Reading Fiction

Reading offers so many opportunities for different activities and diverse strategies to be used. I always begin a story with vocabulary, where the students decipher the meanings from finding the word in the story, and then together, using the sentence, we decide on a meaning and synonym together. They then create an organizer to show each vocabulary word, synonym, picture and sentence using the word. At the end of the story, before we take a test, I like to do a culminating project that shows their knowledge of the story. For this particular story, The Rajah's Rice, we made an organizer that showed the setting, main characters, the lesson learned, and the main points from the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

Reading Non-Fiction

Reading non-fiction is always more difficult than reading fiction for most students. The reading books put a ton of information in a short amount of space, usually it being an excerpt from a longer piece. Especially with students whose second language is English, this process becomes tedious with so many new vocabulary words. My students do enjoy this reading because they are inquisitive about actual topics such as animals, oceans, and different professions. I have used a technique of making mini books while reading this type of literature. Usually the stories are divided into topics using bold-faced headings. We read each heading together, and then write two to three main points that we have decided on collectively. Putting this in book form, along with a picture or two, makes it a more interesting process which helps them to retain knowledge. Not only are they reading, but they are writing and drawing, and have a summarized study guide for when they are tested.