Reading Options - Ben Slavic

This is to update the reading options that I invented years and years ago, in about 2008 I think it was. There had always been 20 of them, but for my new book I reduced the number to 12, after some communication with Krashen in 2015. Here is the new version, for both experienced and new people. These options eat up class time really well, which is why I publish them now at this time of year:

Silent Reading: The story, given to the teacher in L1 from the storywriter at the end of the story on the previous day, now in L2, is projected. The students read the story silently. They do so with interest because they created it.
Teacher Reads: Read the projected story aloud to the class. Just read, do not ask questions when doing this option, to let the sounds of the language sink into the students’ minds. This might be the first time they have heard the OWI description or story from beginning to end without interruption. Resist the temptation to interrupt yourself or to ask questions. Simply read slowly and clearly, with emotion.
Pair Work: The students translate together. We only do this if being observed, to get the box checked. One technique with paired students is “Volleyball Reading”. Student 1 reads the first sentence in L2. Student 2 then reads the first sentence in L1. Then the same student, Student 2, reads the next sentence from the text in L2. Then Student 1 takes another turn, translating into L1 the sentence that her partner just read in L2, and so on.
Choral Translation: Use the laser pointer or put your hand on the projected words as the students read through the text in L1 with loud voices. The Reader Leader (see Supplement 8) guides the class along with a strong and measured voice. If there is no student doing that job, the teacher leads the class. Sometimes it is necessary to point to the words in a non-linear way to make English word order happen in the translation. This is an opportunity to point out differences in word order in your L2.
Discussion of Grammar in L1: While the class is translating the text aloud, the teacher stops from time to time to very briefly point out grammar features. Finally, we can explain grammar to the two kids in the classroom who care. Ask students what certain words mean. Point out adjective agreement and even spelling changes in boot verbs. Explain possessive adjectives. Use English. Go for it, but quickly, keeping the grammar explanations down to under four seconds. Never mention the actual grammar terms, since most kids won’t understand, caring only to know what the text means. Don’t test your students on any of it. Over time, they will see patterns. This will lead to true acquisition of grammar, but much later, for those few who are interested.
Reading from the Back of the Room: This is the best one. This is the best reading option. When I started doing it in India in 2015, I wished I could go back to the beginning of my career and have it available to me. With the story still projected in front of the class, turn the kids away from it to face you in the back of the classroom as you face the text. Then start an in-depth repetition of the first paragraph, stopping only to ask slow yes/no questions to individual students. Allow students during this time to turn and refer to the text for a moment if needed. We ask direct content questions about the text but also bringing in discussion of how a student in our class may compare or not with the characters in the story. Slowly we work our way through the text. Be sure to fit this activity in when being observed – it is proof in the pudding that the children are learning the language. With the story still projected in front of the class, turn the kids away from it to face you in the back of the classroom as you face the text. Then start an in-depth repetition of the first paragraph, stopping only to ask slow yes/no questions to individual students. Allow students during this time to turn and refer to the text for a moment if needed. We ask direct content questions about the text but also bringing in discussion of how a student in our class may compare or not with the characters in the story. Slowly we work our way through the text. The time spent doing Reading from the Back of the Room using the Director’s Cues accounts for some of the happiest moments of my teaching career, as my students always tried to outdo their classmates in silliness and fun as they responded to my Director’s Cues prompts. Note that the best times with Director’s Cues usually happen when working from dialogue during the Read from the Back of the Room phase. Imagine yourself standing in the back of the room, reading the dialogue in a story and then stopping and asking two of your students (any two – not just the actors) to read a particularly juicy few lines of dialogue while running in place, or speaking like a king, or with hands on shoulders, or like a robot. Really, it doesn’t get any better than working with the Director’s Cues in the dialogue phase of Reading from the Back of the Room. My prediction is that once you are working with option 6 and begin to learn to locate the right moments to use the Director’s Cues as explained in Journey 1, you will have found one of the secrets that lie, like hidden treasure, in this work with the Invisibles.I have always enjoyed the time spent in this phase most simply because the restriction on target language use is lifted. It’s a fun time to spend with the kids, and effortless, and there just isn’t any need to stay in English all the time. In particular, the time spent doing Reading from the Back of the Room using the Director’s Cues accounts for some of the happiest moments I have ever experienced in my teaching career, as my students always tried to outdo their classmates in silliness and fun as they responded to my Director’s Cues prompts.
Textivate: Download this program for $60 or so: www.textivate.com. It’s well worth it – it allows you to work more deeply with the written story and to promote reading. You import the story into the program and you can fill up lots of class minutes with all the imaginative reading activities that Textivate offers.
Running Dictation: This activity from Jason Fritze provides an excellent physical break from all the sitting and listening that goes on in our classrooms. Here is how to set up it up: Take three or six sentences – depending on the level of the class – from a completed story and write them on paper, putting each L2 sentence up around the room, or even down the hall, in random places on the walls. Pair up the students. The students take turns – one writes and one runs. The runner finds any of the available sentences on the wall and runs back to tell the writer what the sentence is, who then writes it in L2. If the runner forgets some of the sentence, she needs to run back to the wall, re-read the sentence and then return to the writer to complete the writing down of the sentence. Once the students have found and recorded all of the sentences, they try together to arrange them in the proper order. Once that has been done, they call the teacher who praises them for completing the task. This activity forces students to hold onto larger chunks of language in their memories. It is good for their brains. It is also a good activity to do when observed, as it gets the kids out of their seats and moving, so you can get that box checked.
Work on Accent: Just read to the kids and let them repeat the word chunks you say. This can be a very special time. Most kids love doing this, so that is enough reason to do it. Just be sure to make this not feel like a forced activity. Does it help improve their accent? Not really, but if they enjoy it, where’s the harm?
Cloze work. This is an oral cloze activity in which we invite the students to fill in the spaces we leave in our speech when reading the above text to them. We don’t spend a lot of time on this. It is a chance to practice preliminary speech patterns that at this point are easy for the students, since they know the text so well. It is a way to build preliminary confidence in speech.
Translation Quiz: Pick any paragraph from the reading and have the students translate it into English for a quick and easy grade.
Sacred Reading: After all the opportunities they have had to both listen to and now read the same text, the students know the material. This reading option is a most special follow up time with your students. Read the story to them slowly with meaning, dramatic tone, and artistry, in a quiet, sacred kind of setting, almost as if you are gently reciting poetry. I was told by a teacher that one day she read with such drama and emotion that her students told her that she should have been an actor! I generally do this without the text in front of the students, so that they can just focus on listening. The students are really pleased when they can understand a foreign language read to them in this way.