What to do during reading time

It is quite normal to think of reading as a solitary, silent activity, but it can also be a very active familiar activity and if you are a teacher you might be able to use some of these! We think that both approaches to reading are equally enjoyable and beneficial for language learning and even to build strong relationship with your peers. Try and use this techniques and they might develop students' vocabulary, grammar, and thinking skills through stories.

We will look at some ideas that might help you engage young readers in dialogue during reading time. Dialogic teaching and dialogic reading are excellent ways of developing language skills, building cultural and subject knowledge, and learning about emotions, individual thoughts and opinions and build open-mindedness towards others way of thinking. When students feel at ease, they are more likely to be vocal. Language anxiety, a very common trait in ESL learners can be reduced and foster self-motivation and willingness to communicate by creating a friendly learning environment. Story time is a great way for teachers to do this or at home it could be during bed-time story or anyway you seem fit. However, it is important to know that having a set time during the day for story-time is far more effective than random times during the day.

1 Getting started

Start with the visual part of the book. Ask children what do they think the book is about and what can they predict from the illustrations only. You can also jump right into the story and say ‘Today we will read a story about…’ Please feel free to talk either in L1 or L2 about what the story might be about and give any necessary information the students may need to help them to better appreciate the story (e.g., setting).

2 Questions Questions Questions

Language teachers know how important it is to ask the right questions when preparing for class dialogues. Both open-ended and yes/no questions are equally important and would benefit from a good balance. If you want to get your students to talk and express their feelings, tell stories, talk about the content (visual or verbal) on the pages, and ask open-ended questions. For example, start with the visual content and ask:

What is happening here?

An all time favorite - What can you see?

What are they doing?

Then, during reading, stop from time to time and check the plot and I might add try and make it funny such as starting your questions with a 'Ah! I forgot...'

What did they say?

Where are they?

Where did they go?

Yes/No questions work well when you want to get the conversation started. For example, ‘Do you like this picture?’, ‘Do you like and (refer to a certain character)?

Yes/No questions also work when you want to check the meanings.

For example,

‘Did they go...?’, ‘Did they talk to...?’ and so on.

Since speaking is one of the most challenging skills for all students, go slowly and accept even a one-word answer. Just like in real-life communication, we don’t need to say full sentences in dialogues. If you feel that your students need a little bit more encouragement, you can initiate a conversation in your students’ mother tongue then switch to English. This will allow them to activate background knowledge before they start talking about it in a foreign language. Code-switching can feel comfortable and safe for students.

3 The power of observation

Examining the book is also a great way to get the dialogue going. This can be either physical or digital. It feels interesting to hold something and see through the power of sensory skills. Pay attention to the cover, the endpapers (sometimes stories begin there!), and the layout of the pages. What information, other than the story, is given? Let your students look at the images, say something about the colors and the book as an object.

4 Sometimes it is all about the feedback

We recommend to think of these activities in terms of short dialogues. A few words, or even a one-word in exchange is already a great achievement for a young child. Our role in these dialogues includes prompting the students, and then evaluating/giving feedback on their responses. If a child says something incorrectly, avoid one of the most common mistakes which is correcting, instead try to reformulate their answer in the appropriate way. With older children, you can give synonyms during your feedback. Here are some ideas to get the dialogue going:

Let students finish the sentence. For example, ‘The characters in this story are …’, ‘The villan is…’ Practice simple descriptions when you read a picture book: As mentioned above, one of my all time favorite and probably one of the most effective ones for creating a dialogue, ‘What can you see?’

Who, what, where, when, why? When you have read a passage, use these kind of questions. They prepare students for active reading, which is an essential skill in the future and paves the way for critical reading. The earlier students get used to the idea of being in a dialogue with a text, the more confident they will be when reading.

Raise interest. Ask questions about the events in the story. For example, ‘Do you know why it is a scary place?’, ‘Do you know why they can’t do …?’

5 Emotional response and factual descriptions are both important

A very important factor in reading are questions that involve emotions or feelings. It is crucial when try to develop empathy, open-mindedness, and critical thinking. These will be very helpful as they experience in their own life triggering scenarios. So let's focus on how the characters in the story feel, then ask the students how they feel about the story. By recognizing emotions in the characters, the students can learn to reflect on their own emotions better.

6 Retell: recall: recycle

Retell the story after finishing by recalling the most important events. For example, ask ‘What happened to... Was this a happy ending, yes/no and why?’

7 Make connections with other things

Stories are great resources to learn about the world around us. These can be cultural, historical, emotional, or scientific. In the simplest way, If the story is set in the past, you can talk a little about what they know about the past and even connect it by having ask their caregivers some questions. For example, ‘The man is using this (different phone) … in the story. Why?’ And then go on by comparing with life today.

I hope you enjoyed this blog on how to use reading time effectively. We believe everyone can do it but it is all matter of patience and timing. Everyone develops at a different pace. It is important to know this and accept it as a reality. Eventually what we are looking for as caregivers will come, but only if the child feels supported and cared for.