Pupils will bring strategies that they have proven as useful in reading in L1 and will transfer them. These strategies are related to spelling, pronunciation, comparing sounds and letters, among others. When they start reading in English they tend to misread some words such as “my”, “five”, “nine”, for example, due to the aforementioned transfer (this is one of the moments when I tell my pupils about The Magic –e). Another remark that needs to be made is that not all pupils master reading in their L1 in the same way and at the same pace and this can also be observed when they read in English.
As for my personal experience, I can say that some of my 1st and 2nd graders have shown interest and enthusiasm about reading and have asked me when they could start reading and writing in English. In these situations, I usually do some reading and writing exercises on letter and familiar word level. At this stage, our lessons can be used, at some point, as an extension of what they do it their mother tongue lessons (the same happens when we solve simple Maths when teaching about numbers). Curricular articulation is essential at primary level and reading can also be a way of doing …show more content…
Gap filling activities - combines reading and writing;
14. Read while listening – pupils read short texts or dialogues while listening to a recording or a classmate; Besides these activities, I also introduce some simple phonics – beginning sounds, rhyming ones - but it is something rather difficult to do in the early stages of reading. When I do it I use books from Ladybird Phonics (Read with Ladybird). There are several titles in the collection such as Frank’s Frock, The royal boil, Joe’s showboat, Splat Cat, or the Hairy Bear Scare. Each book has small stories though which children can practice pronunciation and different sounds (I’m not sure if the collection is still available or was discontinued). In the Hairy Bear Scare, one of the stories is the following:
“When Clare came down the stairs she had a nasty scare. For wherever she looked there were bears, bears, bears! There were bears on the sofa, and bears on the chairs, there were bears in the cupboard and underneath the stairs! Clare stared at the bears. The bears stared at Clare. Clare’s bear bared his teeth and glared. “How dare you?”, he growled. “This is my lair!” so off they ran those scared hairy