This year we decided to introduce reading as a long-term stress-relief strategy and a way to increasing vocabulary and comprehension. There are numerous benefits of reading, especially empowering people to empathizing with others, reducing stress, improving communication skills. It also helps to concentrate on one thing at the time and improves your ability to understand other people and see the world from perspectives of our family, friends, classmates and even enemies.
We introduced reading on English lessons on a regular basis. We started from deciding what factors influence our choices. In other words – what makes us choose this book not the other one. Students made posters on which they listed the main reasons for choosing some books while buying or borrowing them. Students read some excerpts from the book chosen by the teacher and after reading it they discuss the content, try to predict what may happen, they characterize protagonists, their personalities and skills. They describe the relationships between characters, their plans and intentions. They are also given various tasks related to the book read:
- drawing a comic based on a chosen story
- using Lego bricks to present the chosen scene
- presenting a character they especially like
- making word clouds of the vocabulary they learned from the book
- comparing characters
- comparing accuracy of the film based on the book with the book itself
- role playing
- making mind-maps
- reconstructing a journey of book characters
- using Google maps to count distances and see the places where the story takes place
The activities are enjoyed by the students, they are interested in the stories they read, they are keen to discuss the problems mentioned. Their creativity and general knowledge seem to expand.
