Most beginning learners who are limited in English proficiency are struggling to read texts through word recognition strategies, language knowledge, memorization, and so on. For those students, effective instruction and practice covering all areas of reading are needed. In fact, the Language Experience Approach is frequently recommended for beginning readers. It can help the students to interact with text with fun if the teacher uses a variety of strategies. The Language Experience Approach begins with a shared experience. It is an approach to reading instruction based on activities and stories developed from personal experiences of the learner. The more exciting and novel experiences the students have, the better the approach works.
I worked with a second grade boy who is from Korea. He can read English but he mainly uses word recognition strategy for reading. To begin with, I asked him about the most memorable recent experience. And he started to talk about the Tornado we had a few weeks ago. I told him we were going to make a story book for tornado. Making Story books is a great way to encourage the students to involve in reading and writing simultaneously. To do so, we tried to find some articles about tornado with pictures through the internet. As soon as he saw the pictures he tried to talk about his experience using a lot of gestures. I just explained the new vocabulary in the article briefly to give him background knowledge. And then, I gave him some pieces of colored paper, a pencil, an eraser, and lined paper.
Next, I asked him to write down his experience in his own words and language in the lined paper. When he finished his writing, we reviewed it and read it together. He seemed to be proud of what he accomplished. I encouraged him to draw the picture of tornado on the margin. While his drawing, we had conversation about tornado and I could repeat some words in natural way. And we read the article again, when he met some words he didn’t know he tried to guess the meanings in the context. If he didn’t have any clues, I asked him to circle the word. And then, I asked him to tell the story again and I wrote down what he said. After the dictation, we draw some pictures on the margin of every page. Finally, we made two short books about tornado by the cooperation. He was so happy with the books. And we read the article again pointing to the words he circled. By this time his reading was much better. When he reread his own book, he seemed much more enthusiastic about reading than ever before.
Even though language-experience approach is very useful in motivating students for reading and writing, but it does not mean that the teacher only depends on this approach. Pattern books are also very useful and effective tools for teaching young learners rhythm, rhyme, and frequently used words with the help of big printed text and related pictures.
There is no perfect approach!
misooksin
