I have group of girls and boys from different grades whom I am teaching. Some of these kids are excellent readers. But I have a problem with few kids who can �t read at all. I have tried reading activities of lower levels , but there is little improvement. What can I do? English is not their mother tongue and I don �t get much support from parents. But I feel I have to do something to make them read better. Where can I start with such kids. They are between 9 - 13 years old. Unfortunately some of the classes have 50, 40 and  smallest 35 kids

 

Bye

Mukondi

1. prepare a lesson which requires group work, e. g. making a poster for something (a country, a sport, clothes...) - it �s important to mix the groups and to have let �s say 2 weaker and 2 stronger readers - it �s good to let them use a dictionary and magazine cutouts or their own drawings and make a pictionary - have them e. g. have a poster of their favourite singer/athlete/actor and mark their clothes, writing the names in colourful letters and adding a synonym or explanation in English ( they can change roles - one writes the word, the other explanation - and then have them read to the rest of the class - the weaker st can read the key word, and the stronger st the explanation - kids love to learn from each other doing sth that �s fun, and they won �t be embarassed to read sth difficult in public - having lots of colour and a project that is then displayed in the classroom really boosts their self-confidence, and the stronger sts don �t waste time, but help

2. working in pairs - have a buddy system (but don �t tell the sts that you �re pairing up a weak and a strong st, they �ll know, but there �s no need to make it public) - give them all big copies (even handwritten) of a short text, song, or story, and have them write 6 sentences(3 of which have to be true and 3 false) about it, and then have them read this as a task to the rest of the class - the rest have to say whether the sentence is true or false, and then the pair gives them an explanation (again, they can read one then the other)

3. put some 10 words on the board on word cards or in colourful letters (key words)- then have the stronger st make a sentence in which he or she uses this word, but instead of actually reading the word, he/she has to say sth silly (you name it - it can be blah-blah or troll or blubber...)- then have the weaker st read aloud the word from the board which he/she thinks should be put instead of the funny one - you can play this game in pairs, or in groups, etc.

4. prepare 4-5 completely different activities on the same topic and organise your classroom in 4-5 workshop centres(have 4-5 tables - no chairs are necessary here, or 2 tables, a carpet, a blanket, a bench...) - have the same number of groups with mixed level st in them and give each group 10 mins tops for each activity - play some quiet music and tell them that when the music stops (or you blow a whistle) they have to switch to the next workshop to their left - one workshop can have memory cards with key words, one can have a story in jumbled cut-outs which they need to assemble, one can have a worksheet on the topic which they have to solve, one can have a fill-in poster which has to be filled with key words...- once they finish, quickly check and say switch or blow the whistle... - it �s a fun way to do lots of things, the time limit motivates them and again - they learn from each other

5. choose a move or part of it with English subtitles - play a scene for them with subtitles in their mother tongue, then without subtitles, then again with subtitles in English, and then again with English subtitles but without sounds - before you do this, tell them each which person they will be �playing � and while they read the subtitles aloud (without sound) they will actually be playing a character - everybody does the first few levels together, then have a few volunteers for the first acting session, and then you can repeat the whole thing with another scene and another set of volunteers...

Hope some of this helps... 

 

Firstly, it�s interesting and secondly, there are always 8 threads on the main page no matter how long each one of them is.

 

Is that a colloquialism in your language?

Is that a colloquialism in your language?