Lesson 4: Listening and

reading

prepared by Kinsley Ng Sen Fa, Segi College Penang, Program DECE

LISTEN!
 The goal of good language art
program is to guide the young
child toward development of
advanced listening skills. – E.g.
simple rhymes and repetitions and
purposeful listening experience.
Responding to Organizing the stimuli
stimuli
•Sequencing the sound
•Awareness •Synthesizing
•Focus •scanning
•Discrimination

Understanding the
meaning
Stages of listening
process •Classification
•Integration
•monitoring
Appreciative listening Purposeful listening
-The child finds pleasure in The child follows direction
hearing music, poems and stories. ands and gives response
It’s personal for each child
- light listening

Discrimination
listening
Some of the ways - The child becomes
aware of changes in
children listen loudness and pitch.
Sounds become
differentiated in the
Creative listening environment. The child is
able to discriminate the
- The child’s imagination speech sounds.
and emotions are Critical listening
stimulated by her listening
experience. Encourage - The child understands,
free expressions and evaluates, make decisions and
action. formulate opinions. Teacher
poses critical question to create
conflicts - Socratic method
 Tell another how
Do something to do something
Learn new skills, for themselves
such as singing
new songs or
finger play

Purposeful listening
activities: encourage the
child to listen in order to
Operate some
type of toy or
equipment
•Recall details
•See how many names or Carry a
facts that can remember message
 •Moving to music
•Discuss sounds,
Chanting
Play rhythm and music
background
music for certain
pursuits

Appreciative
listening activities –
light listening Talking about
happy, sad or
funny feelings
Tapping, clapping that sounds
and other sounds produce
making activities
 A probable outcome Personal preference
or guess is prompted or dislikes are
A problem is discussed
discussed and
solutions are
offered

Critical listening
activities – comprehension +
evaluation Group votes are
reviewed and
outcomes are
Errors are anticipated
discovered or
detected
 Clear and simple
Be a role model - instruction, with a
Bend and lower LISTEN to them!
sequence of what
ourselves when comes first, next and
last
listening to
children
Use signal to get
their attention –
toys, or anything produces
Stimulates pleasant sound

interest – finger
play, short rhyme
Silent pause
before beginning
Encouragement, Teachers’ skills an activity
eye contact and
smiles, “it seems
everyone is listening; it’s
time to begin.”
Reading !
 Drilling on repetitious
reading to train decoding
without actual
comprehension or
Over- appreciation
emphasized
Technical
reading
VS
Fun reading
- being read to Not age-appropriate -
Could endanger the
child’s budding interest
Imitative
in reading
reading
 How to arouse
their interest? –
What not every child is
interested in books
precedes
and what
follows the How to gauge their
reading understanding?
activities When
considering
reading
How is this activities…
book
relevant to
children’s
lives How to build on
their future
development
 Picture books – big
book,
Novelty books –
sensory experience, stamp
and pasting books, activity
books Teacher/child-made
books – self-rewarding and
offer sharing experience

Types of books …… and

their advantageous features

Wordless books –
encourage children’s
narrative skills Non-fiction books – provide
facts and discussion (how things
work and function)
 The whole
The natural language
approach approach

Reading-teaching
methods !

Literature
based Decoding -
reading phonetic
approach approach
Reading-teaching
methods !

There is no proven best method. It boils

down to the teachers’ enthusiasm and
understanding of the method used
 Being read to at a
young age – the
awareness that talk can be
written and written talk can
be read
Associate with
child’s own life –
writes own name and
significant others of his
family – child finds out Teaching
sound similarities and reading…
makes comparisons with
unfamiliar words
Reading and writing
develop as
complementary skills –
Environment is the most
important teaching aid! Give print
experience to children.
Ideally: one-to-one
child reading – difficult
because of group size and multiple
responsibilities expected of
teachers
Print-rich
environment –
Environment is the most
important teaching aid!
Give print experience to
children.
Introduce literature
elements – knows parts of a
book and their functions,
components of literature (setting,
plot, characters, theme, moral of
story)
The natural
approach
A child learns to read in a literate society
as he learned to walk

Exposure to classic literature and child-

authored literature (writing) are
important
Encouragement of children’s creative
writing as a meaningful approach. E.g.
use children’s photos to arouse interest.

Can incorporate other approaches such

as phonic, linguistic, or sight-word
recognition.
The whole
language
movement
Advocates offering children in meaningful and
functional literature in full literacy text –
appreciative reading!
Not worksheet or dotted
handouts
Writing, listening, reading and speaking
activities grow from a child’s experiences /
interest and inseparable.

Spontaneous conversational exchanges

are typical and seen as enhancing / extending
learning

Focus on meaning not language

Look and
see
method

Identify and memorize words by their shapes and

configuration.

Probably confused similar words, such as “June”

and “Jane”, Saw” and “Sew”.

Children who are good at noticing slight difference

and who have good memories seem to progress
and become good readers
Literature-
based
approach

May use basal reading series or

children’s literature

Literature permeates the curriculum.

Discussion, art, drama and writing
related to stories are encouraged

Emphasizes comprehension and sense

of the story structure. Children are
encouraged to ask questions and give
comments
Decoding-
phonetic
approach

Based on teaching children the 44 language sounds

(phonemes) – 26 alphabet letters and combinations
(graphemes)

Teach phonemic awareness – words

are composed of individual sounds.

When children know which sounds are represented by

which letter, they can read unknown words.

Some words are sight words (car, write)

 Evaluation
and criticism

Whole language approach does not

enquire planning and management –
lack of instruction in phonics - inability
to assess children’s learning progress

Decoding-phonetic approach emphasizes

technical reading at the expense of meaningful
and appreciative reading – many English
words are irregular (sight words)
 The print, not the
pictures in a There are alphabet
book, tells the letters
story

Punctuation
makes words Words are
have meaning clusters of letters
Some important cues children
gradually understand concerning
print…
Spaces in printing
are there for a
reason
There are first letter
Alphabet letters exist and last letters in
in uppercase and words
lowercase