PRACTICAL CASE: PROMOTION OF READING HABITS

Grupo viernes nuevos: Marina Gómez, Laura Pastor, Luis Espinosa, Rocío

INTRODUCTION

The promotion of reading habits among our students is an issue to which, we, as
teachers of English, cannot turn a blind eye. All the different areas of the curriculum
should somehow foster and benefit from this habit as making students competent in
reading will help them learn and comprehend the rest of the areas in the curriculum
more easily. Reading due to its instrumental nature, has a transversal value. This is
derived from the fact that being a competent reader implies the correct management
of reading strategies to interpret and understand a wide range of texts. But not only
is reading used to make our students improve academically, rather, our curriculum
also fosters the idea of instilling passion towards reading for pleasure among our
students. Our curriculum further insists on the importance for students to develop this
passion towards reading laying emphasis on the need of having reading not as
something exceptional in the classroom, but as part of students’ daily academic and
personal routine. (the word reading is repeated over and over again…)

Teachers are responsible for engaging students into the habit of reading hooking
students in reading, presenting it in an attractive, motivating, adapted and fun way.
This can be achieved if we will be achieved whenever we take into account their
particular “world”, experiences, cognitive and developmental level and previous
knowledge when selecting or recommending them some type of book or story.

Once teachers have selected a particular reading for their pupils, the next step
they have to follow is the organization of the reading activity. A common practice at
primary level is to follow a storytelling approach organized around the typical three-
stage methodology. This is pre-reading (to motivate, create the right environment,
lower students’ affective filter and pre-teach some vocabulary/structures they may not
know). The while-reading stage will be devoted to reading/listening to the story told by
the teacher or another student, matching pictures and words or sequencing events
from the story, to name but a few). When selecting a particular story, teachers must
be aware of the potential outcomes expected. In this sense, the post-reading stage
will commonly be used to follow a story line, providing a different ending to the story,
acting out some parts of the story and the like. This is the stage where students
do/perfume something related to what they have learnt from the story.

Once having framed our topic, in order to provide a rigorous answer and scheme
of work to the question posed, we will approach it from a legal and theoretical
perspective. This will offer the essential guidelines to present the necessary didactic
techniques that will be applied herein bearing in mind how the techniques proposed
contribute to improve communication among our students. This is, after all, the main
purpose of the foreign language area: equipping our students for the attainment of the
so desired communicative competence.

LEGAL FRAMEWORK en esta parte del legal se repiten cosas del curriculum
link mirad el que hemos hecho de promotion of reading para no repetir, tendré
poco tiempo y no da tiempo a escribir tanto

Regarding the current legislation, Royal Decree 126/2014 28th February puts
forward a set of objectives for the Primary stage. Particularly, objective “e” is clearly
related to the development of reading habits.

Decree 198/2014 5th September provides us with several methodological

guidelines. In its article 13 one of them proposes that the significant use of reading
should be put forward by means of varied tasks and projects.

In addition, Order 20th November 2014 is related to organization and evaluation

in the Primary stage. As a matter of fact, Annex III of this document is entirely devoted
to a model for the Reading Habits plan, which is always developed by the schools and
included in the School Educational Project. In its article 8.1 this order claims that it is
the role of the groups of teachers to decide which subject will devote at least 30
minutes per day to comprehensible reading.
 Order ECD/65/2015 21st January defines the seven key competences. Especially
one of them, the linguistic competence, is closely related to reading habits, as reading
in tis self involves many of its subcompetences. which is called linguistic
communication competence.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

There is no doubt that reading is a skill that results crucial for the development of
the well-known communicative competence. Consequently, the promotion of reading
habits in our class will help to improve the different competences that integrate the
communicative one Canale and Swain defined: the grammatical one since
meaningful readings are sources of input that trigger the activation of internal
mechanisms that shape the students’ interlanguage (Chomsky); the sociolinguistic as
stories and other kinds of realistic texts will show children the norms and values that
rule our society; sociocultural since most of the texts will be cultural expressions or
include valuable cultural and sociolinguistic references. by themselves (from English
speaking countries) Most texts also contribute to our students’ acculturation process
(Acculturation Model, described by Schumman). Last but not least, reading will
inevitably contribute to and the discursive competence by means making children face
different types of texts presenting cohesion and coherence.

So as to be successful when promoting reading skills in our class, we have to be

aware of the level of complexity comprehensibility of the texts we are offering in class.
In this sense, we should take taking into consideration what Krashen's said about
comprehensible input theory, and his statements about then readings being, has to be
varied, abundant and comprehensible. Additionally, the same author states that input
should be challenging, making students face language that is slightly above their
present level.
Ellis and Brewster’s ideas are in accordance Krashen’s ones in the sense that
they say that the most effective ways of teaching reading in is to use a balanced
approach with several methods and resources that result motivating to our students.

To sum up and make clear the importance of promoting reading habits in our class,
we could use W. Somerset Maugham’s quote: “to acquire the habit of reading is to
construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life”. esto podía ir en
conclusión no aquí

CURRICULAR ELEMENTS

A keystone in our School Educational Project is the Reading plan and thus, the
promotion of reading habits; as established in the curriculum. Besides, Primary
Education has the general goal of contributing to ensure a well-rounded education,
which favours the personal development of learners. In this sense, we will make clear
necessary links with the curriculum, namely the contribution to key competences, the
learning objectives and their relationship with stage objectives, the particular contents
that will be implemented, the methodological guidelines and the assessment criteria
that will be applied. Therefore, we shall envisage this Lesson Plan taking into account
those variables.

On the one hand, promoting reading habits is closely related not only to the
linguistic competence due to the fact that students have to interpret concepts,
thoughts, feelings, facts and opinions in written forms (reading). But also, to cultural
awareness and expression because they need to appreciate the importance of
literature as a creative expression of ideas, experiences and emotions. On the other
hand, stage general objective the General Stage Objective worked on when reading
is the ‘e’ one; which “e” has to do with the development of reading habits.

Regarding the new three key elements in the curriculum, named contents,
evaluation criteria and learning standards, it is important to highlight that this lesson
plan will consider the Content Block 3 which comprises the comprehension of written
texts. Moreover, our students will develop some communicative functions such as the
comprehension of simple narrations close to their reality, needs and interests, having
to bear in mind graphical patterns and orthographic conventions.

Furthermore, and taking into consideration that there is not a one-to-one

correspondence between the Learning Standards and the Evaluation Criteria, a
correlation between them will be established. Therefore, in this lesson plan we will
consider some learning standards within the block 3 such as the inference of
meanings, the general and specific understanding of the written information or the
association of graphemes, pronunciation and meaning when reading amongst others,
which will be related to their corresponding evaluation criteria.

Considering the methodology implemented here, it is important to emphasize that

Chapter III of our curriculum, entitled methodology comprises two articles. On the one
hand, Article 12 establishes the necessity of integrating the key competences within
the teaching learning process so as to incorporate the globality principle into our
teaching practice. It also highlights the need of bearing in mind the context and our
students’ features. For this reason, we will establish connections between our area
and the others by means of reading different types of children’s literature, which
comprise several interdisciplinary topics, such as fables or fairy tales amongst others.
In this way, our students will be prepared for the acquisition of functional and
significant learnings that will ensure lifelong skills. On the other hand, Article 13 gives
us some methodological guidelines that should be useful to us in the implementation
of our teaching plans, such as the design of activities oriented to the acquisition of key
competences and challenging ones in order for children to be motivated, to name just
a few. For this reason storytelling and dramatizations will be implemented to promote
reading habits.

Besides through reading several values will be developed, due to the fact that
children’s literature is aimed at passing moral and cultural elements. Respect,
tolerance and environmental education amongst others will be fostered when reading.
with the readings we shall propose. In this way, we will contribute at the same time to
our School Educational Project, which in the context we have created for the resolution
of this case, has education for peace and environmental education at its core.

CORE ANSWER

Having a space in the classroom packed with an English-like atmosphere in the

form of posters, stories, books belonging to different domains such as grammar, songs
or limericks and real objects from English-speaking countries is becoming very popular
in most English classrooms.
Interesting as it may seem, this can be an excellent means for promoting reading
among our students and at the same time a place for interchanging books brought
from pupils’ homes, fostering this way values such as sharing and collaboration.

Following the ideas put forward by the learner centered approach, it is highly
recommended to ask students to participate in the creation of different activities in the
classroom. In our case, letting them participate in the creation and organization of the
reading nook and negotiating with them the types of books and topics they are
interested in can be highly engaging for them. This way they may feel more desire and
attraction towards that nook.

According to our curriculum, the use of authentic materials is recommended.

Nevertheless, the only genuine materials students could read at this level are nursery
rhymes, limericks and riddles, according to Ellis and Brewster. Given this fact, the use
of adapted/simulated authentic materials will be used (graded readers). Some of the
books which could be included within our nook are those by Lewis Carol, Edward Lear,
Beatrix Pottter, the Grimms brothers or A.A Milne, among others. These are authors
who have devoted their writing to children and often take into account topics enjoyed
by them. They pervade their writing with values and encompass the text with images
which help pupils convey meaning.

Given the fact that pupils at this stage are often unselfconscious, enthusiastic,
they are always ready to enjoy and participate in any activity planned by the teacher
and love working in groups, collective reading can be a unique and appealing
experience where students get together in the same “adventure” and more often than
not enjoy. Therefore, it is also recommendable to have repeated titles so as to foster
this type of reading which in turn is a good means for developing other
collective/cooperative activities such as games, dramatizations, singing songs or
dramatizing the story in other classes.

As mentioned above, reading a book will often imply developing some tasks so as
to check its understanding. Therefore, once students have read a book they will be
asked to do either a worksheet, draw, providing a different ending and so on.
Also, making them responsible for the organization of the nook and books loan is
highly motivating for them as they become “librarians” for a moment on their own right.
As such, teachers can name a “nook manager” weekly. His/her main tasks would be
registering the books loaned, tiding up the nook or helping his/her classmates to
choose one particular book. For this, the “nook manager” will have a list provided by
the teacher with the plot of each book as well as the outcomes expected from each.

For the sake of having more variety within the reading nook, the different teachers
of English could exchange their books whenever a necessity is found (students have
read all the books in the nook).

In order to attend mixed-ability in the classroom, the outcomes expected from each
book will be graded in difficulty. We will also have audio books, online books such as
Oxford Owl (www.oxfordowl.co.uk) and graded readers above and under the average
level of the classroom.

For the promotion of the reading habits, not only in our class but at a school level,
students from the different grades will participate in a Book Fair. In this book fair,
students from the same grade will run different stands that will include books of a
concrete type, genre or author. Students running a stand will have to select the books
they will include in their stand and, for that purpose, they will have to carry out previous
readings and research. Due to the fact that every stand will be different and related to
a concrete topic, author or type of book, the whole school community will have the
opportunity to get in contact with books related to their interests and likes (just by
looking at the name of the different kiosks). Only the students from the fourth, fifth and
sixth grades will take part in this fair.

But apart from reading, students must show their comprehension in some way.
Therefore, as Decree 198/2014 establishes in its article 13, written expression should
be developed by means of different tasks or projects. In this particular case, pupils will
make use of our class blog so as to create a “book affinity” club, in which they will
write a brief summary of the book they have read without telling their classmates its
ending, as the main aim is for students to recommend books each other. In other
words, students are asked to analyze the book (short story, comic, graded readers…)
from a critical perspective, writing a kind of short review adapted to the current level
of our students. At the end of each term, the best reviews will be chosen, printed and
displayed in the English corner. (tened en cuenta que el outcome, esto es la tarea que
les pongais para show understanding también es una forma de atender a la diversidad
y esta relacionado con la teoría de las inteligencias multiples de Gardner )

All these activities will be related to the obtaining of reading rewards; this is,
the students who read more books would be able to choose the story they want to be
told or read in class (collective reading). Moreover and when dealing with group-tasks,
the group who had read more books will have the opportunity of choosing a story to
be dramatized. In order to do so, the members of the group will be in charge of
preparing the dialogues and the scenes to be represented in the dramatization. In this
way, and following the student-centred curriculum, our students will be responsible for
their own learning and they will take part in the whole process; monitoring these types
of activities and developing in this way their creativity and being fully motivated; which
is crucial in the teaching-learning process.

CONCLUSION

All things considered, along this paper the importance of having reading at the
core of the teaching-learning practice has been tackled connecting the mandatory
legislation and the different elements displayed within it to the topic proposed. We
have also considered some didactic techniques that will inevitably contribute to
promote reading habits among our students in a fun, attractive and motivating way.

Besides, these didactic techniques have been suggested bearing in mind their
potential for contributing to pupils’ improvement of communicative competence since
the different proposals require students involved in communication, for example for
deciding which book to read, running the book fair, exchanging opinions or performing
some tasks.

There is a legion of techniques which can be used to promote reading, but for
economy reasons we have focused our core answer on those which best match our
students given their current state of knowledge and the ones which permit having them
involved actively without fear of having them demotivated because of their degree of
difficulty.

Last but not least, all the proposals have been designed following the idea that the
learner is at the core of our decisions and, as such, their backgrounds, interests and
needs have always been considered. Only this way can we have the security of
making reading appealing, functional and motivating for our pupils
aqui se podría añadir el quote de antes!