1. A Reading Contest

2. WHO WE ARE
• Márcia Ferreira
• CCBEU
• Bi-national Center
• Franca SP
• 1974
• ± 1600 students
• 27 teachers
• EAO
• Auditorium
• Learning Center

3. HOW IT
STARTED
• English for Today/Pizza Hut
• 2000 – 2013
• Beginning level students
• Teachers participate
• Achievement Certificates
• Over ---- books read

8. Do you agree?
Oftentimes students enter our classroom
without many reading models.

9. How do students learn to
READ?
The best way for students to learn to read
is by reading a great deal of
comprehensible material.

10. However…
many students of English learn to read in a
slow, careful manner, relying almost
entirely on bottom-up strategies.
Bottom-up strategies consist primarily of combining vocabulary
& grammar clues to build meaning. Whereas top-down
strategies enable students to use extralinguistic knowledge.

11. Intensive Reading
Reading texts closely
& carefully with the
intention of gaining an
understanding of as
much detail as
possible.
 Reading an
instruction manual

12. Intensive Reading
Overreliance on this reading approach
makes reading slow & often painful &
tends to discourage students from doing
any more reading than necessary.

13. What do we WANT?
We want students to learn to read in a
more rapid, active way so they can reach a
breakthrough point where reading
becomes a useful & even enjoyable skill.
Breakthrough = a sudden advance specially in knowledge or
technique

14. Extensive Reading
The teaching of reading through reading.
Reading becomes rewarding & enjoyable
enough to become an end in itself.

15. Reading for DETAIL. Reading for PLEASURE.
INTENSIVE
EXTENSIVE

16. What’s the best way to
understand READING?
To see it as a process of active guessing in
which readers use a variety of different
kinds of clues to understand a text and to
take what they need or want from it,
generally as quickly as possible, without
intolerable investments of time and effort.
Richard Day & Jullian Bamford

17. Therefore…
There are strong arguments for actively
encouraging students to read a lot in the
target language, both in and outside the
classroom.

18. Benefits
Becoming a competent READER..
 helps to consolidate the learning that
has taken place
 may help to increase knowledge of the
target language through exposure to
vocabulary & grammatical structures
 is an important way to learn about the
target culture

19. Extensive Reading
 Pleasure
 Reading fluency
 Reading comfort zone
 Self-chosen material
 Guessing
 No testing

20. Pleasure
 Students will be willing to read when the
benefits gained from reading overweigh
the investment of time & effort.
 Motto: Reading gain, without reading
pain!
http://clubs2.scholastic.com/programs/contests.shtml

21. Reading Fluency
 One important aspect of building
students’ extensive reading is training
them to read more quickly.

22. Reading Comfort Zone
 Students should be reading material that
is at a slightly lower level than their
current reading ability.

23. Self-Chosen Material
 Students are more likely to voluntarily
read interesting & easy materials than
those which are neither.
 They should choose at least some of
their own reading material.

24. Self-Chosen Material
 __________ are books of stories
published specifically for learners to get
extended exposure to English. They
have grammar & vocabulary graded to
named levels so that learners stand a
chance of successfully reading them.
Readers
Simplified readers
Language learner literature (Day & Bamford)

25. Self-Chosen Material
 Build a library of suitable material. It
does not need to be large.
 Persuade the school administration to
provide funds.
 Shelve the books by level: basic,
intermediate, advanced.

26. Guessing
 Students need to (1)______ the habit of
(2)______the meanings of (3)______
unfamiliar words or (4) ______skipping
over them.
 (5)______ dictionary use to a (6)______.
 Frequent dictionary stops (7)______
reading speed & tend (8)______ break
the train (9)______ thought, thus making
(10)______ less enjoyable.

27. Answer key
(1) develop
(2) guessing
(3) most
(4) simply
(5) Keep
(6) minimum
(7) slow
(8) to
(9) of
(10) reading

28. Guessing
Students ask themselves:
 Can I quickly guess enough about the
word to keep going?
 Do I need to understand this word?
 Can I try to become comfortable not
knowing the exact meaning of this
word?

29. But…
 tell the students it is ok to stop & look up
the word if they lose the train of thought
completely.

30. No Testing
 Let students read, enjoy & move on,
rather than read & then have to do lots
of exercises afterwards.
 Check that students have read by
having them fill out a book report.
 Set up students for success.

32. Cheating
 It is obviously easier if the students are
reading books you have read, but
between your knowledge of what a text
is likely to contain and the students’
report, you can usually get a sufficiently
clear idea of how well the student has
done the reading.

33. Extensive Reading
There’s a great deal of evidence that
Extensive Reading has a powerful impact
on language learning.

34. Why run a CONTEST?
 Some students are simply not inclined to
read on their own, but they would read
to fulfill requirements.
 Required Motivation (Warden & Lin)

35. English Access
Program
45 students
10 days
490 books read
10,4 books per student
Best reader: 22 books

40. Setting up the Contest (1)
 Help students become aware of their
reading habits - good and bad - by
having them respond to a questionnaire.

41. Reading Questionnaire
What do you think a good reader does?
A good reader
( ) reads fast
( ) understands all the words
( ) makes guesses
( ) always reads carefully
( ) does other things ______

42. Reading Questionnaire
Reading in your first language
 Do you like reading?
 How often do you read?
 When & where do you read?
 What kinds of things do you read?
 What do you like to read about?

43. Reading Questionnaire
Reading in English
 Do you like reading in English?
 How often do you read in English?
 What kinds of things would you like to
read in English?

44. Reading Questionnaire
English Reading Habits
 Do you read slowly?
 Do you translate into Portuguese?
 Do you look up unfamiliar words?
 Do you read aloud?

45. Setting up the Contest (2)
 Start with an all-class reading
assignment which means that all of the
students in your class read the same
book.
 Teach students how to fill out the book
report.

46. Book Report Form
Directions: Print out this template. Answer
the questions. You may want to answer
some of them while you are reading your
book.
General information about the Book
Title:
Author:

47. Book Report Form
Type of Book:
( ) adventure
( ) celebrity
( ) children’s
( ) fantasy
( ) humor
( ) mystery
( ) romance
( ) biography
( ) nature
( ) science
( ) sports
( ) travel

48. Book Report Form
Main character(s):
This is a story about:
( ) courage
( ) love
( ) funny events
( ) importance of
friends
( ) jealousy
( ) happiness
( ) sadness
( ) animals

49. Book Report Form
Five words I want to remember from the
book are:
Copy sentences from the book with the
five words above:
The book was:
( ) great ( ) good
( ) ok ( ) boring

50. Setting up the Contest (3)
 Indicate to students how many books
you expect them to read over a given
period.

51. Setting up the Contest (4)
 Explain how students can make their
choice of what to read.
 Suggest they look for books in the genre
that they enjoy.

52. Book Genres
FICTION
 Adventure
 Children’s
 Fantasy
 Humor
 Mystery
 Romance
NON-FICTION
 Biography
 Celebrity
 Nature
 Science
 Sports
 Travel

53. Setting up the Contest (5)
 Explain to the students how to handle
unfamiliar words.

54. Setting up the Contest (6)
 Get the library staff to participate by
informing the students of the rules &
procedures to take out books.

55. Library Rules & Regulations
 You need your library card.
 You borrow books for one week.
 Your library card can be renewed after
that.
 You will get fined R$1,00 per day for not
returning books.

56. Setting up the Contest (7)
 Put up the contest rules & regulations in
the classroom bulletin boards.

57. Content Rules &
Regulations
1. To win, a class (students & teacher) must
read the biggest number of books.
2. If a participant does not read any books,
he will automatically disqualify his class.
3. If the contest ends in a tie, the quality of
the book reports will be used to pick the
winners.
4. Participants must have a library card to
take out books from the library.
5. For each book that is read, a book report
form must be filled out completely.

58. Content Rules & Regulations
(Cont.)
6. Teachers who have more than one class
participating in the contest have to read
different books for each class.
7. Book reports must be handed in to the
Contest Coordinator who will decide on
whether or not they will be counted.
8. You will photocopy the official Book Report
Form or you may write your reports on any
paper of the same size (A4).
9. The deadline for submitting book reports
is (month/date) at (time).

59. Content Rules & Regulations
(Cont.)
10. The prize will be a
meal at a local
restaurant of
winners’ choice.

61. Drawbacks
 Too much paper is used for the book
reports
 Some participants don’t like competing
for a prize
 Limited choice of book genres

62. YOUR TURN
Which small (or large) institutional
modifications can be made to assist your
students in becoming better readers?

63. YOUR TURN
Which small (or large) instructional
modifications can you make to assist your
students in becoming better readers?

64. YOU CAN…
 ask students to read a lot
 set aside a few minutes as quiet reading
time
 get students to fulfill requirements
 be committed to vocabulary building
 encourage students to become word
collectors
 teach instead of test comprehension
 encourage students to report back on their
readings
 choose activities that reflect real-life use

65. Concluding…
“Often it is not the big things that we do in
classes that make a difference, but rather
the small things that we do, and do
consistently.”

66. Marcia Ferreira
marcia@ccbeufranca.com.br