TIPS PARA TRABAJAR EL READING EN CASA

Reading comprehension involves decoding, processing and understanding the words within a text. This is critical to the development of a learner’s literacy skills and vocabulary acquisition.

To develop reading comprehension in English, just as in Spanish, the key is to read and practice, gradually building up vocabulary and understanding sentence structures that allow a child to comprehend texts that should progressively increase in word count and complexity.

We appreciate our teacher for beginning to develop this skill, which is essential for helping children become more confident communicators.

We have been fostering this skill for years now using the American “read aloud” methodologies and materials from Read and Imagine, as well as other books recommended by Carly &Adams

The process we follow to train this skill is this:

STEP 1. UNDERSTAND WHAT THE TEXT IS ABOUT (Title, images, questions)

The information in the title provides clues about the text’s content.

Understand THE QUESTIONS.

WHAT--> qué

WHY --> por qué

WHEN -->cuándo

WHERE --> dónde

WHO --> quién

HOW -->cómo

STEP 2. COMPREHENSIVE READING.  (At least twice)

a.  Read and understand the general idea, noting new/unknown words.

b.  Read the questions and do a second reading to find information to answer those questions (it is helpful to underline information useful for the answer).

STEP 3. STRUCTURE THE ANSWER CORRECTLY:

SUBJECT + PREDICATE 

(Ex: LUIS LIKED FOOTBALL)

Answer in the same tense as the question; therefore, if the question is in the present tense, answer in the present tense; if it is in the past tense, answer in the past tense. Be careful with the correct use of the present tense (3rd person).

                                   PRESENT                                                   PAST

DO YOU GO….?                                                                            DID YOU GO….?

•    NO I don’t, NO She/he doesn’t                                              - NO, I didn’t

•    Yes I do; Yes she/he does                                                            - YES I did.

Aquí un ejemplo que hemos hecho en casa:

We also received a new book from Read and Imagine today, and like all their books, it’s fantastic.

This weekend we also have had to work study techniques to organize contents to study Science. We are very tired, because our school delegate too much work for home and it spent too much efforf and time

If we always read, we strong learn!

We’ve had a dreadful week working with the children at home.

I get the feeling that either they’re rushing through the work at school or the material is too scattered, which creates quite a bit of confusion for them.

For me, it’s absolutely vital that children read, write and enjoy learning. Children should want to learn, develop their creativity and curiosity, and gradually come to understand life’s challenges...

All of this goes far beyond exams... it’s primary school, not a competitive exam!

Children must learn and acquire skills, but they must also be happy and develop their interests.

My kids like to draw, to build things, to create stories, play music...and there is not too much space in school to do It..So we have to facilitate dituation at home: going to special clases, participating into special contexts or making models at home. 

We all, teachers and parents, are "in the same boat": educate our kids to be well educated and emotional enough to prepare them for life.

In our case, we emphasise daily work on what we consider to be fundamental and go beyond rote learning: language, maths and English.

Writing, reading, understanding maths problems, thinking critically, and knowing how to express themselves and relate concepts to real life... these are the areas we focus on particularly and support very specifically in their learning.

Social and Natural Sciences are more repetitive subjects, and we only teach them techniques for organising their work and study... In this case, as the standard system is repetitive and relies on rote learning... I believe parental involvement is less important.

In English, we’re really happy because we’re starting to see the fruits of years of hard work in the remarkable fluency Álvar and Mártín are showing... We’ve put a lot of time and money into supporting what they learn at school and helping them make progress in the world of the second language...

This weekend we’ve been sorting through my books and exercise books from my primary school days, and we’ve been using my 8 year EGB school books to practise reading, comprehension and discussing the vocabulary needed for the upcoming exams.

This weekend was a total game-changer because we combined traditional methods with my elementary school materials and created reading exercises using Gemini to align the vocabulary and topics with what they’re covering in school.

The truth is that artificial intelligence is very useful and has helped us a lot. And we have a thousand resources at our fingertips to support English learning from home.

Here my books from EGB

Here the reading I created with Gemini

>>link Here

The truth is, it’s a pleasure to support them with their English and see that fluency in communication that we thought would never come… but really…

it’s coming!

I encourage all families to support them, if you can, in this process… it’s a real breakthrough that takes time to arrive, but it does arrive.

And...

This week we have an important date, because Álvar and Martin were involved in a traditional drawing context in which they get used to participate...And they have got a prize!...so after all the effort, they had a reward...

Reading and comprehensión skills in a 8M context

8M

This weekend, Álvar had to prepare for a school exam, which was a good excuse to read in English and practise our reading comprehension.

As always, we follow the school teacher's blog, which guides us in building grammatical knowledge and enriching our vocabulary.

When it comes to working on reading and comprehension skills, I recognise that my children are privileged because they have my husband and me to guide them in the process of understanding and practising this skill. It is true that in other families, parents also have this ability, but perhaps what is lacking is the dedication of time to help them. Or the belief that children learn on their own. We believe that in a non-English environment, we must strive to create moments of family work in English to guide them on the path of reading aloud, which is how we work on it.

We started from the premise that Álvar has been reading in English for some time, so he is quite familiar with the #Read&Imagine methodology from #Oxford. Even so, I looked for texts on the topics covered in this exam and we worked on three comprehension exercises:

Today we also recorded him so that he could listen to himself afterwards and realise his pronunciation. He made several mistakes, which he quickly detected.

Álvar's reading

In addition to these short readings, we have read a very cool historical book that also empowers women. Today, 8 March, is International Women's Day, and this is a very subtle way to learn about the past, to learn about American history, and to value the women who fought for THANKSGIVING DAY.

Irregular verbs with #DJBlanca

 Today at home we worked on regular and irregular verbs.

We are lucky that the English school they have been attending for two years now started teaching irregular verbs, and many of them are already using them correctly. link to INFIL https://www.infil.es/

Also a year ago, I made them a game based on number ladders and contextualized with the characters from Stumble Guys. In the end, in English, all exposure to communication that creates fun and real moments and context adds up to a lot.

At home, we always work on English comprehension and oral expression. Our teacher said us to expose kids to english at home. We have luck because we speak english and our kids can learn also with us. 

We have created weekly routines to do always a little bit of speaking, readind or listening...It is hard, but a second language need too much efford.

This week, in addition to communicating using the vocabulary they learned at school, we reinforced regular and irregular verbs a little bit.

We did a really cool activity that turned me into DJ Blanca. We played DJ using this excellent video.

We practiced regular and irregular verbs, making unexpected stops, and Álvar and Martín had to complete their meaning and the conjugation of the infinitive, past tense, and participle.

It was a really cool game because Álvar and Martín themselves asked me to “keep DJing and I enjoyed like a child...