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http://school.hk/pcwonghttp://school.hk/pcwong
Reading - the key to success in Reading - the key to success in EnglishEnglish
Prof. P.C. WongHong Kong School Net
Department of Information EngineeringEmail : [email protected]
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Question 1 When students learn English, what do
they mostly use?
Mouth
Brain
Ear
Hand
Eye
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Question 2 How can we solve the following problems?
Listen : Students not familiar with listening in English. They cannot differentiate oral from written English.
Speaking : Students seldom speak in English, and they are not expressive in English.
Reading : Students see a word but read another word, and they cannot decode complex sentence structures.
Writing : Students always make mistakes with grammar, especially with Articles, Tenses, and Prepositions.
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Outline WHY?
WHAT?
HOW?
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About myself I grew up in Shek Kip Mei
HKCEE : D, HKAL : E Graduated from CUHK (Electronics Engineering)
From Kindergarten to PhD I had over 25 years learning English. I studied hard, but still I was not confident in usi
ng English.Until 1990 !
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About my son He studied in a local primary school.
I didn’t have a Filipino maid.
My wife and I didn’t talk to him in English.
He didn’t attend any oral classes.
In P5, he finished the whole Harry Potter series.
He didn’t have foreign accent. After Form 2 , he wrote a story of over 10,000
words
His English was top in a very good EMI school.
My English has improved also!
And …
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How? We read English stories with him for half-
an-hour every night, for about 2 years. I started with simple ones, then gradually moved up
the levels.
My goal was that he would become a life-long reader in English.
I learnt with him some reading strategies - Words, Phrases, and Sentences.
Most importantly - We focused on developing his reading interest, reading strategies, and reading habit.
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Outline WHY?
WHAT?
HOW?
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3R Reading Scheme
Read Aloud (大聲讀)Read Apart (分開讀)Read Again (重覆讀)
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Read Aloud ( 大聲讀 ) When you read, you listen. You develop your spea
king and listening channels simultaneously.
You become your 24-hour English teacher
Speaking - Authentic English content
Listening – At your own pace
Writing – You can recall sounds of wordsand sentences from your mind, just like songs.
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Read Apart ( 分開讀 ) We can understand better by
identifying the components.
We can reuse the components.
encyclopedia en-cyclo-pediaJohn and Jenny will meet a good friend in Tai Po on Monday.
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Read Again ( 重覆讀 ) First time – to get a rough idea.
Second time – to get some understanding.
Third time or more – to get some feeling.There is a Chinese saying, “If you read again and again the 300 poems from Tang’s Dynasty, you can become a poet at least by stealing some of the phrases.”
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Take an example
夜半時份,湍急的河水淙淙作響,兩隻獨木舟並排快速前進。黑暗中,樹林茂密的山丘滑過眼前。突然間,月亮穿破雲層,河水表面霎時被月光染成了銀色。
This is an extra letter in the middle of the month because I’m sort of lonely tonight. It’s awfully stormy; the snow is beating against my tower. All the lights are out on the campus, but I drank black coffee and I can’t go to sleep.
Daddy Long Legs, Jean Webster
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Outline WHY?
WHAT?
HOW?
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How?How do I
motivate them to read?
How do Idevelop
theircapabilities?
How do I develop
students into life-long readers?
The three BIG Questions
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Reading Program
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Excellent Reading
Boxes of graded books for class reading
More graded books in the library for extending reading.
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1. From Picture Book to Full Text
Sentence Paragraph Page
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2. From Level to Level
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Class Self
Class Self
Class Self
Level 4
Level 5
Level 6
Class Self
Class Self
Class Self
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3. From Reading To Learning
Reading Platform
EasyDict
EnglishActivities
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A primary school in Shatin I taught two reading classes (P4/P6).
After eight months:
We finished 12 books.
They were no longerafraid of reading English.
They became proactivein English activities.
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A CMI Secondary School in Tuen Mun They launched a program last
September.
In Oct., F.1 students said:
English was theirfavorite subject.
They would readother English books.
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Summary
學 學而不思則惘思 思而不學則殆用 兩者不用則廢