Partner Reading: an Easy Way for Students to Improve Their English
Helping Students Understanding English Texts
Peace Corps Volunteers face a big challenge in helping students with a poor education to tackle complex English texts. How does a student get meaning from a complicated text when they struggle with basic phonics? How do you get students to interact with text that engages them while also making sure they understand it? Here is one teacher's routine:
Partner Reading Routine
This activity uses pair work so they can make some sense of the English texts. After working on new vocabulary, and breaking the text down into smaller sections for student pairs, the 'partner reading routine' has 5 steps:
Teacher reads students listen: this gives the students a model of how to pronounce all the text including the new words.
Students read: Pairs take turns reading aloud, with one reading while the other follows along.
Students read again: Once is not enough. Students need to repeat reading aloud the text to improve their speaking.
Students determine meaning: Have the students look for subject-verb pairs and discuss what they think it means for the text.
Write what it means: Student pairs try to write what the text means in their own words in English.
In classrooms where students struggle with textbook text on their own, establishing good routines, breaking activities into manageable steps, and helping them understand English language structures will help your students become more successful.
Reference: Helping English Language Learners Decipher Tough Texts
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