Kids' World

Using Readers in Children's Classes

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Step 5: Comprehension Exercises

Most readers written for English language learners contain some sort of comprehension exercises. Sometimes we do the exercises as we reread the story, or sometimes I assign them as homework. Comprehension exercises help me to check my students' understanding, as well as help them solidify and synthesize what they have studied.

Step 6: Writing

I use two types of writing activities with graded readers:
1) activities that allow students to focus on writing skills while reinforcing the language and structures of the stories, and
2) activities that use the language of the story as a jumping off point for semi-structured creative writing.

Having students write in response to a story increases their comprehension. In addition, writing activities help me plan lessons that build on all four learning modalities–listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Examples of Writing Activities:
* Correct the sentence. Write a sentence (or passage) from the story with an incorrect word. Students find the mistake and correct it. This helps students practice noticing details in sentences.

* Change the story. Have students brainstorm how a story might be different with a specific change–different point of view, different main character, different ending. Then, have them rewrite one section, incorporating necessary changes.

* Write a letter. Students either write a letter to one of the characters in a story, or write a letter as one of the characters.

Step 7: Extension/Follow-up activities

These activities allow students to consolidate the language from the stories, or build on the situation presented in the story. While they sometimes involve writing, the focus in these activities is on building oral fluency.

Examples of Extension/Follow-up Activities:
* Readers Theater. For this activity, assign parts (including Narrator) and have students read the entire story aloud as they act out the events.

* Role Play. This activity differs from Readers Theater (above) in that the focus is more on the elements of the story than on the actual language in the story. By doing this activity you will be able to see if students understood what they read in English. Have students act out the story. They can use some of the lines directly from the reading, but it doesn't have to be exact. The point of this activity is to retell the story, not recite it verbatim.

I like using readers with my students. My students enjoy seeing the language patterns they've learned in class show up in "real" contexts. They also seem to gain confidence in their ability to use their English, rather than just learn it. Mostly, good stories are fun, and my students consider them as more of a reward than a lesson, even though they learn a lot, too.

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Barbara Hoskins-Sakamoto came to Japan in 1985 with a teaching certificate in English, a Masters in TESL and an idea that teaching English in Japan for a couple of years would be a fun adventure. Fifteen years later, she is still here, enjoying working with Japanese children and their teachers. Barbara frequently contributes articles to the the JALT Teaching Children SIG Newsletter and the Association for Foreign Wives of Japanese (AFWJ) Journal, and is co-author of Let's Go, the most popular children's course in Asia.

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