Reading Books in the Children’s ESL Classroom

January 27, 2008 at 4:35 am | Posted in Children's Classes, Teaching Tips: Reading | Leave a comment
Tags: efl kids, esl kids, reading in the children's esl classroom, reading to kids

When I first started reading books to children in my classes, I admit that I didn’t fully understand the potential of a book. A book is not simply words and pictures, but a complete interactive lesson in itself. I discovered this by watching other teachers read to their classes.

Each page of a book is a world of questions: What do you see on this page? An apple? How many apples do you see? Let’s count,1,2,3…What color is the apple? and so on. Of course it is important to balance these questions with the reading of the text. However, I have found that asking these questions every few pages helps keep the children focused. As I have mentioned before, pacing is important.

My favorite books for teaching English to children are Brown Bear Brown Bear and Hungry Caterpillar both by Eric Carle. What are yours?