The Philosophy of Teaching Reading

Education is an important part of humans life. People want to get a good education in order to get a good job in future. It is not a secret today that the earlier people start their learning, the bigger account of knowledge they can get. From the very childhood children start to get some knowledge in the kindergartens. The more senior child become the more information he or she can accept.

One of the main problems the teachers can face is to make children interested in voluntary reading. Teacher cannot give and work all possible and necessary information during the lesson. So, much literature is give children to voluntary reading. And it comes a problem here how to explain children the necessity of reading additional literature.

It is very important to force students to voluntary reading as it gives them additional information which can help them to make up their own view in future. Students may stop reading if they find it not important. So, the teachers aim is to make students understand that reading is a challenge.

One of the main aspects which can make a student interested in a book is its context. If the book seems to be interested for a student, he or she is going to read it. The problems start when the book seems to be uninteresting for a student. The aim of a teacher is to prove the contrary.

One of the techniques to foster voluntary reading is to present the most exciting fragment from the book in class, the intonation is very important. Students will get interested in it and it is going to be a reason to start reading this book. Teacher may give students a situation and give task to think about its development. And then teacher may advise to read one more original solution of the problem in this or that book.

One more approach is to show students a part from the movie of cartoon based on this or that book. The pictures in a book and its cover play the main part in choosing the book to read for small learners. The main task for teacher is to make students interested in the book no matter how old they are.

We are going to make up a lesson plan. We are going to take the third grade for this purpose. According to the Virginia Department of Education Revised English Standards of Learning Curriculum Framework Adopted by the Board of Education the students of the third grade should build reading comprehension through reading a variety of literature, to include but not be limited to narrative fiction, such as folktales, and nonfiction materials, such as biographies and autobiographies. Students will continue to develop strategic reading skills, such as word analysis and construction of meaning from text. (2003) During reading a variety of fiction and nonfiction materials students should use different strategies to read text including fiction, poetry, nonfiction, content texts, and other printed materials (Virginia Department of Education 2003).

Students also must read from 90 till 120 words per minute, read fluently and accurate. They should get the main idea of the text, connect it with their knowledge and experience in order to be able to state their own idea about the read text. The students should be able to give the confirmation or to argue the statements according to their point of view. They also should give new ideas or new understanding of the problem after reading new information (Virginia Department of Education 2003).

Lesson Plan of the Cinderella by Charles Perrault

Objectives

To introduce the fairy tale genre to children.
To organize the reading of a fairy tale Cinderella by Charles Perrault.
To show good and evil in the fairy tale by Charles Perrault and give life examples.
Indicating positive and negative characters in the story.

Materials

Pictures of the main characters from the fairy tale Cinderella by Charles Perrault and the fairy tales (10 15).
Shits of paper and colored pencils for every child.

Procedures

At the very beginning of the lesson to offer children to imagine themselves in a fairy tale and ask them how do they understand this genre fairy tale (all answers should be written on a blackboard).
Teacher asks children whether they know the fairy tale Cinderella by Charles Perrault and asks to name the main characters of it (all answers should be written on a blackboard).
Teacher shows children pictures and they have to find the main characters of the discussed story.
Teacher offers to talk about the good and evil human actions in our life and to play a game. When teacher names a good action, children should clap their hands; when teacher names bad actions children should do nothing. For example, to embrace (clap), to shout (no clap).
Children point out the positive and negative characters of the story and tell what actions they did (good or bad, what exactly these characters did).
Children read the most striking parts of the story (the situations when sisters were gathering to the ball, when Cinderellas Godmother appeared, the end of a ball for Cinderella, the end of a story).
Children are offered to draw one of the main characters in the fairy tale.
Teacher divides children on small groups and asks them to create another ending of a story. What could be if Cinderella did not lose her shoe, if the prince did not find her or other variant.

Home task: to read the whole story and make up a project: The ball of my dream. Children should imagine that they are either princes or princesses and to draw the ball as they imagine it.

There are several approaches of education: basal or anthology approach, literature-based approach, language-experience approach, and the integrated approach. Basal or anthology approach means that the whole study process is concentrated in the hands of teachers. It is very easy to follow the grades, after every grade it is a test. As it was said the centre of this approach is a teacher, not a child. The whole creative process does the teacher.

Literature-based approach means that the learning process is organized with the help of books and reading. Students should learn read by reading books. Language-experience approach takes place when the teacher writes the stories by himself leaning on his or her own life experience. The integrated approach is an approach when the positive qualities of children are found out and teachers become to look for the new stretches and add to existing ones.

In conclusion, the literature-based approach best fits in with my philosophy of teaching reading. Reading teaches not only the language skills, but also the ability to think, to make up new ideas, to create new vision.