| Background Reading Workshops are designed for developing primary students’ reading skills. They also aim at helping students develop a love for reading, learn grammar in context and build a wide repertoire of vocabulary. Teachers of Dr. Catherine F Woo Memorial School (AM) conducted Reading Workshops in P1, through which students were exposed to different text types and engaged in meaningful writing tasks developed based on the reading materials.
In the process of conducting Reading Workshops, teachers explored opportunities to strengthen the teaching of phonics and reading skills as well as developing students’ writing skills. Alignment was made between the Reading Workshops and GE programme. Word association and word formation concepts were infused into the teaching of each reader. Formative reading assessment was administered throughout the year to keep track of students’ progress in reading. |
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Objectives
- To align Reading Workshops and GE programme so that what is learned in the GE programme can be consolidated and recycled
- To expose students to different text types and teach reading skills explicitly
- To infuse the teaching of word association and word formation skills into the P1 curriculum and strengthen the teaching of phonics skills
- To devise meaningful writing tasks from the readers and provide opportunities to write different text types
- To administer formative reading assessment throughout the year to keep track of students’ progress in reading
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Implementation
Textbook chapter |
Ch5. At the park & Ch 8. Friends |
Reader |
Little Shy Fred? |
Target language |
Language focus
Using connective“but” to link contrasting ideas
Using present continuous tense to describe events
Using adjectives to describe people
Target vocabulary
- Things found in the park
- Things to do in the park
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Reading skills |
- Apply phonics skills to sound out unfamiliar words
- Understand the information provided on the book cover
- Sequencing events in a story
- Understand the connection between ideas by identifying cohesive devices
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Lesson |
Objective |
Procedure |
1-6 |
Check students’ knowledge of the topic and revise target vocabulary items learned in U.5 of the textbook
Teach lexical set on “Park”
Teach vocabulary building skills – categorization
Apply phonics skills to sound out unfamiliar words
Understand the information provided on the book cover
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Pre-reading
- Ask students to work in groups and brainstorm all the words related to “park”. Conduct the activity in the form of group competition to increase students’ motivation for the game. (Resources: ws 1 Part A)
- Teacher revises some vocabulary items and phrases related to the park using a PowerPoint.
- Ask students to categorize the items on ws 1 part B. (Resources: ws 1 Part B)
- Ask students the following questions:
- Do you go to the park?
- Who do you go with?
- When do you go there?
- What do you like to do there?
- Ask students to look at the book cover and ask: (Resources: book cover)
- What is this place?
- What is the weather like?
- Who is the boy behind the tree? (Fred)
- Ask students to decode the word “Fred” by breaking it up to “F” and “red” first and then “Fr” and “ed”. Ask students to sound out “Ted”, “bed” and “led”.
- Ask students the following questions?
- Does Fred play with the kids? (No)
- Does he want to play with them? (Yes)
- Why doesn’t he play with the others? (shy)
<Ask students to look for the word from the title.>
- Do you think Fred will make friends at the end?
- Who is the author and illustrator of the story?
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Practise reading aloud |
While-reading
- Teacher reads the story aloud or asks students to listen to the story on the CD-Rom.
- Ask students some comprehension questions about the story: (Resources: ws2)
- What do boys like to play in the park? What about girls?
- What’s the weather like on p.10? How does Fred feel?
- Who’s Fred’s first new friend? (Matt)
- What kind of boy is Matt? (kind, nice, helpful, good…)
- Was Fred shy at the end?
- Do you like to play with others or play on your own?
- Have you made any friends in the park?
- Ask students to read their own reader and read the story aloud together with the teacher.
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Sequencing events in a story
Practise using the target grammar items learned in Unit 8 in context
Understand the connection between ideas by identifying cohesive devices |
Post-reading
- Teacher puts pictures of the story on the blackboard and asks students to sequence the pictures.
- Teacher puts sentences from the story on the board and asks students to match the sentences with the pictures on the board.
- Ask students to do the sequencing exercise in ws 2 to recap the gist of the story. (Resources: ws2)
- Tell students that Fred is no longer shy and he plays with his new friends a lot. Tell students that Fred has taken pictures of his friends and they have to help Fred write captions for the photos in ws 3 so that Fred can introduce his friends to his mum.
(Extension: Show and tell – Teacher asks students to bring some of their photos to school and tell other students what the photos are about using the target grammar item)(Resources: ws3)
- Fred changes from a shy boy to a friendly and brave boy. Tell students that Fred’s mum is glad to see the changes in Fred. As Fred’s dad works in China, Mum asks Fred to write a letter to Dad to tell him the good news.(Resources: ws4)
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Assessment (Resources: assessment 1-3)
Ask students to do assessment 1-3. |
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Acknowledgements
Miss Shirley Chan
Miss Edith Chan
Miss Josephine Ho
Miss Christie Li
Miss Amy Stewart
Dr. Catherine F. Woo Memorial School (AM): P1 teachers in 2007-2008
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