UNIT 6: Teaching Reading and Writing

INSTRUCTOR: Renzo Leon Estrada rleon@icpnarc.edu.pe

Teacher: Rogelio Mateo Verstegui rmateo@icpnarc.edu.pe
Based on what you read, do you think our textbooks provide activities that are
suitable for teaching reading and writing to our YL and VYL? Why or Why not?
What activities have you done before that met the principles of a good reading
and writing lesson? What activities that you have done did not meet those
principles? How could you incorporate a literacy program in our context?
REFLECTION
I firmly believe that our textbooks provide activities but not a wide range of
them. It just offers one or two activities per task. For example in JR05 in the
reading section the book only suggests Ss to underline information and decide
which advertisement would fit well with three possible travelers. Before meeting
the principles of a good reading lesson I used to elicit answer from a question I
made based on the picture that usually appeared on the books. Next, I wrote
some new words on the board and explained them, I had them do something
with the new words maybe spelling, if there were verbs, I got them to mimic
some of the new vocabulary. Then, I used to say the instructions very slowly so
that they can understand what to do in the exercise as well as model some
possible drill that needed to be done. Later, I gave them enough time to do the
rest of drills and we checked together or in pairs according to the complexity of
the item. Similarly, Before meeting the principles of a good writing lesson I used
to assign this section as homework. However, if there was a good time, I used to
do it with them but in a hurry because children are reluctant to write when the
class is about to finish. When I had time I used to review the vocabulary and the
general topic of the unit because most writings are based on it. I have been
teaching full JR courses and in those cases the majority of works were assigned
to write a biography, describe your favorite singer, your vacation destinations
and so on. For that, I used to write a model in my PPTs slides and they started

writing, as it is seen, widely guided and controlled, and I checked them the
coming class.
In brief, I did activities that were somewhat related to the principles I have just
read and the way to incorporate literacy and our classrooms could be by getting
them immerse in print literature, using their background, modeling and
supplying more writing strategies along the process, and getting our Ss become
partly independent readers and writers because teachers are pretty important.