| Background The school project focused on developing reading skills of S2 students.
From the annual subject plan 2007-08, the school intended to develop a 'reading to learn' culture. The teachers identified some needs for teaching and learning:
- Building a reader friendly environment to encourage students to be active and interested readers
- S2 students can acquire different reading sub-skills
Thus the project team decided that efforts could be put to build on existing strengths of the panel and available resources of the school, e.g. reading worksheets with some readers, packs of readers purchased, library lessons. |
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Objectives
- To develop a reading habit and read with a reasonable level of competency
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Implementation
Planning
A two-year plan was set to achieve the objective.
Building a reader friendly environment
- Encouraging students to design book marks
 with quotes related to reading
- Posting up the book marks in the library and other parts of the school campus
Teaching reading skills in the library lessons
Giving students an introduction to basic reading skills, and knowledge of non fiction.
Readers- plans and materials
Readers taught |
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1. Sara Says No
Objectives
To enable students to:
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understand the moral of the story;
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extract and organise information of the story in a graphic organiser;
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apply a range of reference skills with the help of cues;
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analyse and discuss some ideas from the text critically.
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Whitney, N. (2005). Sara Says No! Thailand: Macmillan Readers.
Unit plan
A story about a girl called Sara whose father always cheated customers at their fruit stall. Sara prayed to the God and one day, a miracle happened and changed her life.
worksheet |
2. A Trip Around the World
Objectives:
To enable students to:
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understand the features of non-fiction texts;
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sequence events, extract and organise information of the story in a graphic organiser
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write paragraphs using appropriate connectives;
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identify general and specific information using knowledge of the world;
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recognise key words in a sentence;
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search for relevant details of a topic and present the information in correct register.
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O'Donnell, K. 2004). A Trip Around the World. New York: Rosen Classroom Books & Materials.
Unit plan
This is a non fiction reader. Students can learn the facts about various cities in the world.
worksheets |
3. The Umbrella
Objectives:
To enable students to tackle a wide range of reading tasks which tap on their multiple intelligences, e.g. bodily, kinesthetic, visual and spatial, verbal / linguistic, interpersonal. |
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Harris, C. (2006) The Umbrella. Thailand: Macmillan Readers.
Unit plan
A story on the fabulous experience of a woman whose umbrella was taken by mistake by another woman.
worksheets |
4. A Look at Dogs
This is an assessment task set on the reader 'A Look at Dogs' with the following objectives:
- To assess students' knowledge of fiction and non-fiction, and their reading skills;
- To use data in this assessment task to inform learning and teaching.
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Halpern, M.(1998). A Look At Dogs. Steck-Vaughn Company.
A reading test
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Acknowledgements
Nam Wah Catholic Secondary School
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