Chapter 5:

Teaching
Reading
and Writing

Developed by
Dr. Marine Milad
Introduction
Getting Started
•The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the teaching of
reading and writing to young learners.
•It will present some of the challenges young learners face in
learning to read and write in English and some approaches to
help them to meet the challenge.
•It will also provide suggestions for a number of activities to
motivate very young and young learners to read and write in
English, to assist them while they are reading and writing, and to
encourage them to do more.
 Think about
it
• Can you recall a favorite book that you read and re-read when you
were a child?
• Why was it your favorite?
• What was it about?
• Who were the characters?
• Who read it to you?
Now think about what characteristics will guide your choice of books
to include in your young learners' classes.
• Also, think about the kinds of writing you did as a child. Are there
any that were memorable?
• Why do you think you remember them?
• What were you writing about?
• Who were you writing for? Who were you writing to?
Now think about the kinds of writing that you will include for your
very young learners.
• What will be some of the earliest opportunities?
• In contrast, what kinds of writing might you ask your young
learners to do?
• What are some ways to motivate young learners to read and
write?
• Are there ways in which you can integrate reading and writing
activities?
Discovery • List all the types of reading and writing activities that you
can think of that you might use with both very young (5–
activity 7) and young (8–11) learners.
• What makes a reading or writing activity engaging for
Brainstorming young children?

Chart
Theory, Planning and
Application:
Considerations for Teaching
Reading and Writing
• You may think that when you are reading, you are simply getting
meaning from the text, but actually you are also bringing meaning
with you.
• Reading is an interactive process involving the reader, the text, and
the writer.
• When you are writing, you are likely to read (or even re-read) what
you wrote to make sure you are communicating your intended
meaning to your audience (the reader).
• We are discussing reading and mentioning ways in which reading can
lead to writing.
• We are discussing writing and mentioning ways in which these
writings can serve as texts to be read, not only by the students who
wrote them, but also by others
• Listening and reading are both receptive skills, processing what
others have said or written, but doing so in an active way.
• Speaking and writing are both productive skills, where we take what
we know about the world, about texts, and about language
• to express an idea or opinion, to make an observation, to provide
information, to communicate our thoughts or needs, or to create a
poem, a story, or a song.
• Many listening activities can also be reading activities, and many
speaking activities can become writing activities as well.
Theory, Planning and
Application:
First and Second Language
Reading and Writing
• Learning to read and write is complex and difficult enough in a language the
child already knows; doing it in another language is even more difficult.
• But the good news is that when there is sufficient English language
development, many of the child’s skills and strategies used in reading and
writing in the first language will transfer to another language (Cummins,
1979).
• One only has to become “literate” once. Very young learners are probably still
learning to read and write in the home or first language.
• Older young learners have probably already learned to read and write in their
own language, and when their English proficiency is sufficient, they will be
able to transfer those skills into their reading of English.
• All children, whether first- or second-language readers, go through the same
five initial literacy steps:
• 1. Awareness and exploration
• 2. Experimenting with reading and writing
• 3. Early reading and writing
• 4. Transitional reading and writing
• 5. Conventional reading and writing
• (International Reading Association & the National Association for the
Education of Young Children, 1998)
Theory, Planning and Application:
First and Second Language Reading and Writing
• When children learn literacy skills in the first language, they develop several broad areas of
knowledge that they can access in English. These are:
• ■■ Visual knowledge: about print and text direction
• ■■ Phonological knowledge: about sounds represented by symbols (though children
• will usually think of this as the sounds that symbols make)
• ■■ Lexical knowledge: about words and collocations
• ■■ Syntactic knowledge: about meaning construction and making sense of words
• ■■ Semantic knowledge: about social use of language as discourse (Brewster, Ellis, & Girard,
2004)
• They have learned that reading and writing can be used for different purposes, and they have
likely developed a number of strategies for understanding reading and making themselves
understood through writing.
 Has the child learned to read and write in her/his own
language?
Is the child just beginning to learn to read in her/his own
language?

Considera
tions for
Developin Is that language written in the Roman alphabet, another
alphabet, or characters?

g Literacy
How does one read and write a text in that language (from left
to right, right to left, top to bottom)?
What skills and strategies has the child developed in making
meaning from and with text?
 Considerations for
Developing Literacy
• According to Geva and Wang (2001) in their review of the differences
in learning to read in different languages, English has a “deep”
orthography, one in which it can be difficult to sound out many
words from the way in which they are written or spelled, in contrast
to Spanish or German, which have “shallow” orthography and more
predictability in how a word sounds based on how it is written.
• Note the number of ways that the sound /i/ in English can be
represented in letters: be, bee, sea, ski, skied, receive.
• Just as there are many ways in which a sound is represented in print
(its spelling), there are many ways of pronouncing the same set of
letters.
• Consider the following: read, bread, break where the “ea” is decoded
as three different sounds!
• The following poem gives some idea of the difficulty of decoding
English.
• Note: You can hear this poem, with all its unusual pronunciation,
being read at:
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/pronunciation/poem01.html
 Why Include Reading and
Writing in Young Learner
Classes?
• Although reading and writing “are very demanding and take time and patience
to learn,” they “are extremely important for the child’s growing awareness of
language and their own growth in the language” (Scott & Ytreberg, 1990, p. 5).
EYL teachers need to include reading and writing wherever and as early as
possible, for a number of reasons:
• Reading and writing can reinforce what is being learned orally
• Reading expands the sources of input, and writing helps in remembering that
input
• Writing provides a way to consolidate learning from the other skills, and
reading helps students to see the conventions of writing
• Children enjoy reading and writing if the texts are meaningful and related to
their experiences (including using the many resources of the Internet)
• Reading and writing help link the EYL class with home, as children bring home
writing they have done to share with their families or do homework requiring
reading and writing
• Reading and writing can also link the EYL class with other classes in school,
where written language plays an important part
• Writing provides another means of self-expression and, when read by others,
a sense of confidence and pride (Pinter, 2006; Scott & Ytreberg, 1990
 Exemplary
teachers
• As Barone and Xu (2008) state, “In all discussions about
exemplary teachers, especially exemplary teachers of
ELLs [English Language Learners], one central discovery is
that they provide language-rich classrooms where
children have opportunities to talk about and write
about their learning” (p. 17).
• Teachers can make their classrooms especially “print-
rich” by labeling objects in the classroom; posting
calendars, maps, or class birthday charts; creating word
walls as new vocabulary is introduced; engaging the
children in drawing and labeling pictures to post in the
room, and as they write more, to produce class books
that can be read by children during independent reading
time (Curtain & Dahlberg, 2010; Pinter, 2006; Collins,
2004).
• For young learners to become effective and engaged
readers and writers, they must have multiple
opportunities to explore, read, and write a variety of
texts and to talk about what they are going to read or
write or what they have read or written.
 Considerations for Teaching
Reading
What Is Reading?
• Reading is a process of relating written symbols to oral language, of constructing meaning
from written text (Goodman, 2005), or “making sense and deriving meaning from the
printed word” (Linse, 2005, p. 69).
• When we read, we interact with the text, bringing our knowledge of the world, of language,
and of discourse or specific text types (a fairytale, newspaper article, poem, essay, or report)
to what we read.
• Our understanding increases or lessens depending on our background knowledge,
knowledge of the language, and our experience with discourse and text structure.
• Those experiences and that back- ground information are known as schemata (plural of
schema). One of the reasons for building units around topics, where language and content
are recycled (as discussed in Chapter 3) is that these help students to develop the
background knowledge, the vocabulary, and the structures (the schemata) to make sense of
written texts.
To be able to read, a child has to:
• Understand the alphabet
• Decode
• Develop sight vocabulary to read fluently (with automaticity)
• Develop strategies to help with comprehension and fluency
• Read texts that match her/his reading level and interests
• Engage in extensive reading (independent reading of a variety of texts)
(Adapted from Lenters, 2004/2005, p. 331)
 • Listening is an interpretive/receptive skill, like reading.
• Interpreting language is often broken down into two psycholinguistic
processes: bottom-up and top-down.
Bottom-Up • Bottom-up processing When we read, we activate what we know
and Top-Down about language.
• Top-down processing When we read, we activate what we know
Approaches to about making meaning
• When we are reading to children, we usually begin with context and
Teaching meaning, relating what we read to the children’s lives and
knowledge. Top-down
Reading • From there, we may explain particular words, have fun with
pronouncing some of them (for example, with rhymes or animal
sounds), and attend to the smaller units of a text, e.g. the initial
sound of dog and doll is the same and is represented by the letter
“d,” Bottom-up
• But this is only useful if they know what a dog, or a doll.
• If children do not know how to decode and have not learned the
regular sound–symbol correspondences in English, when confronted
with a new word, they are likely to skip over it, and doing that many
times renders a text meaningless.
Bottom-Up and Top-Down
Reading
 Bottom-Up and Top-Down
Reading

As Cameron (2001) On the other hand, Asher (1998) also In balancing an

explains, children the child who has believes that
need to develop learnt the names and
sounds of the letters
differences in
approach to reading,
at least the following 1. Phonics 2. Whole 3. Language
both top-down and learning styles make
bottom-up and can read simple, it important to
three approaches
should be language experience
processing: “The regular words by incorporate both considered for
child who picks up a ‘sounding them out’, approaches: young learners:
set of words that she needs also to Auditory learners will
recognizes as whole recognize find phonics more
words, and uses this morphemes by sight appropriate, while
sight vocabulary to and to draw on visual learners will
read simple texts, grammatical prefer the whole
needs to also information at word or look–say
develop knowledge sentence level if approach.
of graph phonemic progression is to be
relationships within made.” (p. 151).
words to progress to
more difficult texts.
1. Phonemic awareness activities can be fun.

• While phonemic awareness focuses on oral language, phonics focuses on written

language, with the goal of learning the relationships between the sounds and
letters (spelling) of English.
• Typically, children learn the sound–symbol relationships and then apply what
they have learned in decoding words in a text. Some phonics activities include:
• ■■ Identifying the number of syllables in a word
• ■■ Pointing to words that share a common letter-sound (As children become
more familiar with English, this can include irregular spellings.)
• ■■ Sorting pictures or making a collage of objects that begin with the same
letter-sound (book/ball/boy) or rhyme (cat/hat/rat)
• ■■ Sorting words that share a common letter-sound
• ■■ Matching words that share a common letter-sound
• ■■ Creating words from letters that have a common letter-sound
• ■■ Repeating chants with common letter-sounds that are written on the board
• ■■ Using predictable or patterned book
 2. Whole
language
Teachers using a whole language approach to reading may take their
learners through the following sequence of reading activities which
are complemented by a similar sequence of writing activities (to be
discussed).
Reading aloud
Beginning readers need multiple opportunities to hear stories,
poems, songs, chants, and other texts read aloud, with
opportunities to chime in where words or lines are repeated. With
songs, where both repetition and rhyme are present, it is easy for
children to learn parts and to participate after the teacher has sung
the song, pointing to the words written on the board or as they are
projected. Some songs provide many opportunities for children to
participate. For example, when singing “Old MacDonald Had a
Farm,” children can make the sounds of the animals
Shared reading
It is the next step after reading aloud. The purpose of shared
reading is to involve students in enjoyable reading, to demonstrate
good (or strategic) reading, and provide support while children are
reading along. Another goal of shared reading, of course, is also to
motivate children to pick up a book (perhaps in the reading center)
and read independently.
 2. Whole
language
Guided reading
In guided reading, the teacher works with small groups of
children who are at the same reading level, providing
support or scaffolding while they read. The goal is to let the
children read, noting problems they have with specific words
or punctuation, and providing support and modeling reading
strategies for the children to practice (Herrell, 2000). This is
also a time when children can have extra practice in
decoding, word recognition, or grammatical structures that
affect their understanding of the text.
Independent reading
A major goal of any reading program for young learners is to
encourage and enable them to read independently and to
motivate them to want to read a variety of texts (Day &
Bamford, 1998). In some schools, independent reading (also
known as “extensive reading” or “sustained silent reading”)
is so important that time is set aside for all children and their
teachers to read, in what is referred to as DEAR (Drop
Everything and Read) time.
3. Language
experience

• Language experience is an approach that uses learners’ oral language as the basis of a
written story.
• The learners (a class, small group, or individual student) dictate their “story” to someone
who is a more competent writer (usually the teacher, but it may also be an older, more
proficient student), who writes what the learners dictate.
• The language experience story can be
• a summary, an e-mail to the author of a story that the class has read, an invitation to
parents to come to a school event, a thank-you note to someone who has visited the
class, or even a message to a student who has missed an important event
Language Experience
Approach (LEA)
With LEA, young learners follow these steps:
• 1. Participate in a common experience (a field trip, a story, a
celebration, a visitor, a picture that evokes feelings)
• 2. Have a discussion
• 3. Decide what to write, using a brainstorming web or other
graphic organizer
• 4. Dictate the “story” to the teacher, who writes it so all can see
• 5. Read back what the teacher has written (The teacher may
read it first, with students following along, and then they read
it together.)
• 6. Decide if they want to edit anything
• 7. Copy what is written on the board into their notebooks
Language Experience
Approach (LEA)
• At this point, children can engage in a number of follow-up
activities to develop their reading and writing skills, as well as
their vocabulary (and even grammar). They can:
• ■■ Cut up the copied sentences into sentence strips and
sequence them
• ■■ Add new sight words to the class-word wall (an alphabetic
listing of important words that the class has learned) or their
vocabulary notebooks
• ■■ Find rhyming words or words that begin or end with the
same sound (phonics activities)
• ■■ Complete a gap-fill, filling in important words from the story
• ■■ Play vocabulary games such as Concentration or Bingo with
the vocabulary words
• ■■ Create a new ending for the story or text
Language Experience Approach (LEA)
• One question that always emerges with this approach is whether to write
exactly what the children dictate or to correct what they say into “good”
English:
Exact words:
• ■■ Validate the children’s language
• ■■ Make a clear relationship between speech (sound) and print
• ■■ Will not likely lead to other errors or fossilization
A teacher-edited text:
• ■■ Provides a good model
• ■■ Reflects the differences between spoken and written texts
• ■■ May be viewed more positively by parents or administrators
Language Experience Approach (LEA)
The children have fun with rhyme, while they are also noticing the
different ways in which /i/ is spelled in common English words.
Pepperoni Pizza
• Apples and bananas are really, really neat, But
• Pepperoni pizza is our favorite thing to eat.
• Mario eats ice cream while standing on his feet, But
• Pepperoni pizza is our favorite thing to eat.
• Silvia likes hot dogs while sitting in her seat, But
• Pepperoni pizza is our favorite thing to eat.
(The chant continues with other students’ names and ends with:)
• Mr. Greenblatt brought us to his room; he said he had a treat. It
was pepperoni pizza, our favorite thing to eat!
• Following this, the children drew pictures of the various foods
and made their own book, titled, naturally, Pepperoni Pizza.
Effective Reading Activities

Activities for beginning and more

advanced (and generally older)
readers

Pre-reading, during-reading, and

post-reading activities

Reading strategies
1. Activities for beginning
readers (word level):
• Pointing to or circling initial or final letters in words
• Pointing to or circling words
• Sorting pictures of objects (or the objects) with the same initial sound
• Sorting or matching words that rhyme
• Labeling pictures
• Matching words with pictures, with the same words, or with words with the same initial or
final letters
• Sorting and categorizing words by type of object or similarity of sound
• Guessing a word partially completed (first and last letter, first letter)
• Completing a word or word and picture puzzle
• Playing alphabet or word games
• Noting patterns in songs or chants
• Filling in a missing letter with picture cue (e.g., ca_ with picture of a car)
• Creating words with letters
• Posting words to a word wall
• Creating letter collages
 2. Activities for more advanced readers
(from word to sentence and text level):

Arranging words in
Following along with a
Unscrambling words Choosing among proper sequence in Matching texts with
text while listening to it
(What animal words can Filling in word puzzles multiple choice items sentences and sentences similar formats
being read (on CD or by
you find here? Cta, hifs) and pictures in proper sequence in a (schedules, lists, e-mails)
the teacher)
text (sentence strips)

Correcting mistakes in a Answering

text (while the teacher Sorting true and false Skimming a text to get Scanning a text for comprehension Looking up the meaning
reads the correct sentences the major idea(s) specific information questions about short of unfamiliar words
version) texts

Engaging in jigsaw
Scanning a text for Writing in a reading
Taking notes in a graphic reading, with each group
known word chunks (bus response journal or log
organizer responsible for different
stop, soccer ball) (see p.182)
parts of a short text
Effective Reading Activities

Pre-Task Stage

During Stage

Post Task Stage

1. Pre-reading activities
There are a number of activities that help learners activate
their background knowledge and prepare them to read or
follow along when someone else reads. These include:
• Taking a picture walk through the story of a fictional text
• Predicting what a story or other text will be about
• Pointing to and discussing the titles, subtitles, and graphics
of an informational text
• Talking about what is already known about the topic and the
text
• Asking a question to be answered by the text
• Engaging in a variety of vocabulary activities
2. During-reading activities
When reading aloud to children or engaging in shared or guided
reading with them, it is important to model good reading
strategies for them to use when they are reading independently.
These include:
• Visualizing a scene
• Drawing a picture of a scene
• Paraphrasing or summarizing at several places in the text
• Predicting what will come next
• Re-reading for better comprehension
• Filling in a graphic organizer (a chart, a table, or a web)
• Correcting a text with errors
• Comparing two texts
3. Post-reading activities
Upon completion of a read-aloud or shared or guided reading, there are a number of ways of
helping learners to remember or extending what they have read:
• Labeling or writing sentences with illustrations from the text
• Drawing scenes and labeling or writing sentences with them
• Putting a set of illustrations in order and then talking about each
• Answering a series of questions that lead to a summary of the text
• Arranging words in sentence strips
• Sequencing sentences (strip stories)
• Forming small groups to discuss a favorite character or animal (using cooperative learning
corners)
• Talking about likes and dislikes
• Completing a graphic organizer
• Describing a character or scene
• Writing a new ending
• Creating a mini-book (see Chapter 6)
• Filling in cloze activities
• Engaging in Reader’s Theater
• Writing in a response journal
 Reading Strategies
• Predicting: finding clues to what might come next in a text (from the cover, the
title, pictures, headings, or prior knowledge of the content)
• Monitoring: determining whether one’s reading makes sense, and if not, re-
reading to understand
• Confirming: finding evidence of an accurate prediction
• Connecting: making connections to prior readings, information, or experiences
• Questioning: asking questions about a text while reading, which may include
predicting the next parts of a text
• Skimming: reading to get the general topic or main points of a text
• Scanning: reading to find specific information such as dates or names or
answers to questions
• Distinguishing between important and less important information
• Using context clues: looking at the context (the pictures, other words, the
place in the sentence, punctuation) for better comprehension
• Paraphrasing or summarizing while reading and after reading a text
• Visualizing: forming images about what has been read in order to facilitate
comprehension
Considerations for Teaching
Writing
What Is Writing
• There are a number of reasons why writing is not
more present in EYL classes:
• time, number of students,
• a mistaken notion that children cannot begin
writing in English until they reach a significant
level of proficiency in the language, or
• a belief that children must learn to read before
they can write.
• Some of that writing may consist of activities in
which children fill in a blank or create sentences
with some words provided.
• These can be good beginning writing activities, but
children also need the opportunity to engage in
creative writing and to write authentic texts for
authentic purposes.
Approaches to Teaching Writing
• While our goal with our young learners is to help them to construct original texts
using their “intellectual and linguistic resources” (Hudelson, 1988, p. 1), we will also
want to help them to revise these texts to make them as clear and understandable
as possible. The question is, How do we accomplish this? Just as there are
controversies about the best way to teach reading, there are controversies about
how to teach writing. There are two major approaches:
1. A product-based approach—one that focuses on the final product
• It focuses on accuracy, providing controlled or guided activities to help children learn
the basics of writing, working on spelling, grammar, and mechanics, in a bottom-up
fashion. A product-based approach to writing consists of a bottom-up approach,
where accuracy with the various pieces of language (letters, words, sentences,
paragraphs) is the focus. Nunan (2011) reminds us that even controlled or guided
activities can be fun, especially if they are turned into games or competitions, and
some of these can also reinforce reading skills.
2. A process-based approach—one that focuses on the process of writing
• It focuses on fluency, encouraging children to write and express themselves freely,
without too much worry about spelling, grammar, or punctuation until the final
stage of the process, when they “publish” their work. A product-based approach to
writing consists of a top-down approach, such as Writing Workshop
In the end, both of these approaches are needed (Raimes, 1993).
A product-based • Forming letters by tracing, creating them
physically (with arms, hands, or even full bodies
approach with other children), connecting dots
Controlled writing • Underlining stressed words as they are spoken

activities • Counting the words in a sentence or clapping with

each word
• Copying words or sentences
• Completing word puzzles with the words provided
• Playing word games (Bingo, Concentration)
• Unscrambling words or sentences
• Filling in gaps with the words or sentences
provided
• Creating a poem with words provided
• Building a personal word list
• Contributing words to a word wall
 • Brainstorming topics or words to include

A product-based • Completing word puzzles with clues

approach
• Filling in blanks
• Completing sentences with picture clues or sentence starters

Guided writing • Responding to questions about a picture, a scene, or a text

• Describing a picture with some vocabulary provided
activities • Creating a poem with model formats
• Completing language bubbles in cartoons
• Writing from dictation (including a dictogloss, a summary that students write,
with the aid of a list of key words, after hearing a text read twice; Wajnryb,
1991)
• Writing from a (partially) completed graphic organizer
• Responding to a series of questions in writing
• Completing cloze activities
• Participating in the language experience approach
• Creating sentences with some of the words provided (for example, in a word
grid)
• Rearranging sentences in a paragraph
• Rewriting familiar songs or stories (such as “Pepperoni Pizza”)
• Writing a new ending for a familiar story
• Writing a text (invitation, poem, e-mail, Name Acrostics, etc.) from a mod
A process-based approach
Writing Workshop
The stages of Writing Workshop are:
• Brainstorming and discussing: identifying possible topics to write about individually,
with a partner, and as a class, and talking about them with others to activate
background knowledge and obtain ideas for the first draft, using a brainstorming web
to capture ideas
• Drafting: writing a rough draft, focusing on getting ideas on paper, and not worrying
about spelling, grammar, or even word choice; fluency is the goal of this stage
• Peer reviewing and conferencing: sharing the draft with another student with a focus
on the content, helping the writer to see what his or her audience likes, understands,
or needs to make the writing clearer
• Revising: taking the suggestions of others and also one’s own thoughts and improving
the content and organization of the paper
• Reviewing and conferencing: sharing the revised text with the teacher
• Editing: checking spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and improving the final version
of the paper; accuracy is the focus here. Controlled and guided writing activities can
help with this stage of the process.
• Publishing: sharing the writing with a real audience by posting it on a bulletin board or
online, including it in a class book, creating an individual book, or putting it into an e-
mail. It is also possible to invite children to read or share their writing with the class or
groups of students in an “author’s chair” while the other children listen to the text
being read aloud
Reading and Writing Digital Texts

• Workshop is a series of activities that help children to become

authors, beginning with free writing, and then moving through a
series of writing steps or stages until they have produced a work
that they want to share, by “publishing” it in a class book,
posting it on a bulletin board, or creating their own book
(Calkins, 1983; Hachem, Nabhani, & Bahous, 2008).
• Young learners may find that they do increasing amounts of their
reading and writing online. Certainly, the need for print
dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works will only
continue to decline as these are freely and easily available on the
Internet.
Some digital writing activities include:
1. E-pals and paired classes
2. Photo-autobiographies
Writing the Story from a Video
(25 minutes)

Pre-Task Stage

During Stage

Post Task Stage

Writing the
In this activity, the class just watched a video (or listened to the teacher tell a
story). The students are responsible for writing the story they watched. The
teacher can break the task down and check progress after students do each of

Story from a
the following steps:
Pre-task stage

Video (25
• Brainstorm ideas (3 minutes): In small groups, students brainstorm ideas for
the story in a web.
• List ideas (2 minutes): In small groups, students order their ideas in a list.

minutes) • Share ideas (5 minutes): With the whole class, students share their ideas
from their list while the teacher writes their ideas in complete sentences on
the board. If students make any grammatical mistakes when expressing their
ideas, the teacher can model the correct sentences as she writes on the
board.
During task stage
• Write sentences (5 minutes): Individually, students write a sentence for each
idea using the teacher’s model on the board.
• Brain break (2 minutes): The teacher leads the whole class in a TPR brain
break. They do the Handshakes three or four times, and then stretch their
hands up high and touch their toes a few times.
• Add details (3 minutes): With the whole class, students discuss what details
to add to make the story more interesting.
• Write story (5 minutes): Individually, students write the story in good
handwriting on a clean sheet of paper.
Post task stage
The teacher can check on progress after each step and tell students to move to
the next step. While students are working in small groups, pairs, and
individually, the teacher can walk around and help students or groups who are
struggling. Then, s/he gives a summative assessment of the task.
Designin
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Reading
& Writing
Lesson
Designin
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Reading
& Writing
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Designin
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Reading
& Writing
Lesson
Chapter Summary

• Reading and writing are active and complementary activities.

• We often think, mistakenly, that reading is a passive activity, but reading is an interactive process,
involving the reader, the text, and the writer.
• Similarly, writing is an interactive process, involving the writer, the text, and the reader.
• When we write, we think about our reader and often re-read what we have written to ensure that our
message is clear to the reader.
• Reading and writing activities should be meaningful, but also provide controlled and guided practice to
support learners in their reading and writing development
• Children need to develop basic reading and writing skills that can best be addressed in a bottom-up
approach.
• For reading, this will involve the systematic use of a variety of controlled and guided phonics activities
that help children understand the relationship between print and oral language.
• For writing, this will involve a variety of controlled and guided product-based activities to help teach
language structure (grammar), vocabulary, spelling, and writing mechanics.
• A range of reading and writing activities and texts should be integrated into unit and lesson plans.
Discussion Questions
• 1. Now that we have discussed approaches to teaching reading and writing and some examples of
activities to use, look back at the list you made at the beginning of the chapter. Look at the
activities that you thought would NOT be motivating to young learners. Are there ways that you
can make them more motivating or engaging? What are some new activities that you would want
to try using with your young learners?
• 2. What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of both phonics and whole language
approaches? How can you incorporate the best of each of these approaches in designing a
reading program for young learners? Would there be differences for very young learners and
young learners?
• 3. Look online at any one of the word frequency lists referenced in the chapter. Then compare
these with what you would expect to teach to young learners. You may want to consult EYL
textbooks prepared by the Ministry of Education or commercial EYL textbooks to see how the
vocabulary that is included in the books or materials matches the words in the frequency lists.
• 4. What kinds of texts do children read and write in your community? Which of these could be
used for encouraging authentic reading and writing in English?
Lesson Planning
• Select any lesson you have planned or one
that you have observed or reviewed and
identify the reading and writing activities
that are included.
• Are these bottom-up activities (phonics or
product-based writing activities) or top-
down (whole language or process-based
activities focused on meaning)?
• Add activities to the lesson to include at
least one of the four categories (controlled
or guided reading and writing activities and
independent reading and free writing
activities).
 Write About It
Reflection on Learning to Read:
Think back to when you were a child learning to read in your first language.
• What are some ways that your parents and teachers helped you?
• Can you recall a favorite book that you read and re-read as a child?
• How might you apply this to teaching reading in English to young learners?
• How did you learn to read in English?
• Can you recall some of the activities that your teacher and others used to
help you make the transition from reading in your first language to reading
in English?
• Could you use these in teaching EYL?