Teachers often meet students’ mothers when they come to schools to ask about their children’s progress of leaning English. They like hearing their children are reading books aloud, and therefore they normally ask their teachers to improve children’s reading skills. But there is a typical mistake that teachers find. Most parents misunderstand that reading means a word decoding which is a developing skill coming from phonics learning (Time for learning, 2009). To read, students must be able to sound out each letter which is decoding process and understand what they decode. The fact that learners know how to pronounce written words correctly does not mean that they can read because reading always combine decoding and comprehending the text (Linse & Nunan,2005).I have seen many Korean teachers teach phonics skills to young learners but not comprehension skills much. How can I teach comprehension skills to young EFL learners in Korea? It is not easy that's why I would like to research into it!
Linse, C., & Nunan, D. (2005). Practical English Language Teaching Young Learners. New York: McGraw-Hill College.
Time for learning. (2009). Reading Comprehension Skills. Retrieved December 3, 2009, from http://www.time4learning.com/homeschool/seo/reading_comprehension_2.htm
Even though I spend quite a lot of time for decoding the text with students, sometimes I feel something is missing when I find them not having the ability to pronounce the words properly and willingness to speak words out. Combining both of the skill, decoding and comprehending the given text, would be ideal. Considering the ages of your target subjects, actually I have no idea. Being flexible with knowledge-based skills can possibly be a big help. ^^
ReplyDeleteDear Kyongwoo.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Teaching phonics only means that learners can pronounce words, yet it does not mean that learners are actually able to understand what they are reading aloud. Of course, reading aloud is a poor practice to begin with since it inhibits comprehension (learners concentrate on making sounds; not drawing meaning). In order to further develop the reading comprehension of young learners, a fair amount of time needs to be spent teaching vocabulary as well. The more vocaulary a young learner has at her disposal, the more likely she is to naturally create inferences from the text.