Content (General): Reading

Although oral language is primary, students who are literate in their native languages quickly transfer that skill into English. Students should not be required to read material they do not understand orally, but for literate students, written words, introduced soon after oral practice, will aid in learning. A language experience approach is highly recommended for teaching reading, and will work even with illiterate students. Basals should not be used to teach reading until the student has a good grasp of the structure of English.

• Left-right sequence should be firmly established, especially for students accustomed to reading from right to left or top to bottom.
• Alphabet. The student should be able to say the alphabet and recognize capital and small letters.
• Letter-Sound Association. Consonant sounds, then short vowel sounds, then long vowel sounds, consonant blends and digraphs, etc.
• Language Experience. Write down what the student produces orally and use it to teach reading. The student reads what he has just said.
• Material Mastered Orally. The student reads sentences in dialogs or other material that has been practiced aloud with the teacher.
• Recombinations. Student reads vocabulary and structures already mastered that have been recombined into new stories, worksheets, etc.
• Alphabetization. For literate students only. This is a prerequisite skill for the use of a foreign language dictionary. Providing the student with such a dictionary can be helpful to an extent, but no two languages correspond exactly, and the multitude of meanings for English words can be very confusing.
• Dictionary Use. Teaching the child to use a foreign language dictionary can enable him to learn independently. The regular dictionary is of little use until the child knows quite a bit of English.

Additional Teaching Ideas

• Read stories to students several times. Then write sentences and cut them into strips (perhaps five simple sentences). Students arrange them in the correct order.
• Have students read stories they've heard several times.
• Transcribe oral production, correct any mistakes and have the students read. Or, have the student correct his own mistakes.

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