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Promotion of Reading: A Whole-School Approach

Maria NgRonica ChanCarmel Secondary School

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Outline

whole-school approach integration of extensive reading into ELT

curriculum

- salient factors

- impact on learning: Jazzy home-school cooperation feedback

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Background

an EMI school lower Band 1 intake students:

- mostly from working-class families

- little English language support at home

- lack exposure to English in everyday life

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Whole-School Promotion of Reading

Past: the job of language panels Now: the job of all panels, librarians,

students, parents & PTA Theme 2000-2002:

"Broaden Horizons - Be Active Readers"

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Whole-school Promotion of Reading

reading schemes for students and parents book exhibitions seminars and workshops on reading conducted by

teachers or local writers visits to public libraries reading camps reading-related competitions publication of a newsletter on reading: "Books for

Keeps"

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"Ten Thousand and Beyond" Reading Competition

Competition:

individual & class awards

Collective Effort:

the target of 10,000 books

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Parent-Child Reading Scheme (organized by PTA & school library)

a student + family a log bookstudent parent: share reading orally log book: date, book title and a grade

(interest level), parent's/student’s signature

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Books for Keeps

Teachers, students, & even caretakers contribute

Teachers as readers & role models

Students as readers & resource persons

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School Library

provides a comfortable reading area organizes reading schemes & reading-

related activities promotes reading to parents stocks books for students and parents arranges visits to book stores

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Student Empowerment

as student librarians as resource persons – Books for Keeps select & recommend books for purchase

"The selected books are screened by teachers, but the school usually buys the books we recommend because we know what other students want to read.“ (Gigi, an S.5 student)

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Effectiveness: average number of library books checked out per day

1998-1999 89

1999-2000 112

2000-2001 217

2001-2002 224

2002-2003 192 (SARS)Sept 2003- Dec 2003

243

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Integration of Extensive Reading into the ELT Curriculum

Formal Curriculum- ERS lessons- Project work on reading habits- Class readers- Home reading

Informal Curriculum- Story-sharing corner

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Salient factors

teacher-student/ student-student dialogue: sharing stories orally & in writing

integration of reading & writing: home reading

meaning-making exploration of language use

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student-student dialogue: story-sharing corner

Story-sharing is "interaction of ideas between students of different forms." (Gloria, S.2)

"I prefer students to share their story with us, rather than reading from a script. There should be some interaction."(Vicky, peer-tutor, S.3)

"I ask them to share the story, not just open the book and tell us what it is about." (Kaiser, peer-tutor, S.3)

Student Empowerment

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teacher-student dialogue: home reading

Jazzy’s home reading entry dated 25 November 1998

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1st March, 1999

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Meaning-making

"When I was a story-teller in S.1, I felt nervous. I was afraid of making mistakes. I didn't know how to translate my thoughts from Chinese into English. I then tried to speak, disregarding the mistakes I made...I gained more confidence, and I became a peer-tutor in S.3.“ (Jennifer, S.5)

"I learned to be less shy. I had to speak clearly in order to make others understand me. This also helped my oral skills." (Catherine, S.2)

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Meaning-making

28th Dec,

1998

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Exploration of Language Use

"Usually we don't have much chance to read out the vocabulary we have just learnt, but the story-sharing corner provides a place for us to try out the new vocabulary we've learnt and consolidates our knowledge of new words." (May, S.3)

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Exploration of Language Use

17th Nov, 1999

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Impact on Learning: Jazzy

Home-School Cooperation

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Concluding remarks

Reading culture develops over time Schools can

- create opportunities for it to develop- encourage students to interact not only with a text, but with one another about a text- integrate reading with writing (see also Exemplar 5)- explore, experiment, & evaluate excel (4Es)