Exploiting Graded Readers from Cover to Cover

A Graded Reader is a short book which is written with the language learner
specifically in mind. They can be fiction or non-fiction and are often adapted
from novels and stories written for proficient speakers. The Readers are graded
by vocabulary, grammatical complexity, context and content and written in a way
which is 'learner friendly', i.e. they use simpler vocabulary and grammar.

Reading is one of the most effective ways of improving language skills and
arguably the most enjoyable. Finishing a novel is highly motivating and makes us
want to read more. As such, Readers are becoming more common in the English
language classroom and there are a multitude of activities that can be used to
exploit them and help our students gain the maximum benefit from them.

Using Readers gives students practice in extensive reading, i.e.
concentrating on meaning and content as opposed to intensive reading, which
concentrates on the structure of the text. Intensive reading is often the only
form of reading students are exposed to from their course book. Using Readers
gives students the opportunity to practise extensive reading which helps improve
students fluency, vocabulary acquisition and independent learning.

Let’s take a look at some activities that exploit Readers from cover to
cover. These activities presume that you are using a class set of Readers with
every student having their own copy. However many of these activities are
suitable for use as part of an individual reading programme where students chose
their own books from a library.

These ideas are intended to be generic and can be used with any book and at
any level.

Before reading

Prediction

Prediction is a key area which will raise interest in the story they are
about to read. Be careful though not to give too much away!

The front cover of a Reader will invariably have a picture depicting a scene
from the story. A lot of useful vocabulary that will be needed later can be
checked at this stage. Higher level students can even write a description of the
scene which can be referred to later once the book has been read. Even lower
level students should be able to construct some language from what they can
see.

A lot of readers use illustrations to help with the story. Students can flick
through their book, looking at any illustrations to help construct a framework
of the story. If you have copyright permission you could reproduce the pictures
from the book and get students to order the pictures. The aim of this activity
is not to get the order correct but to increase interest in the story.

Every Reader will contain a blurb on the back page. The blurb contains
information about the story which aims to attract the reader. You may wish
students to write a number of questions they would like to have answered after
reading the blurb.

During Reading

Many activities can take place as the story unfolds.

Characterization

Students can keep a character diary of one of the main characters in the
story. This exercise can turn into something very creative as students develop
the character, combining events in the book with their own ideas of what the
character would do with their time. Students can be encouraged to think about
their chosen character’s personality and their relationship with other
characters in the book.

In a similar vein, students could write A day in the life of… article based
on a key event in the story or what that character would do with a day off from
their job.

English through Art

Many readers contain vivid physical descriptions of scenery and characters.
To check understanding and to provide a balance for different learner types
students can be set an art project whereby they have to draw pictures based on
these descriptions.

Books are great sources of material for drama. Many Readers contain dialogue
which can be acted out by students. A Reader can also be the basis of a school
play. Indeed many of the original works adapted into Readers have already been
translated into stage plays or films. These can be shown chapter by chapter as
students progress through the book.

Language work

Readers provide a valuable authentic text we can use for more traditional
language work.

Students can gain valuable learning techniques by being encouraged to infer
meaning of unknown words from context. Any illustrations can be used to provide
clues on the meaning.

Most stories provide an opportunity to look at the authentic use of narrative
tenses. The use of tenses such as the past perfect can only really be understood
by looking at them in context and used as part of a story. Try rewriting a short
passages that uses past simple with all the verbs changed into the infinitive
and see if students can correctly choose the right verb form.

Work can also be done at a supra-sentential level by copying paragraphs from
the text and getting students to order them. This helps students to work on
referencing, lexical chains and cohesive sequencing devices.

Developing language skills

Listening and reading skills can be practised in a number of fun ways.
Younger readers especially enjoy having the story being reread to them with the
teacher making deliberate mistakes along the way and shouting out the correct
words, for example the use of opposite adjectives or different colours in
descriptive passages. This activity gets students focusing intently on what is
being written and what is being said.

After reading

Summarising

There are a number of written activities that can be used across ages and
levels.

•A time line can be produced of the events in a book. This can be the basis
of a factual review.

•Reviews of books can be either objective, simply describing what the story
was about or subjective, containing personal opinions about the story or a
mixture of the two.

•Blurbs can be written to promote the book. Similarly, the students can
design posters promoting the book.

Developing themes

Students may enjoy developing a sequel or prequel to the book. This idea
allows previous work on characterisation to develop further.

There are a number of cross-syllabus projects that can be developed from the
themes in a book. Look for topics on the environment, history or geography for
example.

This month’s lesson
idea [0] contains a complete lesson plan and materials based the story of Jack
& the Beanstalk, which uses some of the ideas above.

Web Links

BritLit

The aim of BritLit is to help teachers from around the world to exploit
English literature in the ELT classroom. Here you can find a range of materials
based around the works of various authors.

Each BritLit resource kit contains a range of materials to help students
understand the context of the literature as well as the language and the works
themselves.

Many of the packs contain complete texts, tasks for students , teachers'
notes as well as audio recordings of interviews with the authors and readings of
the text.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/download/britlit/britlit.shtml [1]