Reading books

I would like to share with you my comment on the reading lesson. 

Firstly, it worth mentioning that the teacher introduced vocabulary to children, before they start engaging with the book. In my opinion, it is a very good practice, because children are familiar with new words during the reading activity. 

Children are asked to sit on the carpet to read a book (Winnie the Witch). I think it is a good alternative for the children to sit comfortably on the carpet instead of sitting all day at the school desks; it seems to create a relaxed atmosphere. The teacher is using a technique to avoid chaos. She splits the class, half of the children are called apples, whereas the other half bananas. When the apples are already siting on the carpet, the bananas are asked to join. I think it is well organised. The teacher is guiding some of the students who struggle to find the right place for themselves. She is sitting on the chair, however, decides to stand up because some of the children are not able to see the book.

Before focusing on the plot of the story, the teacher is revising vocabulary by asking children about the colour of different objects, for example, the house, hat or chair. When children say something in Polish, the teacher is answering in English. Moreover, she reminds children to use English. The teacher use gestures and mimics, but also onomatopoeias, so that it is more interesting and engaging for children. She even pretends to cry as the cat in the story, she  seems to role-play. The activity is very dynamic, which is good for children as they are continuously engaged rather than bored. In fact, the teacher is not really reading the book;  rather than reading a book from the cover to cover, she is telling the story by herself. I think it is a good solution because it might be difficult for children to focus for such a long time. Indeed, children have a short attention span. Besides, asking questions from time to time while telling the story, helps to retain children's attention and makes the reading more interesting. 

I think the activity is very effective, however, I think it would be also valuable to additionally read the story from the book. Nevertheless, I will recommend to do it during the next lesson. It might be that reading the whole book will be too boring, but it is significant to observe children and decide on stoping depending on their ability to stay focused. Children are likely to enjoy reading even a small part of the book.

(Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1kGeSKXiVo&t=299s)

Before, watching the lesson, we were asked to create an observation checklist. I think that simple and clear checklist is likely to support our observation. However, it should be well organised, otherwise it is difficult to focus on it. As a group, we identified 10 questions:

1 Is the subject matter explained to the students?

2 Were the children familiar with the procedures that the teacher used?

3 Was the teacher correcting students' mistakes?

4 Does the teacher seem to be confident with the topic?

5 Did teacher check students' understanding of the text?

6 Were students asking context questions?  

7 Were there an active exchange of ideas?

8 Were all the students engaged in the activity?

9 Did the teacher manage the class well?

10 Did the teacher use any props?

I think our checklist is not bad considering the fact that I have never created or used one. I believe that the observation checklist is quite useful as it guides us what to pay attention to. Nevertheless, I have never used it before, so I need some time to familiarise myself with this idea. Unfortunately, I was mainly focused on watching the video and I forgot about the checklist. The next time, I hope to focus not only on observing and reflecting, but also on looking at the checklist.

Do you think that teachers should promote reading? 

How would you encourage children to reading?

Angelika