The Jones' Korean Adventure

Laura liked this story, so I thought I'd post it for her...

One of the things we do a lot of in our classrooms is "copycat" reading. Basically, the whole class turns to a page in the textbook and reads it together with the teacher - the teacher says a few words, and then the students copy the teacher and say the same words. This is how the whole page gets read.

I've been trying to teach my kids how to actually look at the words on the page when they are "reading after me". Seems kinda obvious...there are the words, please look at them while you read...but most of the kids look half dazed, stare at the ceiling, or play with their pencils while we "read" the English words together.

The other day I was looking around the room and noticing how few students were looking at the book's pages, and how few students were even turned to the right page in their book. Here's the thing: if you don't look at the English word when you say it, you're not gonna know how to say it next time you see it. Makes sense, right? How do you explain that to a little ESL student?

I came up with the plan that we would all pretend there was a little person living in our finger who wanted to learn how to read. To make my point, I picked up my pen, and proceeded to draw a happy face on my finger. Then I demonstrated that if I held my finger over the words, my little friend could read them too. When I looked up from my demonstration, there were 13 little hands all raised in the air, with the pointer finger extended, waiting for me to draw a face for their new "friend" and reading partner. When everyone had freshly drawn finger-faces, we continued with the lesson.

You know what? Not only was it completely adorable to watch the kids skim their fingers over the English words so that the little smiley face could "read"...it actually worked! The kids are now looking at the words as the read them. This little victory made me feel like a million bucks!