Reading information texts in English KLA – more than a lesson T.W.G.Hs. LEO Tung-hai Lee Primary School Ms KWOK Wing-ki, Judy (SSDO) Ms CHOY Suk-ping (Vice Principal)

Why are information texts important? Reading to seek information, develop thinking skills, enrich knowledge, enhance language proficiency & broaden perspectives Curriculum Guide (2004) Territory-wide System Assessment

Narrative Texts

08 TSA P.6

07 TSA P.6

A School Experience: T.W.G.Hs. Leo Tung-hai Lee Primary School located in Tin Shui Wai 4-6 classes per level General English Programme: self- developed school-based materials Reading Workshops: P.1-3 CECES P.4-6 readers of various text types

Reading Strategies School level Increase the use of non-fiction texts (esp. poster, notices, advertisement, letters) on the campus (Scheme of Work: 2 to 3 different kinds of text type / term)

choosenon-fictiontext Introduce supplementary exercises into daily T&L Strategies used at Leo Tung-hai Lee Pri. School Curriculum level Integrate with the module

A Classroom Experience in KS1: Teaching a non-fiction text P.2 Text type: Movie advertisement (movie posters)

Why? Previous knowledge -Time -Price -Days of the Week

Use L1 as entry point – use bilingual authentic materials in class (awareness building) Repeated exposure to authentic materials of various types (time constraint: sometimes focus merely on text features, sometimes on content) Choosing T&L materials

26/3/2009 2:00 p.m. Toy Story $ 20 K 12 bilingual authentic materials

A P.2 lesson 1. Motivation: Introduce the context: Free time ( Daily experience --- Watch a movie in a cinema) Teaching Steps

a. Elicited prior knowledge (What do you do when you are bored?) b. Brainstorm ideas. Teaching Steps

2. Presentation: a. Introduce relevant vocab: - a movie - a cinema - a ticket

2. Presentation: Q c. Question-time Q3-Q7 (High order Thinking) 2. What movie is on House ___? 1. How many movies are there in UA Cinema? 3. I like ____. What movie can I watch? 4. Today is ____. What movie can I watch? 星期三 WED 5. I want to watch ___ in the morning / afternoon. When is the movie? 6. I am ____ years old. How much is the ticket? 7. _____ and I want to watch _____. How much do we pay?

Teacher’s Concern: Without any support, students may not be able to understand / answer the questions Pictorial clues + actions

Teacher’s Concern: Students learn at different pace Think & Share a. Tell your friends b. Show the tips

Teacher’s Concern: ≠ Understand the sound ≠ understand the wordQuestion-time Part 1: Teacher read aloud Part 2: Students read sentence strips aloud, then silently

3. Production: Group work: - design questions + competition 4. Consolidation: WS: similar questions + 1

Teacher’s Concern: Add something new & challenging  8. If I want to ask questions about the movies, what can I do?

A Classroom Experience in KS2: Teaching a non-fiction reader P.6 Class Reader: Popclock (an information text on global issues like population explosion and problems like not enough food and water)

choosenon-fictionreader Introduce supplementary exercises into daily T&L Strategies used at Leo Tung-hai Lee Pri. School Curriculum level

(know, what to know, learned) An instructional reading strategy that is used to guide students through reading (pre-reading, while-reading, post- reading activity) Text Content: KWL Strategy

A KWL Chart K – Tell me everything you know about … (pre-reading activity) W – Tell me what you want to know about… (pre- or while reading activity) L - Tell me what you learnt (post reading activity)

A P.6 lesson 1. Revised the book concept and text features, e.g. blurb and contents page etc 2. Pupils predicted what they would learn in the topic ‘Not enough food’ Teaching Steps

3. Group work: KWL (K: What do you know about the topic?) (Guided questions given to assist group discussion) Teaching Steps

4. Group work: KWL (L: What do you want to know about the topic?) Teaching Steps

Graded WS

5.Provided focused questions for silent reading 6.Teacher went through the text with pupils: explained vocabulary, introduced the glossary and index etc 7.Read aloud together Teaching Steps

8.Individual work: KWL (L: What have you learnt about the topic?)

Summing Up Familiar context Authentic bilingual materials KWL strategy Other possible strategies like Pairs Read, Prereading Plan, Reciprocal Teaching, SQ3R, Semantic Mapping…

Thank you!