9.5. How to teach reading

The teacher can use the system of exercises for developing his students’ ability to read. He can do it in two ways: teaching them reading aloud and teaching silent reading.

9.5.1. Teaching reading aloud

9.5.1.1. Three methods of teaching reading aloud

In teaching reading aloud the following methods are observed: the phonic way; the word way; the sentence way.

- The phonic way. With the phonic way, the student learns the sounds and associates them with the corresponding letters.

- The word way. In the word way, a complete word is presented to the student. After several words have been learnt, they are used in simple sentences.

- The sentence way. The sentence way deals with sentences as units of approach in teaching reading. The sentence way is useful to develop the students’ ability to read sentences with proper intonation. Later the sentence is split up into words.

The practice of teaching reading shows that only the combination of the 3 methods can ensure good reading.

One thing should be stressed first and foremost. Students are taught to associate the graphic symbols with their meaning already learned orally. For this purpose, their visual, kinaesthetic and auditory analysers are at work. The leading role belongs to the visual analyser. That’s why it is necessary and is of vital importance that the graphic symbols of words should be fixed and stored up in the student’s memory. Thus, the teacher should strictly observe the rule: ‘Never read words/sentences by yourself. Give your students a chance to read the words/sentences’. E.g.: in presenting the words and among them those, which are read according to the rules of reading, the teacher should make his students read these words first by themselves.

9.5.1.2. Grapheme-phonemic exercises

Teaching reading begins with presenting a letter as a grapheme to students. Using flashcards/a blackboard is indispensable for this purpose. Flashcards allow the teacher:

• to present a new letter/letters;

• to make students compose a word (for this purpose several cards are handed out to students, e.g.: n, p, e compose the word ‘pen’);

• to check students’ knowledge of letters or graphemes;

• to make students recollect the words beginning with the letter shown (p is the initial letter in such words as ‘pen’, ‘pupil’, ‘pencil’, etc.);

• to make students show the letter/letters standing for the sound [æ], [ð], [], etc.

When teaching reading, the teacher needs a set/kit of flashcards at hand. If the teacher uses the board instead, he can write printed letters on the board. Thus, students can recollect the words they have learned orally, which have this or that letter, or letters, which compose a word, etc.

The same devices are applied for teaching students to read words. However, the task is somewhat different:

• students choose words that are not read according to the rule (lake, plane, have; Mike, give, nine);

• students are invited to read the words, which they usually misread:

yet – let cold - could

form – from called – cold

come – some wood – would

does – goes walk – work

• students are invited to look at the words and tell the letter, which makes the words different:

though – thought since – science

though – through with – which

hear – near content – context

hear – hare country – county

• students in turn read a column of words following the key word:

plate – name face – place

take – plate place – table

name – take table – face

• students are invited to pick out the words with the corresponding graphemes (oo – wood; ow – tower; ea – clean; th – this, etc.);

• students may be invited to take part in an elementary reading game to be played in pairs. The game procedure is as follows. Students are arranged in pairs facing each other. Each student has one card. On the card there is a list of words, some of which have a tick mark (V) next to them. This means that the student must read out the word. His partner decides whether the word he has on his card is the same or different.

Partner A: Partner B:

V 1. dog 1. boy

2. school V 2. school

V 3. blackboard 3. blackboard

4. mouth V 4. house

V 5. car 5. car

6. cat V 6. hat

The words on the cards are those words, which our students usually confuse. Teachers should keep a close check on their students’ pronunciation of the words, otherwise the game reinforces errors.

In teaching to read, transcription is also utilised. It helps the reader read a word in case when the same grapheme stands for different sounds (build, suit); or words, which are not read according to the rule (aunt, colonel).

Modern textbook designers do not introduce transcription in their first-year manuals. It is usually given in the students’ books of the 2^nd and the 3^rd year of study. Beginning with the 3^rd and the 4^th grades, students learn the phonic symbols of the language so that they are able to read unfamiliar words. For these words, they have to look up in the textbook wordlist or dictionary.

Thus, all the exercises mentioned above are designed to develop the student ability to associate the graphic symbols with the phonic ones. These exercises can be defined as grapheme-phonemic exercises.