Course book for teaching young learners

[Deserted]

Hi all, question for those who have studied teaching English to Young Learners on either the Delta or at M.A level, or PGCE. Could someone recommend a book that deals with the theory & pedagogy of how to teach English to young learners. My child is starting school shortly, as he will be 4 years old next year and I'd like to help at home. I don't need an activity book or a course book with exercises. I would like to read an academic text that discusses approaches to teaching young learners and how to teach them. I am assuming that many have read such material and can offer recommendations BASED ON what they have read personally and NOT based on the results of a search on google. Please only comment on what you have read personally.

ty in advance

[gerryBScot]

Here's my tuppence worth. Phonics. Check out something like the Oxford Reading Tree (just google it or go to its publishers site at Oxford University Press), a compendious series, widely used in UK schools. You can do nothing better for your child than to teach him or her how to read. Nothing has quite the same impact on a child's language development than reading, and nothing has quite the same impact on reading than phonics. Once a child has mastered the ability to read in English they have the foundation for all subsequent learning and academic development. Learn to read, read to learn. I have a six year old son that I have reared on this stuff and my testing suggests he has a reading age of a ten year old old native speaker. I'd be happy to give you specific tips if you wish.

[Deserted]

ok thanks, Ill look into it

[Deserted]

Could you say why you found these better than anything else if that was the case.

[gerryBScot]

Well learning to read is a complex process of associating symbols to sounds. It's a characteristic of language learning that speech precedes literacy. As a native English speaker resident in Thailand I can say for sure that my spoken Thai far outstrips my ability to read Thai which in turn is ahead of my ability to write Thai; and my understanding of what people are saying to me in Thai is ahead of all three. This is a natural process and applies to most people living in a country where they are not native speakers of the first language. In the same way over time your kid will build up a mental store of English words/ phrases /structures from talking with you and whatever English language media s/he hears at home together with whatever s/he learns in school.

Let's divert to an English lesson in a Thai classroom involving a simple reading activity. What does a Thai child do when they come across a word they do not recognise. Note the word: recognise. My experience is that the student will do something like come to an abrupt halt, omit the word altogether or make a wild guess at it. At this point the 'ABC', which all of Thai kids can recite, is useless to them because 'apple' doesn't start with an 'ay' sound as in 'A-B-C-' but with /a / as in cat; if they are able to decode the '-ple' they are likely to pronounce it by using Thai pronunciation rules for 'p' and 'l' which means they are likely to say something like 'a-pen'.

So phonics starts by getting children to associate a letter and then clusters of letters with distinct sounds, to sound out words and then run the different sounds together to make a word. So 'cat', a simple word, is learned as /k/ /a//t/ , three sounds are uttered and then joined together. The idea is that as kids progress they will associate new words they are reading with the words already in their mental store.

Let me give you a crazy example of how effective this has been. My son, six years old, and I were reading before he went to sleep. I should add using a notebook so when we had finished I closed the document to reveal another one, an article I was reading with a paragraph headed 'theoretical background'. He was able to read this, not fluently, but he broke down all the sounds and them put them together. Of course he doesn't understand what it means, but it seems to me that being able to code and encode this stuff is, as he did, a prerequisite to comprehension.

In the UK they are now testing six year olds' phonic awareness. The test includes words that don't actually exist like 'shog and 'chob' etc. I don't agree with this element of it as I think it is pointless to get kids to read words that don't exist but the fact that they are testing ability in this area is indicative of how important it is. I find myself agreeing with the late Chris Woodhead, the first head of OFSTED, the UK teaching standards inspectorate, and it is the only thing I agree with him on, that phonic ability is critical to language learning.

The first thing I would do is buy a set of Oxford Reading Tree flash cards - you can order them online about 1500 THB including delivery. I can also steer you to some online material if you are interested.

[BKKdreaming]

How do you teach Phonics to someone who has already gone thru the Thai school system of "parrot" language ,

hear it and repeat it !

As you know the problem comes with unknown words and not knowing how to sound them out ,

Any online material for "students" already out of school that would like to improve

[gerryBScot]

How do you teach Phonics to someone who has already gone thru the Thai school system of "parrot" language ,

hear it and repeat it !

As you know the problem comes with unknown words and not knowing how to sound them out ,

Any online material for "students" already out of school that would like to improve

My experience is this phonics system works well with older children too. In fact the older the child the more rapidly they can progress.

[gerryBScot]

Oxford Reading Tree: Floppy's Phonics: Sounds and Letters: Flashcards

• Cards

By (author) Debbie Hepplewhite , By (author) Roderick Hunt , Illustrated by Mr. Alex Brychta

• Share

Teach new letter-sound correspondences and revise previously taught sound and graphemes with these large format flashcards. They feature a key mnemonic picture and word for each grapheme which are used throughout the programme. They include a list of decodable words on the back of the card to model blending and segmenting. The grapheme on each card has finger-tracing lines to support the correct writing of letter shapes.

[BKKdreaming]

Any good iPhone or Android apps for phonics for older students ?

with many apps they would have sound , but flashcards are not much help if you do not have an English speaker with you and do not know a word or group of words and guess the wrong sound

Edited December 5, 2015 by BKKdreaming

[Deserted]

Please stick to texts you've read if you can. Oxford Reading Tree looks great, ordered it already.

Edited December 5, 2015 by Deserted

[gerryBScot]

Once you get your kid going other texts I highly recommend are the Dr Seuss books, most of them over fifty years old, but they really complement the phonics stuff and have brilliant graphics.

Sent from my ALE-L02 using Tapatalk

[gerryBScot]

This link will take you to comprehensive documentation about teaching phonics including 'how', 'what' and 'when' etc. Worth reading if you are interested

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/190599/Letters_and_Sounds_-_DFES-00281-2007.pdf

[gerryBScot]

Any good iPhone or Android apps for phonics for older students ?

with many apps they would have sound , but flashcards are not much help if you do not have an English speaker with you and do not know a word or group of words and guess the wrong sound

I would suggest you make a Powerpoint slide show with animation and sound. I don't know if there are apps but I am sure there must be.

[plum77]

Although I am now home schooling my kids as we are travelling my youngest boy taught himself to read using Reading Eggs website. It was brilliant for him and he was able to progress at his own rate. He is still an avid reader and was reading before he started school.

Just a tought.

We also used the Oxford Learning Tree books, a great collection of books progressing through different levels.

[Deserted]

Although I am now home schooling my kids as we are travelling my youngest boy taught himself to read using Reading Eggs website. It was brilliant for him and he was able to progress at his own rate. He is still an avid reader and was reading before he started school.

Just a tought.

We also used the Oxford Learning Tree books, a great collection of books progressing through different levels.

What's the monthly fee for that site?

[plum77]

Although I am now home schooling my kids as we are travelling my youngest boy taught himself to read using Reading Eggs website. It was brilliant for him and he was able to progress at his own rate. He is still an avid reader and was reading before he started school.

Just a tought.

We also used the Oxford Learning Tree books, a great collection of books progressing through different levels.

What's the monthly fee for that site?

I think you can usually sign up for a free trial to try it out. They also have a sister site called Jump Start that deals with maths and numeracy. The cost after the trial is maybe £40.00 for a year, sorry I cant quite remember.

Just checked the site, you can get a three week trial and then it is £39.95 for a year or £25 for six months

Hope this helps

Edited December 12, 2015 by plum77

[Deserted]

thanks

[lostinisaan]

+ 1 Dr. Seuss.

Gotta love the magnetic letters with the right board.

http://www.learnplayimagine.com/2013/02/silly-phonics-game-for-beginning.html