Promoting Reading and Thinking across the Curriculum

Date :

6 March 2015

Time :

2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Place :

Lecture Theatre, 4/F, West Block, Kowloon Tong Education Services Centre

Aims of Activity :

To share how schools have implemented reading across the curriculum inside and outside the classroom to :

• develop learning to read and reading to learn skills among aspiring learners

• develop independent learning and higher-order thinking skills to meet the more demanding needs of the senior secondary curriculum

Participating schools :

• Queen Elizabeth School Old Students' Association Secondary School

• CCC Kwei Wah Shan College

• Wong Shiu Chi Secondary School

• SMKMCF Ma Ko Pan Memorial College

2:00 pm - 2:10 pm

2:10 pm - 2:25 pm

• As reading is an important life skill, schools have been working hard to promote it across the curriculum.

• A brief introduction of the school cases was given to show how different KLAs worked together to promote reading and thinking.

2:25 pm - 2:45 pm

The following key messages were conveyed:

• Subject teachers can help students in their reading development by

    - raising students' language awareness in dealing with English texts;

    - providing students with an opportunity to apply and consolidate their reading skills; and

    - reinforcing students' reading strategies learned in their teaching.

• English teachers can facilitate cross-curricular collaboration by

    - trying to understand students'language needs in other KLAs;

    - being more flexible and less textbook-bound; and

    - being ready to develop school-based materials with content subject teachers.

2:45 pm - 3:15 pm

The following points were presented:

• Both English and content subject teachers adopted various strategies to develop students' reading skills inside the classroom, for example, vocabulary building strategies, scaffolding strategies and increasing students' exposure to different text types.

• The school also extended students' learning opportunity and experience outside the classroom.

• A Language across the Curriculum Day was held for students to apply the reading skills learnt in the extended learning activities through games and activities.

3:15 pm - 3:30 pm

3:30 pm - 4:10 pm

The following features were highlighted:

• Teachers tried to deepen students' interest in their subject knowledge and promote independent reading outside the classroom through reading popular science books.

• A lot of opportunities were created to enable students to apply some science-related reading skills and scientific thinking and reflect on the reading process.

• Some elements of self-directed learning were included in the Programme such as students setting their own learning goals and choosing their own reading products for the showcase.

• English and Science teachers worked together to give students reading input and assess students' learning products.

4:10 pm - 4:45 pm

The following features were shared:

• Language teachers taught students how to read non-fiction texts. It was then reinforced by different subject teachers so that students could apply the reading strategies in their reading programme.

• Teachers also designed different types of questions to develop students' higher-order thinking skills.

• The reading programme also facilitated students to produce creative reading products.

4:45 pm - 5:00 pm

• Reading skill should be promoted in all schools because it is an essential skill which opens students' eyes to the world.

• Reading processes have been identified as critical for success in all content areas.

• Teaching reading is an integral part of all content areas: "Every teacher must be a reading teacher".