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【Abstract】More and more parents pay much more attention to improving children’s reading ability with the development of the society and the education.Children are expected to own the English reading ability besides Chinese reading ability.How to teach children to read in English？ It is not so easy for parents and teachers.The issues about how to teach children to read in English will be discussed in this paper.
【Key words】reading； phonics； communication skills
1.Introduction
Reading ability is considered as a basic skill today.More and more parents focus on not only children’s Chinese reading ability but also English reading ability.How to teach children to read in English？ It is a difficult question.Even though there are many researches on the education，there is no explicit theory on how to teach or to help children respectively because of growing individuality.The variety of individuality requires the specialty of education.The cases the author experienced from 2012 till now will be described below.
2.Introduction of research subjects
Wang Yiqi was 6 years old in 2012.The child （from her 0-3year） was paid little attention by her parents because they were very busy.Fortunately，the teachers in the kindergarten cared her much and read many Chinese stories for her.At the end of 2012，she formed the habit of reading Chinese stories and she loved books.
Li Zeyu was 6 years old in 2012.It was difficult for him to sit and listen to the teacher quietly.He rarely concentrated on something exceeding 20 minutes except cartoons，drawing and sports.He liked drawing and wanted to keep it for a long time.He had no obstacles in Chinese reading by all efforts from his teachers，parents and himself.
Li Yifei was 8 years in 2012.She was smart and read many Chinese books.She gained the good ability of Chinese reading.She had learned New Concept English 1 for one year in an English training centre，which emphasized more on the grammar.Her mother went to work in another city in 2013，so that they only can get together at the weekend.
3.Discriminating sounds
It is believed that rate and success of SLA appear to be strongly influenced by the age of the learner.[1]The acquisition of foreign sounds in the childhood is better than the adults.[2]A variety of English learning materials are searched for the children.There are English songs，stories，cartoons and movies.What the children need is the environment，the language context.[2] At the very beginning，the parents were asked to play songs for the children everyday.But the children were not forced to listen to them carefully or understand completely.What the author wanted to do was providing the environment filling with English songs for the children.The songs could be heard on the way to school and home.The songs could be the background music while having dinner and playing.The children would listen and sing unconsciously in such a free environment.They imitated so well，especially the rhymes and rhythm.[2]What they memorized unconsciously could last for a long time and help them a lot in future study.The songs are good resources for discriminating sounds.[2]The English songs are treated as a daily use，such as bread and milk.Listening to the songs is of great importance in the process of discriminating sounds.The songs had been played for two months for the children.One day，the children said they wanted to study English.It inferred that the songs took effect.It can be seen as a good beginning from the children’s response，not the end.The audio resources should be played day by day.What kind of resources will be played can be chosen by the children.What the parents and the teacher need to do is preparing materials as much as they can to meet the children’s needs.The children aren’t required to understand what they listen to during this period.Keeping on listening can improve the ability of discriminating sounds.[2]It is the first step for teaching the children to read in English.
4.Phonics learning
In English speaking countries，children learn phonics in the kindergarten.Simply speaking，phonics is about the relationship between letters’ names and letters’ sounds.In the Wikipedia，“phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing the English language by developing learners’ phonemic awareness—the ability to hear，identify，and manipulate phonemes—in order to teach the correspondence between these sounds and the spelling patterns （graphemes） that represent them.” After listening for some time，English rhymes and rhythm can be realized by the children.It is time to input the knowledge of phonics.
First，teach the children to learn 26 letter names and letter sounds.Pictures and words are showed together in the class.It is similar to our Chinese characters learning.The pictures are the visual aids which can help children understand directly without any translation.For example，the picture of apples is showed to the children when teaching the letter Aa，and the sound of the letter Aa / ? / （phonetic symbols here make clearly about sounds，not for the children’s learning） is emphasized.Besides，the children are told that apple is one of the words，in which the letter Aa pronounces / ? /.The children can learn 26 letter sounds in this way.In this process，the children can be guided to give more words for the same sound： Aa / ? /，apple，ant and alligator.All a in the three words are the same sound.More and more words are input in the children’s minds while learning letter sounds.Second，the children are taught to blend different sounds for words，which consist of 3 letters.Take the word mat for example，the children try to blend the three sounds /m/，/?/ and /t/ in the word and speak out the word after learning the sounds of Mm，Aa and Tt respectively.The children would be familiar with the sounds they’ve learnt through this kind of exercises.Third，the sounds of combination of letters are taught.There are many combinations of letters in English words： bl in bless，gr in grow，th in them，ow in blow and brown and so on.This kind of words is usually composed of more than four letters.However，the children can master these sounds easier on the basis of learning 26 letter sounds. Furthermore，the Bingo game can be a good helper in the phonics class besides exercises.In the Bingo game，one reads the letter name，letter sound and the word on the cards while the others try to find whether there is the same one in their chessboards on their hands.Who finishes the chessboard first，who will win the game.The children chase each other in the game happily and accumulate more and more words. Wang Yiqi and Li Yifei spent nearly one year in mastering the phonics.Li Zeyu spent more time on it because he couldn’t concentrate himself over 20 minutes without any action.He was attracted by the pictures in the Bingo game and he could chase others in the game excitedly.He enjoyed learning phonics in this way.Learning phonics can help the children to read most English words，which will appear in English stories.
5.Reading English stories
Making good use of picture books is of great importance.The children can be guided to know how to read English stories.At the very beginning，they are allowed to read the pictures in the books and encouraged to tell the stories in Chinese according to what they’ve read in the pictures.Secondly，the children can practice phonics through the stories.For example，the story Zac the Rat.
Zac is a rat.Zac sat on a can.The ants ran to the jam.Zac had a pan.Zac had a fan.The ants ran and ran.Zac had a nap.
There are only seven sentences in this story.Children can read this English story after learning phonics.The letter sound /?/ is stressed in this story.But there are some new words for the children： rat，can，jam，ant，pan，fan and ran.There is doubt that children can understand the story.In the class，the author finds that the children have fantastic ability of reading pictures.They can guess the main idea of the story.Many new words are explained through the pictures and the children can get them exactly.If there appear abstract words，Chinese explanation is necessary depending on different cases.Even though the example here is a simple story，not every child can read as the teacher wishes.Sometimes the children refuse to read stories.In that case，the teacher is not encouraged to force the children to read.What the children need are courage and confidence.If they are input enough English signals，they’ll be eager to read.[2]If the children hesitate to read stories alone，let them listen repeatedly or read together.Give them time and they’ll move forward.
Li Zeyu is the one who makes progress slowly.He can read the simple stories after learning phonics more than one year.On one day of April in 2014，he picked a story The Cat and read it without any hesitation.And then he picked another two books and read them fluently in English.Li Yifei can read stories because she masters the phonics well.But she cannot read in a good sense of rhythm.Wang Yiqi can read English stories well not only short stories but also long stories，nearly 2000 words in a story.She reads every day and has a desire to speak English. 6.Accompanying and communication skills
In the parts above，the differences of learning performance are narrated.Every child is unique and their learning performance is the product of the efforts of their school，family and themselves.Each circle is indispensable and connected firmly.How to communicate with the children and how to accompany them will be discussed below.Patience and persistence are crucial for parents and teachers.
Wang Yiqi’s mother Annie insists on playing English music or movie everyday.She tries many ways to last the child’s interest in English for longer and she never expects immediate results.Once Annie found Wang Yiqi attracted by the movie Barbie，she extracted the voice information in it to the mobile phone so that the child can listen to the movie without watching.It can protect the child’s eyes and improve the child’s listening.Wang Yiqi listened to it for nearly a whole month.Annie didn’t know how much her daughter could understand.She asked her daughter to change other listening materials，but she didn’t get any response from her daughter.The girl still focused on the voice from Barbie.Some day，the girl spoke the words from the movie and said，“I like this part so much！” Annie was astonished and understood the importance of listening.What parents need to do is preparing different kinds of English materials ten times as much as children’s need.Furthermore，Wang Yiqi likes reading English stories everyday accompanied by her mother.It is good for forming reading habit.Annie tried her best to be a good company when her daughter read at first.Wang Yiqi read step by step.She can read by herself now.She can read an English story containing 5000 words.A big progress she made！ The children can output what they want when they are input enough.It can be seen that persistence and accompanying from family play an important role in children’s learning.
Li Zeyu is a child who gets ADHD.[3]He cannot concentrate on something over 20 minutes.Adults must be very patient and care much for him.His parents were not patient enough and always blamed for his naughty.Later，they accepted the teacher’s advice.They tried to discover his advantages and praised him.His mother tried to read books with him together，although not every day，it helped.It infers that communication is crucial in education，especially expressing ways.One day，the teacher thought it was time for him to read aloud stories and said，“Will you have a try？” He shook his head.One sentence from Beyond the Rainbow Bridge came into the teacher’s mind： can is a magic word and the children will feel that they own the priorities.[4]So the teacher said，“You can read this story.” The boy didn’t refuse this time and picked up a book and read it aloud. Li Yifei is considered as a girl who always can take good care of herself.Something changed since her mother moved to another city for work.She cannot share all things with a reliable person quickly after changing.She used to share stories with her mum before and now she cannot get support from her mother while reading in English.It mentioned above that she couldn’t read in a good sense of rhythm.The reason was that she listened not as much as the teacher expected.Listening is important for reading.Input enough can be output correctly and fluently.Even though she is growing，she is still a girl，only 10 this year 2014.She still needs help from her parents in learning.So parents must be careful and pay more attention to accompanying children.
7.Conclusion
Discriminating sounds，learning phonics and reading stories aren’t isolated.They are interrelated，working together for teaching children to read.From the children’s cases，they show the effect of English songs，phonics learning and English stories.In the end，it indicates that communication skills and support from parents have an effect on children’s learning.The improvement of reading ability has a long way to go.Learning strategies need to be regulated in time according to children’s performance.
References：
[1]Rod Ellis.第二语言习得概论[M].上海：上海外语教育出版社， 1985.105.
[2]安妮鲜花.不能错过的英语启蒙[M].北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2011.3～22.
[3]罗伯特·费尔德曼.发展心理学[M].苏彦捷等译.北京：世界图书出版公司， 2013.341～343.
[4]芭芭拉·帕特森，帕梅拉·布莱德.我从彩虹那边来[M].郝志慧译.天津： 天津教育出版社，2011.86.
【Key words】reading； phonics； communication skills
1.Introduction
Reading ability is considered as a basic skill today.More and more parents focus on not only children’s Chinese reading ability but also English reading ability.How to teach children to read in English？ It is a difficult question.Even though there are many researches on the education，there is no explicit theory on how to teach or to help children respectively because of growing individuality.The variety of individuality requires the specialty of education.The cases the author experienced from 2012 till now will be described below.
2.Introduction of research subjects
Wang Yiqi was 6 years old in 2012.The child （from her 0-3year） was paid little attention by her parents because they were very busy.Fortunately，the teachers in the kindergarten cared her much and read many Chinese stories for her.At the end of 2012，she formed the habit of reading Chinese stories and she loved books.
Li Zeyu was 6 years old in 2012.It was difficult for him to sit and listen to the teacher quietly.He rarely concentrated on something exceeding 20 minutes except cartoons，drawing and sports.He liked drawing and wanted to keep it for a long time.He had no obstacles in Chinese reading by all efforts from his teachers，parents and himself.
Li Yifei was 8 years in 2012.She was smart and read many Chinese books.She gained the good ability of Chinese reading.She had learned New Concept English 1 for one year in an English training centre，which emphasized more on the grammar.Her mother went to work in another city in 2013，so that they only can get together at the weekend.
3.Discriminating sounds
It is believed that rate and success of SLA appear to be strongly influenced by the age of the learner.[1]The acquisition of foreign sounds in the childhood is better than the adults.[2]A variety of English learning materials are searched for the children.There are English songs，stories，cartoons and movies.What the children need is the environment，the language context.[2] At the very beginning，the parents were asked to play songs for the children everyday.But the children were not forced to listen to them carefully or understand completely.What the author wanted to do was providing the environment filling with English songs for the children.The songs could be heard on the way to school and home.The songs could be the background music while having dinner and playing.The children would listen and sing unconsciously in such a free environment.They imitated so well，especially the rhymes and rhythm.[2]What they memorized unconsciously could last for a long time and help them a lot in future study.The songs are good resources for discriminating sounds.[2]The English songs are treated as a daily use，such as bread and milk.Listening to the songs is of great importance in the process of discriminating sounds.The songs had been played for two months for the children.One day，the children said they wanted to study English.It inferred that the songs took effect.It can be seen as a good beginning from the children’s response，not the end.The audio resources should be played day by day.What kind of resources will be played can be chosen by the children.What the parents and the teacher need to do is preparing materials as much as they can to meet the children’s needs.The children aren’t required to understand what they listen to during this period.Keeping on listening can improve the ability of discriminating sounds.[2]It is the first step for teaching the children to read in English.
4.Phonics learning
In English speaking countries，children learn phonics in the kindergarten.Simply speaking，phonics is about the relationship between letters’ names and letters’ sounds.In the Wikipedia，“phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing the English language by developing learners’ phonemic awareness—the ability to hear，identify，and manipulate phonemes—in order to teach the correspondence between these sounds and the spelling patterns （graphemes） that represent them.” After listening for some time，English rhymes and rhythm can be realized by the children.It is time to input the knowledge of phonics.
First，teach the children to learn 26 letter names and letter sounds.Pictures and words are showed together in the class.It is similar to our Chinese characters learning.The pictures are the visual aids which can help children understand directly without any translation.For example，the picture of apples is showed to the children when teaching the letter Aa，and the sound of the letter Aa / ? / （phonetic symbols here make clearly about sounds，not for the children’s learning） is emphasized.Besides，the children are told that apple is one of the words，in which the letter Aa pronounces / ? /.The children can learn 26 letter sounds in this way.In this process，the children can be guided to give more words for the same sound： Aa / ? /，apple，ant and alligator.All a in the three words are the same sound.More and more words are input in the children’s minds while learning letter sounds.Second，the children are taught to blend different sounds for words，which consist of 3 letters.Take the word mat for example，the children try to blend the three sounds /m/，/?/ and /t/ in the word and speak out the word after learning the sounds of Mm，Aa and Tt respectively.The children would be familiar with the sounds they’ve learnt through this kind of exercises.Third，the sounds of combination of letters are taught.There are many combinations of letters in English words： bl in bless，gr in grow，th in them，ow in blow and brown and so on.This kind of words is usually composed of more than four letters.However，the children can master these sounds easier on the basis of learning 26 letter sounds. Furthermore，the Bingo game can be a good helper in the phonics class besides exercises.In the Bingo game，one reads the letter name，letter sound and the word on the cards while the others try to find whether there is the same one in their chessboards on their hands.Who finishes the chessboard first，who will win the game.The children chase each other in the game happily and accumulate more and more words. Wang Yiqi and Li Yifei spent nearly one year in mastering the phonics.Li Zeyu spent more time on it because he couldn’t concentrate himself over 20 minutes without any action.He was attracted by the pictures in the Bingo game and he could chase others in the game excitedly.He enjoyed learning phonics in this way.Learning phonics can help the children to read most English words，which will appear in English stories.
5.Reading English stories
Making good use of picture books is of great importance.The children can be guided to know how to read English stories.At the very beginning，they are allowed to read the pictures in the books and encouraged to tell the stories in Chinese according to what they’ve read in the pictures.Secondly，the children can practice phonics through the stories.For example，the story Zac the Rat.
Zac is a rat.Zac sat on a can.The ants ran to the jam.Zac had a pan.Zac had a fan.The ants ran and ran.Zac had a nap.
There are only seven sentences in this story.Children can read this English story after learning phonics.The letter sound /?/ is stressed in this story.But there are some new words for the children： rat，can，jam，ant，pan，fan and ran.There is doubt that children can understand the story.In the class，the author finds that the children have fantastic ability of reading pictures.They can guess the main idea of the story.Many new words are explained through the pictures and the children can get them exactly.If there appear abstract words，Chinese explanation is necessary depending on different cases.Even though the example here is a simple story，not every child can read as the teacher wishes.Sometimes the children refuse to read stories.In that case，the teacher is not encouraged to force the children to read.What the children need are courage and confidence.If they are input enough English signals，they’ll be eager to read.[2]If the children hesitate to read stories alone，let them listen repeatedly or read together.Give them time and they’ll move forward.
Li Zeyu is the one who makes progress slowly.He can read the simple stories after learning phonics more than one year.On one day of April in 2014，he picked a story The Cat and read it without any hesitation.And then he picked another two books and read them fluently in English.Li Yifei can read stories because she masters the phonics well.But she cannot read in a good sense of rhythm.Wang Yiqi can read English stories well not only short stories but also long stories，nearly 2000 words in a story.She reads every day and has a desire to speak English. 6.Accompanying and communication skills
In the parts above，the differences of learning performance are narrated.Every child is unique and their learning performance is the product of the efforts of their school，family and themselves.Each circle is indispensable and connected firmly.How to communicate with the children and how to accompany them will be discussed below.Patience and persistence are crucial for parents and teachers.
Wang Yiqi’s mother Annie insists on playing English music or movie everyday.She tries many ways to last the child’s interest in English for longer and she never expects immediate results.Once Annie found Wang Yiqi attracted by the movie Barbie，she extracted the voice information in it to the mobile phone so that the child can listen to the movie without watching.It can protect the child’s eyes and improve the child’s listening.Wang Yiqi listened to it for nearly a whole month.Annie didn’t know how much her daughter could understand.She asked her daughter to change other listening materials，but she didn’t get any response from her daughter.The girl still focused on the voice from Barbie.Some day，the girl spoke the words from the movie and said，“I like this part so much！” Annie was astonished and understood the importance of listening.What parents need to do is preparing different kinds of English materials ten times as much as children’s need.Furthermore，Wang Yiqi likes reading English stories everyday accompanied by her mother.It is good for forming reading habit.Annie tried her best to be a good company when her daughter read at first.Wang Yiqi read step by step.She can read by herself now.She can read an English story containing 5000 words.A big progress she made！ The children can output what they want when they are input enough.It can be seen that persistence and accompanying from family play an important role in children’s learning.
Li Zeyu is a child who gets ADHD.[3]He cannot concentrate on something over 20 minutes.Adults must be very patient and care much for him.His parents were not patient enough and always blamed for his naughty.Later，they accepted the teacher’s advice.They tried to discover his advantages and praised him.His mother tried to read books with him together，although not every day，it helped.It infers that communication is crucial in education，especially expressing ways.One day，the teacher thought it was time for him to read aloud stories and said，“Will you have a try？” He shook his head.One sentence from Beyond the Rainbow Bridge came into the teacher’s mind： can is a magic word and the children will feel that they own the priorities.[4]So the teacher said，“You can read this story.” The boy didn’t refuse this time and picked up a book and read it aloud. Li Yifei is considered as a girl who always can take good care of herself.Something changed since her mother moved to another city for work.She cannot share all things with a reliable person quickly after changing.She used to share stories with her mum before and now she cannot get support from her mother while reading in English.It mentioned above that she couldn’t read in a good sense of rhythm.The reason was that she listened not as much as the teacher expected.Listening is important for reading.Input enough can be output correctly and fluently.Even though she is growing，she is still a girl，only 10 this year 2014.She still needs help from her parents in learning.So parents must be careful and pay more attention to accompanying children.
7.Conclusion
Discriminating sounds，learning phonics and reading stories aren’t isolated.They are interrelated，working together for teaching children to read.From the children’s cases，they show the effect of English songs，phonics learning and English stories.In the end，it indicates that communication skills and support from parents have an effect on children’s learning.The improvement of reading ability has a long way to go.Learning strategies need to be regulated in time according to children’s performance.
References：
[1]Rod Ellis.第二语言习得概论[M].上海：上海外语教育出版社， 1985.105.
[2]安妮鲜花.不能错过的英语启蒙[M].北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2011.3～22.
[3]罗伯特·费尔德曼.发展心理学[M].苏彦捷等译.北京：世界图书出版公司， 2013.341～343.
[4]芭芭拉·帕特森，帕梅拉·布莱德.我从彩虹那边来[M].郝志慧译.天津： 天津教育出版社，2011.86.