Read to me riddles and read to me rhymes
Read to me stories of magical times
Read to me tales about castles and kings
Read to me stories of fabulous things
Read to me pirates and read to me knights
Read to me dragons and dragon-book fights
Read to me spaceships and cowboys and then
When you are finished—please read them again.
— Jane Yolen
Writing ceases at some moment,but reading is forever. While the author places underpinnings necessary for that magic to manifest, it is the reader who takes the flight of imagination and the written word to another level of understanding. Reading is a facility that deepens our understanding of the world around us. For learners, reading is not only a vibrant activity that widens curiosity but also yields love for learning.
A teacher moulds young readers by guiding them what to read, how to read and why to read. Many scholars have established a strong link between reading and the academic performance of students. Good readers can grasp concepts, monitor opinions, and recognise sentence structure with enhanced oral language skills. Reading should emulate real-life texts and strategies. Teachers can creatively engage students to make reading enjoyable and effective. Reading also has a therapeutic effect on the evolving young minds. It eases students’ anxieties by providing them with an opportunity for self-expression. Reading for pleasure is very beneficial for a student’s success and can increase empathy and social skills.
For an effective and engaging reading session, teachers can endorse vibrant storytelling practices in the classroom and not solely run through elementary comprehension questions that emphasise on language rather than on the skill of reading. Working out the pedagogy of reading is a crucial aspect. When it comes to imbibing reading skills, ‘why we are reading a particular text’ will make a variance to ‘how we read it’. The main aim of a teacher during reading lessons should be to cultivate a lifelong interest in reading.
Teaching reading skills of skimming, scanning, keywords spotting, analytic reading, critical reading and reading difficult texts are as important for a student as helping build their vocabulary and fluency. Allowing students to free-choice reading both within and outside the classroom, in the library and even after school hours would be an effective tool to encourage reading. This helps to make reading not only effortless, but also engaging and enjoyable without the pressure of performance in classrooms. This allows the readers to develop and broaden their reading skills.
Increasing book exposure for students can be done in collaboration with the school librarian and other teachers. Events and promotions can be planned and organised for students for effective reading. Having a class library, besides the school library, where each student can suggest, recommend or share books of their choice would be a creative add-on. This would not only facilitate discussions among students but would expose them to the interests of their peers. Discussions and post-reading sessions can be particularly informative and fruitful for the slow, reluctant learners.
Teachers should acquaint students with a range of reading resources like novels, comics, graphic novels, picture books, poetry, and short stories. Encouraging students to talk about characters, plot, theme, setting and ideas during discussions can lead to very dynamic and constructive engagement with reading skills. Visiting the school library should not be a dull chore but a part of the daily activities for every student. Reading hours in the library should be made independent of school assignments.
Reading aloud during classroom exercises, assignments and homework plays a key role in influencing imaginative minds. Reading practices like silent reading, shared reading, guided reading and independent reading would benefit different learners. Teachers should motivate students for active participation in shared reading. During guided reading, teachers can digress the students from unwanted reading material and guide them to look for specific authors. Independent and silent reading practice would help individual students to channelise their minds and read efficiently with calm minds.
In these days of Kindle, e-books, e-pubs and online discussion forums, teachers can assist students in using web and social media in promotion of reading. Teachers may facilitate students to organise book clubs both inside and outside the classrooms. These kinds of activities can boost the self-confidence of students and enhance the social aspect of reading and informal discussions. This can also help students with self-expression, in sharing their beliefs and exchanging ideas with their classmates.
Organising author/poem/story day in schools or classrooms can even motivate less enthusiastic students. Learners can share quotes, excerpts or a character sketch of their favourite author with the class. Teachers can even create a pool of authors or writers from the classroom, inspiring students to narrate, enact situations or events from their writings. Reading assignments involving roleplay and narration can stimulate fluency and vocabulary of the students. Activities like predicting, sequencing, repeated reading with alternate and choral reading can also enhance and improve the fluency of students. Choral reading widens skills with diverse genres. One can select resources that demonstrate content area, subject matter or reading content such as phonics, vocabulary, and rhyme. Repeated reading permits improved content comprehension.
Conducting storytelling sessions for students can also be an operative tool to refine their articulacy skills. Reading lends wings to children’s creativity and imagination besides shaping their young and developing minds. As a famous children’s author has said, ‘The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you’ll go.’ —Dr Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut
REFERENCE:http://www.progressiveteacher.in/reading-matters/
