Teaching students how to read can be tasking for some. However, with the right knowledge and skills, it can be an easier task to handle. You can become the best teacher in reading. This means not only helping your students to read but to read with proper comprehension.

Following are suggested activities or teaching methods you can use to teach reading to your students:

• Realia

 

Realia is the use of real objects that students can see, touch, feel, hear, and smell. This uses the students’ senses in learning English As Second Language components. Of course, this can also be used in reading native language. In Realia, there are many ways you can do to effectively use this method.

 

1. Prepositions of Place – You can use “location” to teach this. Ask students where each item inside the classroom is located. For example, ask the students where the pens are, the books, the pencils. Ask them to place the items around the classroom. This is also one best way to teach “this”, “that”, “these”, and “those”.

 

2. Restaurant – Another enjoyable way to teach reading is by playing “restaurant” game. Make a menu with the food you can teach to students like appetizers, main courses, desserts, and drinks. Each student can take turns in being the waiter and take orders from their classmates.

 

• Front Loading

 

This refers to the pre-teaching vocabulary which the teacher foresees as unfamiliar to students. The teacher needs to define and/or describe the difficult word in simple and easy to understand terms to make sure that the students comprehend it before reading. The teacher can write in the board the word and define its meaning or provide picture(s) of the word.

 

• Syntax Sentences

 

This is done by presenting to students a chain of paper cut outs. Each cut out has a word in it that when the sequence is assembled properly, sentences can be formed.  Make sure you provide proper and clear instructions to students, such as the number of separate sentences and how words can be interchangeable.

By: Ma. Janette G. Manlapaz | Special Education Teacher I | Liyang Elementary School | Pilar, Bataan