Reading Workshop
(10:00-12:00)
Presenters:
• Judy Kwok, Officer of School-based Curriculum
Development (Primary) Section
• Phyllis Wu Wai Po, Canton Road Government Primary
School
Food for Thought
“Professional development involves more than learning
knowledge and skills. ..Professional development
amounts to more than a slick, self-managed portfolio of
certificates and achievements accumulated as
individual credits…
Teachers who are personally and professionally
developed have evolved a strong sense of themselves
as teachers and as people. Their ego boundaries, their
sense of identity, are secure enough for them not to
feel flooded, invaded, or overwhelmingly vulnerable
when they are challenged by, evaluated by, or asked
to work with other adults…”
“Teaching in the knowledge society:
education in the age of insecurity”
By Andy Hargreaves
Issues to address
What is a teacher’s role in a reading workshop?
What are the possible strategies to encourage
prediction?
What to do if the text is too easy or too difficult?
A teacher’s role in a reading workshop
Students
Teachers
Professional judgment:
Construct meaning
Texts
• Choose appropriate books
for the students (of high
interest level, not too easy or
not too difficult)
• Deploy various reading
strategies like reading aloud,
shared reading, supported
reading and independent
reading to assist students to
read
Possible challenges
•Arouse students’ interest in reading
•Help students become good readers
Students
Construct meaning
Texts
Teachers
• the books are chosen
by last year’s English
teachers
• the books are either too
difficult or too easy
“Vygotsky believed that if you give a child a task, like
reading a book, and he does it, then you have taught
him nothing. The child could already do the task, as that
task was in his current zone of actual development.
“…if you give a child a task to do and he cannot do it,
then you have the chance to teach. If the child cannot do
the task alone but can do it with a more expert person’s
help, then the task lies in what Vygotsky calls the zone
of proximal development.
Vygotsky argued that we can teach students something
new only when the task is within their zone of proximal
development.”
“Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies”
By Jeffrey D. Wilhelm
What does a good reader do?
• Use prior knowledge to make sense of new information
• Ask questions about the text before, during and after
reading
• Draw inferences from text
• Monitor comprehension
• Use fix up strategies when meaning breaks down
• Determine what is important
• Synthesize information to create sensory images
“Developing expertise in reading comprehension”
Pearson, P.D. Roehler, L. Dole, J., & Duffy, C. (1992)
What are the possible strategies
to encourage prediction?
• Using KWL to encourage prediction (nonnarrative text -info book)
• Using pictorial cues to encourage
prediction
KWL Strategy
(know, what to know, learned)
An instructional reading strategy that is used to guide
students through reading (pre-reading, while-reading, postreading activity)
K – Tell me
everything you
know about …
(pre-reading
activity)
A KWL Chart
W – Tell me what L - Tell me what
you want to know you learnt (post
about… (pre or
reading activity)
while reading
activity)
KWL Strategy
(know, what to know, learned)
Purposes:
• Elicits students’ prior knowledge of the topic of the
text
•Sets a purpose for reading
•Helps students to monitor their comprehension
•Allows students to assess their comprehension of the
text
• Provides an opportunity for students to expand ideas
beyond the text.
http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/readquest/strat/kwl.html
Case 1: T.W.G.Hs. Leo Tung-hai Lee Primary School
Level: P.6
Module: The World around us
Text : Popclock: the world at six billion (information text)
No. of sessions: 7
IEPC
I –close your eyes and imagine the scene, character,
events
What can you see, feel, hear, smell? Share your thinking
with a partner.
E- Elaborate –tell, describe, or give details of what you
“see” in your mind.
P- Use these ideas to make some predictions or guesses
about the passages to be read
C- Read to confirm or change your predictions about the
passage.
The Reading Teacher
Vol. 58 No. 4
Dec 04/Jan 05
Case 2: Canton Road Government Primary School
Level: P.4
Module: New Welcome 4B
(Unit 7 At home & Unit 8 Moving house)
Text : The old woman who lived in a vinegar bottle
(narrative text)
No. of sessions: 7
Discussion time
(3-4 in a group, 5 mins)
• Bear in mind the standards of your
students, how would you conduct the
lesson to encourage prediction?
What to do when the text is too easy
Don’t just focus on reading, integrate with
other skills like speaking, writing and
listening
Ask students to rewrite the ending of the story
The fairy was very cross. ‘I gave you a little house.
Then I gave you a castle. But you have not said
THANK YOU!’ So the fairy made the old woman go
home to her vinegar bottle.
The fairy made the old woman in
the bottle. The old woman was sad.
She looked at the sky because she
wanted had a fairy came. A witch
came to her home. The witch
looked like a fairy. They made
friends. They witch took old
woman all the money. The old
woman was sad and angry.
Wong Hoi Yan
P.4A
So the fairy took the old woman returning her vinegar
house. And then the fairy did not make her dream come
true. Finally, the old woman stayed at home alone. Until
one day, a hurter called David arrived there. And then
he met with the old woman. They started to fall in love
each other. Moreover, he decided to marrige with her
as soon as possible. Also, the fairy hoped that they
could live happy. And then the fairy gave them a big
castle.
Kiki Kwok
P.4A
Discussion time
(3-4 in a group, 3 mins)
• Bear in mind the standards of your
students, how would you teach “The
Happy Prince”?
What to do when the text is too difficult
Don’t aim at using the same strategy to
cover the whole text, use various
strategies to maintain students’ interest