The teacher will choose one of each group to defend their position with arguments and then the other classmate will give his or her arguments to debate the classmates position.

III
Reading games Stand up and clap Before you start reading, set up a rule that when a certain piece of grammar or word appears the students have to stand up and clap then continue. You can experiment with the action to mix it up. Upside down reading Put students into pairs. Have them hold their book upside down and race to read through the extract. After each round tell them to switch partners and do it again. One student one word Before you start reading as a class put your students into teams. Go around the room having the students read the story or extract- one person, one word. When a student says the wrong word or delays for more than 3 seconds, give the other team a point. Encourage them to be alert and keep a good fast pace going.

WRITING ACTIVITIES I
The following activities are easily carried out and require little preparation or background knowledge. These activities focus on time that you and your child can

spend together. True writers enjoy playing with words not just for school assignments; they enjoy stretching their wings and expressing themselves on paper wherever and whenever. Fishbowling: 1. On separate small strips of paper, jot one of the following open-ended writing prompts: Write about your day. What do you hope to do tomorrow? What is one of your favorite memories? Describe your dream car/house. Where would you like to travel? Describe one of your friends without naming him/her. Describe your breakfast. Free thinking 2. Place the bunch of slips of paper in a bowl. 3. Once a day/once a week, have your child pull, fish, a slip once and complete a writing piece at home. For some reason the "fishing" part has an element of surprise that always seems to draw the children into the activity! 4. Ask your child to share his or her writing with you. Refrain from making corrections to the writing; let this activity just be about the joy of putting pen to paper or fingers to a keyboard.

II
Put various objects that are on your desk at home or in the office apart from the books you normally bring to class, and place them on the table. Steps Ask students to form pairs or groups of three. Give out task cards, on which you tell the students which audience they need to be writing a paragraph describing the teacher's desk in the classroom. The audience could be the following: your grandmother; your sister/brother who is 4 years old; the principal of the school; a scientist; your fellow student; your teacher; your sister/brother who studies Economics at the University, etc. At the end of the activity, rearrange the class so that each audience type gets into a group. Ask you students to share their solutions. Ask students to reflect on the types of words, expressions they used for the different audiences. If it is a more analytical group, ask students to look at sentence structure (simple, complex, compound). Word usage is another example. When students get back to a whole class format, ask the following questions (or similar to these being very focused on content, form and discourse features):

What words were used for the various audiences for ...? How many short/long sentences were used ...? How many simple sentences are there in the various paragraphs? How many more complex ones? How many (and what kind of) adjectives are there in the paragraphs? How is information organised in the paragraph? In other words, what kind of information is included in the paragraph? How is the description following the patterns of desrciption in terms of space, function of objects, etc? For instance, is the description following a left to right pattern? Are the objects described based on their function or their form, colour, and so on. Collect the pieces

III
Story Writing Game for Kids This great story writing game for kids will help teach children how to create the right atmosphere when planning stories based around a chosen topic. Use the correct words to create an atmosphere suitable for a ghost story, spy story or romance. What words help create a spooky atmosphere? How about a spy thriller? Choose your theme and use the tips provided to help write your sentences. Enjoy learning how to write stories with the help of this fun, interactive activity thats perfect for students. Choose a theme and then choose the right words to set the mood for a story :ex. Romance story; Choose words to make this sentence work in a romance : She opened the .. . . Standing in front of her was a(n) .. .. with a . in his .. hand.