Reading - the key to success in English

Reading - the key to success in English http://school.hk/pcwong Prof. P.C. Wong Hong Kong School Net Department of Information Engineering Email：pcwong@school.hk

Question 1 • When students learn English, what do they mostly use? Mouth Eye Hand Brain Ear

Question 2 • How can we solve the following problems? • Listen：Students not familiar with listening in English. They cannot differentiate oral from written English. • Speaking：Students seldom speak in English, and they are not expressive in English. • Reading：Students see a word but read another word, and they cannot decode complex sentence structures. • Writing：Students always make mistakes with grammar, especially with Articles, Tenses, and Prepositions.

Outline • WHY? • WHAT? • HOW?

About myself • I grew up in Shek Kip Mei • HKCEE：D, HKAL：E • Graduated from CUHK (Electronics Engineering) • From Kindergarten to PhD • I had over 25 years learning English. • I studied hard, but still I was not confident in using English. Until 1990！

My English has improved also! About my son • He studied in a local primary school. • I didn’t have a Filipino maid. • My wife and I didn’t talk to him in English. • He didn’t attend any oral classes. • In P5, he finished the whole Harry Potter series. • He didn’t have foreign accent. • After Form 2 , he wrote a story of over 10,000 words • His English was top in a very good EMI school. And …

How? • We read English stories with him for half-an-hour every night, for about 2 years. • I started with simple ones, then gradually moved up the levels. • My goal was that he would become a life-long reader in English. • I learnt with him some reading strategies - Words, Phrases, and Sentences. • Most importantly - We focused on developing his reading interest, reading strategies, and reading habit.

3RReading Scheme Read Aloud（大聲讀） Read Apart（分開讀） Read Again（重覆讀）

Read Aloud (大聲讀) • When you read, you listen. You develop your speaking and listening channels simultaneously. • You become your 24-hour English teacher • Speaking - Authentic English content • Listening – At your own pace • Writing – You can recall sounds of wordsand sentences from your mind, just like songs.

Read Apart (分開讀) • We can understand better by identifying the components. • We can reuse the components. encyclopedia en-cyclo-pedia John and Jenny will meet a good friend in Tai Po on Monday.

Read Again (重覆讀) • First time – to get a rough idea. • Second time – to get some understanding. • Third time or more – to get some feeling. There is a Chinese saying, “If you read again and again the 300 poems from Tang’s Dynasty, you can become a poet at least by stealing some of the phrases.”

Take an example • 夜半時份，湍急的河水淙淙作響，兩隻獨木舟並排快速前進。黑暗中，樹林茂密的山丘滑過眼前。突然間，月亮穿破雲層，河水表面霎時被月光染成了銀色。 • This is an extra letter in the middle of the month because I’m sort of lonely tonight. It’s awfully stormy; the snow is beating against my tower. All the lights are out on the campus, but I drank black coffee and I can’t go to sleep. Daddy Long Legs, Jean Webster

How? The three BIG Questions How do I motivate them to read? How do Idevelop their capabilities? How do I develop students into life-long readers?

Reading Program

Excellent Reading Boxes of graded books for class reading More graded books in the library for extending reading.

1. From Picture Book to Full Text Page Sentence Paragraph

2. From Level to Level Level 6 Level 3 Class Self Class Self Level 5 Level 2 Class Self Class Self Level 1 Level 4 Class Self Class Self

3. From Reading To Learning English Activities Reading Platform EasyDict

A primary school in Shatin • I taught two reading classes (P4/P6). • After eight months: • We finished 12 books. • They were no longerafraid of reading English. • They became proactivein English activities.

A CMI Secondary School in Tuen Mun • They launched a program last September. • In Oct., F.1 students said: • English was theirfavorite subject. • They would readother English books.

Summary 學　學而不思則惘思思而不學則殆用兩者不用則廢

Reading - the key to success in English

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