Planning ESL Reading Activities
Tips on Teaching Early Literacy to Young ESL Preschool Children
Some guiding principles to help you plan early ESL early reading activities to young ESL preschool children including a few fun vocabulary activities.
In the early stages of early literacy, a teacher needs to think in both a structured and creative manner in order to paln an ESL reading program. It is important to both expose and eventually engage his/her ESL learners, especially if they are at the at-risk stages of acquiring a second language. The three P's of developing an ESL reading program - namely the concepts of "Playful", "Planful," and "Purposeful" tie in quite nicely with the issue of exposing students to various lexis. [Roskos, Tabors, Lenhart, 2004, Oral Language and Early Literacy in Preschool]
Sometimes this will take the form of a quick vocabulary review of various lexis that you've taught your young ESL learners and other times you will want to introduce such lexis at the beginning of your vocabulary lessons, which should be taught orally at this stage of their learning.
Teaching Unknown Lexis
When teaching unknown lexis to young ELL language learners, it is helpful to look at the textbook and develop some kind of oral syllabus that you can easily stick to. However, if your ESL young language learners are below the textbook level, you will have to start out by writing out your own oral syllabus and focus on a time framework in which you expect to teach these lexis. Young ELL should be taught approximately 6-8 new words a day.
Developing an Early ESL Reading Plan
Here are three guiding principles which should help you stick to some kind of reading plan that eventually, will offer you flexibility and creativity for introducing other different kinds of language learning activities.
1. Playful: This involves using music, drama, any means of creatively engaging your students in the language. An array of instructional approaches include: storytelling, picture prompts, puppet shows, show and tell, songs, jazz chants and rhymes.
2. Planful: Thinking ahead to meet children's oral language needs. Your answers for this category might enrich your knowledge on how to cater to your young ESL learners needs. More complex questions include:
- Catering to your ESL learning style?
- Completing an initial 10 minute screening of students' early reading ability and assessment, which will provide you with valuable information on how students understand sound-letter correspondences, writing patterns, word and sound recognition and production.
3. Purposeful: Interacting with children to accomplish important language goals. Activities such as shared reading, shared writing, guided play all offer opportunities for further language development and growth. This involves matching vocabulary activities to its purpose. Other fun vocabulary activities include:
- Information gap activities: Student A has a page of previously introduced lexis in the form of a picture. The other student (student B) tells the word that corresponds to the picture and the number. Student A writes the number next to the picture that student B previously told him/her.
- Word or letter dictation - Alternatively, students can draw a picture of the word.
- Another pair/group work activity: On one worksheet, one pupil draws a man and a woman in different rooms. The other pupil must guess the room by using previously taught lexis on rooms and/or furniture.
