Teaching how to write argumentative texts at primary school

Preliminary Note #1: “As every teacher knows, emotional engagement is the tipping point between leaping into the reading life ... An enormously important influence on the development of comprehension in childhood is what happens after we remember, predict, and infer: we feel, we identify, and in the the process we understand more fully and can’t wait to turn the page. The child ... often needs heartfelt encouragement from teachers, tutors and parents to make a stab at more difficult reading material.” “Without an affective investment and commitment, our words become unintelligible and empty; with that commitment words begin to show other manners of signification beyond the realm of literal meaning and correspondence.” Preliminary Note #2: Across this lengthy period of development, leaners are required to consolidate certain skills only to encounter new challenges. The one rule that applies equally is as follows: “Experts [agree] that readers, no matter which reading philosophy is followed, have to practice, practice, practice. There is no better way to exemplify this than in the following anecdote from Maryanne Wolf's book Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain.

“I do not remember that first moment of knowing I could read, but some of my memories - of a tiny, two-room school with eight grades and two teachers - evokes many pieces of what the language expect Anthony Bashir calls the ‘natural history’ of the reading life. The natural history of reading begins with simple exercises, practices, and accuracy, and ends, if one is lucky, with the tools and the capacity to ‘leap into transcendence.’

“My other vivid memory of those days centres on Sister Salesia, trying her utmost to teach the children who couldn’t seem to learn to read. I watched her listening patiently to these children’s torturous attempts during the school day, and then all over again after school, one child at a time ... My best friend, Jim, ... looked like a pale version of himself, haltingly coming up with the letter sounds Sister Salesia asked for. It turned my world topsy-turvy to see this indomitable boy so unsure of himself. For at least a year they worked quietly and determinedly after school ended.”

“The emergent pre-reader sits on ‘beloved laps,’ samples and learns from a full range of multiple sounds, words, concepts, images, stories, exposure to print, literacy materials, and just plain talk during the first five years of life. The major insight in this period is that reading never just happens to anyone. Emerging reading arises out of years of perceptions, increasing conceptual and social development, and cumulative exposures to oral and written language.”

“Although each of the sensory and motor regions is myelinated and functions independently before a person is five years of age, the principal regions of the brain that underlie our ability to integrate visual, verbal, and auditory information rapidly -- like the angular gyrus -- are not fully myelinated in most humans until five years of age and after ...What we conclude from this research is that the many efforts to teach a child to read before four or five years of age are biologically precipitate and potentially counterproductive for many children. By the end of this stage, the child “pretends” to read, can - over time - retell a story when looking at pages of book previously read to him/her, can names letters of alphabet; can recognises some signs; can prints own name; and plays with books, pencils and paper. The child acquires skills by being dialogically read to by an adult (or older child) who responds to the child’s questions and who warmly appreciates the child’s interest in books and reading. The child understand thousands of words they hear by age 6 but can read few if any of them. 

In this stage, the child is learning the relationships between letters and sounds and between printed and spoken words. The child starts to read simple text containing high frequency words and phonically regular words, and uses emerging skills and insights to “sound out” new one-syllable words.  There is direct instruction in letter-sound relations (phonics). The child is being read to on a level above what a child can read independently to develop more advanced language patterns, vocabulary and concepts. In late Stage 2, most children can understand up to 4000 or more words when heard but can read about 600.

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“Whatever her literacy environment, whatever her methods of instruction ... the tasks for ... every novice reader begins with learning to decode print and to understand the meaning of what has been decoded. To get there, every child must figure out the alphabetic principle that took our ancestors thousands of years to discover “The major discovery for a novice reader is ... [the] increasingly consolidated concept that letters connect to sounds of the language.”

“Learning all the grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules in decoding comes next for her, and this involves one part discovery and many parts hard work. Aiding both are three code-cracking capacities: the phonological, orthographic, and the semantic areas of language learning.” “Gradually they learn to hear and manipulate the smaller phonemes in syllables and words, and this ability is one of the best predictors of a child’s success in learning to read.” “A useful method for helping novice readers with phoneme awareness and blending involves ‘phonological recording.’ This may seem to be just a pretentious term for reading aloud, but ‘reading aloud’ would be too simple a term for what is really a two-part dynamic process. Reading aloud underscores for children the relationship between their oral language and their written one. It provides novice readers with their own form of self teaching.)

“Reading out loud also exposes for the teacher and any listener the strategies and common errors typical for a particular child.”

“In every domain of learning - from riding a bike to understanding the concept of death - children develop along a continuum of knowledge, moving from a partial concept to an established concept.”

Chapter.II. Developing reading fluency

2.1. Preparing children to read

Learning to read can be a long process, so it is never too early to prepare a child. While learning to read is a big milestone, it is important that the learning process be fun and engaging for the child. Reading should be something that the child comes to enjoy and can use to gain even more knowledge through books. If you remain patient and make the learning process a fun way to spend time together, it will give the child the best chance to successfully learn to read and love books.

Kids are learning to read at increasingly younger ages. As a result, many people are questioning if early reading is a sign that a child is gifted. But is that true?

To succeed in school and in life, literacy is necessary. It's no wonder, then, that so many parents work hard to ensure that their children learn to read as soon as possible. Some parents buy phonics DVDs and flash cards and start teaching their kids to read almost from the day they bring them home from the hospital as newborns.

Learn to distinguish when early reading is a sign of giftedness or just the work of diligent parents. To understand why and how early reading is a sign of giftedness, we want to understand the cognitive development of children. Most teachers have learned about Piaget's theory of this development, which is why so many don't believe parents who say their children can do more than other children of the same age.

For example, according to Piaget, children in the Concrete Operational Stage (ages 6-11), can logically think about concrete things, things you can see or touch, but still can't manage to think logically about abstract concepts, which include concepts like love, peace, and life. But parents of gifted kids know their children may have been thinking logically about those issues even before they were 6. The next step in understanding how early reading is a sign of giftedness is to understand the way children learn language. Children do not need to be formally taught how to speak.

Learning a language requires nothing more than exposure to language. That just means that a child needs to hear people talk and have people talk to him. That development follows a typical process, and children around the world will follow a similar process. Most children follow a similar pattern of language development and pass through the same stages, but gifted kids may go through those stages more quickly than other children. Or they may seem to skip some stages, although it is more likely that they simply progress through the stages differently.

For example, a gifted child might not speak until he is two years old but then speak in complete sentences. It may look as though the child skipped over the two-word expressions, but they might not have expressed those ideas when their language development was at that stage. More importantly, some gifted children progress through those stages more quickly, speaking in full sentences long before their age mates do. Learning language, even at an advanced rate, is one thing, but learning to read is something else altogether. Learning to speak is a natural skill while learning to read is a skill that must be taught.⁵

Not only does it have to be taught, but the brain must be sufficiently developed before a child can learn the skill. A child cannot learn to walk until his muscles are sufficiently developed.

We can support a child and help him learn to walk, but until his muscles are strong enough, he isn't going to be able to do it on his own. The same is true of reading.

We can help a child memorize words, but until his brain is sufficiently developed, he is not going to be able to read. The first thing people might think of when they think about memory and reading is that children need to memorize the alphabet and memorize words. That, however, is just the beginning of what children need to be able to do in order to learn how to read.

Learning the alphabet and the sounds letters represent is just the beginning. Even memorizing words really isn't enough for a child to become a fluent reader.

A reader must be able to remember what he read at the beginning of a sentence before reaching the end of a sentence, what he read at the beginning of a paragraph before reaching the end and so on. That requires a sufficient development of short-term and working memory.

2.2. Increased reading ability and the development of reading interest

The reading skill is most often taught by close study of short passages followed by analysis of language. 

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  Extensive reading: An alternative approach
  

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  Aims of extensive reading
  

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  The characteristics of an extensive reading approach
  

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  Motivation
  

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  The teacher's role
  

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  Conclusion
  

 

The value of this intensive reading procedure, with its focus on the teaching of discrete reading skills has been questioned by some, who claim that teaching students reading strategies does not necessarily make them better readers. It is widely believed that people become good readers through reading, and that learning how to read should mean a focus of attention on the meaning rather than the language of the text.

Extensive reading: An alternative approach
Another model for teaching reading exists. This is an 'extensive reading approach' and involves students reading long texts or large quantities for general understanding, with the intention of enjoying the texts.

Students are allowed to choose the books they read depending on their interests, and there is not always a follow-up discussion or work in class. In this way students are encouraged to read for pleasure and should become better readers.

Aims of extensive reading
The principal objective of undertaking an extensive reading approach is to get students reading in English and liking it. An increase in reading fluency should be another objective. Because of this, reading should be a pleasurable activity for the student, promoted as much as possible by the teacher.

The characteristics of an extensive reading approach

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  Reading material
  Reading for pleasure requires a large selection of books be available for students to choose from at their level. Here, teachers can make good use of graded readers (books which have been written specifically for EFL/ESL students or which have been adapted from authentic texts).

  Setting up a class library is a good way to provide material for students, and because the books are kept in the actual classroom, there is a greater chance that they will be borrowed, and teachers also have more opportunities to refer to them during class.

  
  

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  Student choice
  Students choose what they want to read based on their interests. If a student finds a book is too difficult or they don't enjoy it, they can change it for another one.
  

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  Reading for pleasure and information
  Often students are put off reading when it is tied to class assignments. In an extensive reading programme, the students are reading principally for the content of the texts. Teachers can ask students about the books they are reading informally, and encourage occasional mini-presentations of the books or book reviews, but these should not seem like obligations to the students.
  

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  Extensive reading out of class
  Teachers can do a lot to help students pursue extensive reading outside of the classroom. Having a classroom library and regularly encouraging students to borrow books to take home are some things which can help. If books are shelved in the classroom, students can also be given class time to browse and select books.
  

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  Silent reading in class
  Extensive reading should not be incompatible with classroom practice and methodology. There are teachers who set aside a regular fifteen-minute period of silent reading in class. This silent reading has been said to help structural awareness develop, build vocabulary, and to promote confidence in the language.
  

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  Language level
  The vocabulary and grammar of the books that students read should not pose a difficulty. The objective of an extensive reading programme is to encourage reading fluency, so students should not be stopping frequently because they do not understand a passage. However, the books should not be too easy as this may well demotivate students, who feel they are getting nothing out of the books.
  

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  Use of dictionaries
  Reading becomes a chore if students think they have to stop and look up every word they do not understand in a dictionary. For this reason, dictionaries should be avoided. Instead of interrupting their flow, students should be encouraged to jot down the words they come across in a vocabulary notebook, and they can look them up after they have finished reading.
  

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  Record keeping
  If the teacher takes an interest in and keeps record of what students are reading, then this can in itself encourage students. If a note is also made of which books the students like, then the teacher can also recommend other books to the students. The teacher should also be careful to explain the reasons behind the programme, and to highlight the benefits of extensive reading to them so that they know why they are doing it.
  

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  The teacher as role model
  If the teacher is also seen to be a reader by the students, then they will be encouraged to read. The teacher can talk in class about books that she or he has been reading, and if they are knowledgeable about the books in the class library, having read them, then they can make genuine recommendations to students about what to read. The teacher can also read aloud to students, as a way of introducing students to different genres or individual books.
  

 

Motivation

One of the key factors to the success (or not) of an extensive reading programme is motivation. Capturing student interest is the key. If the materials available are interesting to the students, then they will be far more likely to want to read them. These books should also be at a level appropriate to their reading ability. As mentioned earlier, the texts should not be too difficult so students experience the frustration of not being able to understand the books.

Getting the extensive reading programme off to a good start is also vital. The aim is for an initial successful experience so that students discover they can read in English and that they enjoy it. This positive experience should stimulate them to read more, increasing motivation, enjoyment and a desire to read.

The teacher's role
The teacher encourages and assists the students with their reading, which the students undertake during and /or after class. Occasional summaries (oral or written) can help with this as they show both that the students are reading and also that they understand what their books are about. The activities can also help students improve their writing or speaking ability. Another activity teachers can become involved in is individual counselling - this gives the teacher an opportunity to ask students about their reading experiences and can be done by the teacher while the rest of the class are silent reading. Above all, however, extensive reading should be a student-centred and a student-managed activity.