Tai Kok Tsui Catholic Primary School (Hoi Fan Road) Planning for Active Reading – based on the reader “Hansel and Gretel” Adviser: Nancy Tse (Curriculum Development Officer) Teachers: Adeline Cheung, Joyce Chan Maria Lau, Jolla Chau Starting point prior experience of teaching readers just read a part of the story and asked questions, and then read some more a boring procedure of reading line by line & checking on students’ understanding of the details difficult to motivate students and get active responses look for an alternative way to teach a reader What we learnt about teaching reading to early readers 1. Comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning Research findings. 2. There are 3 basic components in reading. What “Active Reading” means to us finding out story events & development making connections to old knowledge and life experiences looking for deeper meanings Active Reading responding with imagination and emotion solving reading problems = Purposeful and enjoyable reading How we planned our lessons 1. Setting clear overall learning objectives 2. Dividing story into sections and designing reading and thinking activities 3. Setting assessment criteria Planning reading and thinking activities • Discussing teaching reading strategies, and planning our lessons • Detailed planning of key questions and an analysis of strategies practiced • Putting in different types of questions requiring students to visit the 3 components of reading • In the classroom we would stay alert and listen carefully to student’s responses, be ready to provide the hints and prompts Planning reading and thinking activities • We tried the questions on ourselves • Some of the inference questions were not easy to answer • Free-response questions also stimulated a lot of imaginative answers from all of us. Highlights of our lessons Observations and reflections • A challenge for teachers to try to teach the reader in this way • Not done enough on vocabulary building • Oral prediction may not be enough • Students should eventually learn to ask questions