Teaching English to Young Learners: Teaching Reading to Young Learners

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Teaching Reading to Young Learners

For a foreign language learners, there are three different elements which impact reading:
the child's background knowledge
the child's linguistic knowledge of the target language
the strategies or techniques the child use to deal with the text
(Peregoy and Boyle, 2004)

Reading comprehension refers to reading for meaning, understanding, and entertainment. It needs a higher – order thinking skills. The importance of teaching reading to young learners is how to derive meaning as well as analyze and synthesize what they have read. There are two main reasons why people read: for pleasure and for getting information.

Reading for pleasure
Stories provide enjoyment for readers of all ages. When children listen to a story being read aloud, actually they are being introduced to the idea that reading can be used as a form of entertainment. Later on, if the children find out that reading stories can bring so much fun, they will have in mind that reading in general can provide pleasure. It will encourage them to read more and more books.

Reading for getting information
Sometimes children find that reading for information is not an interesting thing to do; it's boring. However, you, as a teacher, can make reading for information be as simple as reading a menu at a restaurant. Make them think that reading for information can also give them pleasure. For example, encourage them to read a passage about things that they are interested in, i.e. for children who are interested in dinosaurs, encourage them to read a passage about the prehistoric animals. By reading the passage, the children will be unconscious that they get two advantages: getting the information about the dinosaurs and getting the pleasure of reading it.

posted by Ellen @ 3:34 AM

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