MODEL 9.

Recent trends suggest that reading constitutes one of the key elements for
the development of communicative competence in a FL, and also a weighty factor for
the development of Key Competences. In consequence, it is the teacher´s task to
instill a taste for reading, considering the lawful framework and the logical need to
create motivating sequences of activities in which this skill plays a major role. Given
this, explain how to contribute to practical reading comprehension from the foreign
language area.

PCS ANALYSIS.
“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate´s loot on Treasure Island”, Walt
Dysney.

Obvious as it may seem, this treasure is invisible to the eyes of those who have never had
the chance to open that wonderful chest, and verify that it truly contains precious lifelong
possessions. Notwithstanding, it is also true that educational administrations are concerned with
modern literacy and the treatment of reading as a necessary skill to develop children´s
communicative competence; and in order to do so FL teachers should integrate reading “in a
hidden way”, putting into motion attractive reading scenarios and tasks.

At the dawn of the new century, the task of providing children with reading comprehension as
a powerful tool for their future learning is a challenging goal which requires strategies more in line
with the digital reality of our students. Moreover, in the context of RD 126/14, reading has to be
approached from a competence-based point of view. This “competential” concept of reading
implies higher cognitive processes than the ones we can find in traditional FLT, where more
emphasis was laid on mechanical aspects of the language. In this sense, reading from the FL must
clearly contribute to promote linguistic communication competence.

The competence-based learning model is described in Order ECD/65/2015, 21st January,

which establishes the relations among competences, content and evaluation criteria. In this
document, communicative competence is viewedas social practice which leads to active learning
strategies (tasks, projects, problem solving, challenges…), as opposed to traditional
methodologies. This competence is based on linguistic knowledge, but also on pragmatic-
discursive and sociocultural components, since it takes place in concrete communicative
situations. Accordingly, it requires interaction of different skills (oral, written, social skills…).
Specifically, Order ECD/65 remarks: “…it is especially relevant in the school context the
consideration of reading as a basic skill to maximize linguistic communication competence and
learning.Furthermore, reading is the key gateway to all the areas, thus a contact with variety in
texts results fundamental to provide access to knowledge”.

These previous considerations about reading deserve special attention prior to the design of
our QWCI draft:

“Recent trends suggest that reading constitutes one of the key elements for the
development of communicative competence in a FL, and also a weighty factor for the
development of Key Competences. In consequence, it is the teacher´s task to instill a taste for
reading, considering the lawful framework and the logical need to create motivating sequences of
activities in which this skill plays a major role. Given this, explain how to contribute to practical
reading comprehension from the foreign language area.”
In this PCS analysis, we shall not spend so much time reflecting on why traditional
approaches to reading in the FL do not seem to be the right path to accomplish the legal
framework; rather, we think that a positive starting point should focus on teaching strategies to
favour reading.

Zimmermann and Hutchins (2003) identify several reading comprehension

strategies(adapted):

1. Activating or building background knowledge. This knowledge can be defined as what

children bring to the text that may influence its interpretation. In practical terms, FL teachers may

ROAD TO YOUR POST. Mariano Muñ oz

elicit lexis related to a story to facilitate comprehension of the plot and provoke creative hypothesis
about what the story may be about. The principle beneath this first stage has to do with arousing
children´s natural curiosity, and take advantage of their imagination to create expectations towards
reading.

2. Using sensory imagesis especially useful at early stages since non-verbal language is a
unique resource to quickly show the meaning of a word or expression. After all, we cannot forget
that humans’ first contact with the world occurs through our senses; and this means that sensory
images are a weighty component of our schemas*.

Authors´ note*:
Schema is an original term from cognitive psychology which was put forward by Bartlet
(1932) based on Gestalt psychology. The modern schema theory emerged with Minsky (1975)
and Rumelhart (1980) as the most outstanding representatives.

Modern schema theorists believe that schema, a data structure of general ideas stored in
memory, consists of variables. According to such a principle, meaning exists neither in oral nor in
written language itself, but in the mind of the reader or listener, depending on the activation of his
or her brain schemata whose controlling structure or basic moving pattern is navigated through
bottom-up data-driven-processing and top-down concept-driven-processing.

In more simple terms, the schema theory describes the process by which learners
combine their own background knowledge with the information they receive from a text to
understand that text. This means that the schema theory is based on the idea that in every act of
comprehension, our own knowledge of the world is involved; thus, the extent to which we interpret
a text correctly may depend on our previous knowledge about the reality the text refers to.

Harmer (2000) provides a practical example to explain that understanding a piece of text
involves much more than knowing the language. If a British reads in a newspaper: “England in six-
wicket collapse”, he will probably guess that England has been beaten in an international cricket
match; since his pre-existing knowledge of newspapers and how headlines are constructed, his
understanding of “wicket” as a cricketing term and probably his knowledge that England has not
been doing too well lately, will lead him to that conclusion. When that person reads the article, he
will be applying all this pre-existing knowledge to predict content before and after reading it. On the
other hand, it is very likely that a reader who did not have that previous knowledge about cricket
would not have reached such conclusions. And certainly, if the reader was a Spanish student of
English, he would probably have to read the whole article before understanding the headline.

3. Questioning is the way to enlarge knowledge once the linguistic code has already been
acquired. The FL lesson must in consequence be a breeding ground where children use this
natural resource to learn from the teacher and other classmates. It is no wonder that we may think
of easy-to-implement communicative games based on questioning and low linguistic requirements
in the context of a story. We may for instance use “The Flashats” game (a child has got a
cardboard hat with a flashcard stuck on top and has to guess the card by making simple questions)
to cover clothes, as we intend children to read a description of one of the characters, as a
subsequent activity.Older students can make questions that lead to the next stage: inferencing.

4. Making predictions and inferences about what comes next in a story can be a
challenging and attractive way to foster a taste for reading. In order to further the narrative, in these
tasks children are required to push their creative thinking and composition skillsand their
imagination is given full rein.

5. Determining main ideas and synthesizing prove that comprehension has taken place. It
is not certainly the only way; we know that little children find it easy to show comprehension
through actions (Total Physical Response), and that the efficiency of non-verbal language is out of
the question. Notwithstanding, when children are able to summarize and determine what a reading
text is about, we may say that they have got the knack of reading and that they shall be able to use
reading with a real purpose. That may be the case of “treasure hunt” tasks, where reading usually
appears as a necessary instrument to achieve a higher objective.

ROAD TO YOUR POST. Mariano Muñ oz

 Additionally, in any PCS referred to reading we should mention the Reading Planas a school
document that establishes the school common guidelines to promote this skill. The contribution of
the FL area to this plan is direct may range from the organisation of a FL class library
(organizational measure), to reading stories in English or applying their reading strategies to
obtain, process, select and arrange information in digital tasks.

Up to this point, our ninth PCS proposal, we should feel ready to try something personal;
therefore, this time we suggest candidates to try your hands before reading the model. We are
sure you can now design your own QWCI tool.
Literature cited:
- Harmer, J. “The Practice of English Language Teaching”. Longman. 2001.
- Rumelhart, D.E. “Schemata: The Building Blocks of Cognition” In R. Spiro, B. Bruce and W.
Brewer (eds.), “Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension”. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates. 1980.
- Zimmerman, S. and Hutchins, C. “Seven Keys to Comprehension: How to help your kids
read and get it!” New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003.
- Hadfield, C., & Hadfield, J. (2003). Hidden resources in the language classroom: Teaching
with (next to) nothing. Modern English Teacher. In: Teaching Materials and the Roles of
EFL/ESL Teachers: Practice and Theory.Ian McGrath, 2013.

KEY MODEL. PCS RESOLUTION

Outline:
1. Introduction
2. Curricular considerations
3. Methodological support
4. Practical proposal
5. Conclusion
6. Bibliography

1. Introduction
It is widely acknowledged that traditional approaches to foreign language teaching focused
their attention on the learners being able to translate original texts, usually complex literary ones;
which required deep knowledge of the grammatical and syntactic mechanisms of the target
language. As opposed to this outmoded perspective, the Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages (CEF onwards, Council of Europe, 2001) views students as individuals
in charge of accomplishing tasks in different situations using the FL as a means of communication.
This action-based approach includes reading as an essential component of this modern view of
communicative competence.

The fact that English has turned into the language of the interne tcannot be ignored. This
fact brings about important considerations as we shall see along this paper; however, it is
indispensable to mention that through the use of the new technologies we are connecting with the
students´ world; which, as experienced teachers know, is the shortest route to enhance our digital
native students´ motivation.

In order to present a coherent resolution of this practical case, I shall start analysing the
curricular connection of the question under consideration, to move towards the importance of
reading in FLT and finally wind up with some practical proposals.

2. Curricular considerations
The importance of reading in the FL is clearly expressed in the Curriculum Act RD 126/14,
where the content blocks have been designed according to the different FL abilities described in
the CEFRL (2001), being block 3 devoted to comprehension of written texts. The fundamental
methodological hints in this regard are clear:

 Appropriate reading strategies must be fostered.

 Content must be treated orally before getting students to face a written text.

ROAD TO YOUR POST. Mariano Muñ oz

 Authors´ note: Candidates should search for some connections in the regional legal
framework. As a clue, all curricula acknowledge the importance of reading; and most Autonomous
Communities have regulated its development in primary schools.

In relation to the school documents,schools mustdesign a Reading Fostering Plan which

must be included in the Annual General Programming. Broadly speaking, the principal goals of any
reading plan are in line with the development of a certain taste for reading and the promotion of our
learners´ reading comprehension abilities.

As we know, reading is a complex psycholinguistic process which involves a wide

diversity of procedures or sub-skills, such as identification and interpretation of the graphic signs,
the understanding of their meanings, and finally a reflection and personal interpretation of these
meanings. T. Linse(2005) defines reading as a set of skills that involves making sense and
deriving meaning from the printed word. In order to read, learners must be able to decode the
printed words and also comprehend what they read. To read English words, students have to
match sounds (phonemes) with letters (graphemes). In early stages, reading starts by recognizing
individual words (word recognition). Then, students move on to recognizing the meaning of words
across connected text; that is, they decode. However, this process is not simple, particularly for
Spanish learners, due to the fact that English has approximately 40 sounds but uses only 26
symbols imposes a greater demand for speakers of one-to-one sound-letter correspondence
language, like Spanish.

This reflection leads us to a simple conclusion; reading is not an easy task in FLT. As a
consequence, we should rely on the principle underpinning the Reading Fostering Plan, the
development of a taste for reading; and this implies approaching this skill in an integrated way
with the rest of skills; and also considering the motivation factor as key to succeed in getting
learners to read in English.

3. Methodological support
Given this, reading treatment in the FL and its contribution to the reading plan may be
adjusted to the following strategies:

Appropriate text selection, considering our learners´ linguistic competence, their

developmental stage, the motivating power of the text and its contribution in terms of linguistic
benefit.

 Purpose of reading. Whatever at word or sentence level, children should feel that they
are doing something useful with the FL; if a reading taskis properly planned, our
students must identify the purpose of reading, which shall contribute to implement real
use of the language.

 Staging.When planning a reading task,it is useful to think of three different stages, as it

happens with listening activities. Thus, many reading activities can be staged into pre,
while and post reading. In the pre-reading stage, the goals are to motivate learners,
creating willingness to read and expectations to increase their interest; and prepare
them for the activity, activating previous knowledge or building up new language
required for the reading task. In the while-reading stage, FL teachers help students to
understand the specific content and to perceive the rhetorical structure of the text.
Finally, in the post-reading stage students integrate knowledge by applying what has
been read and understood to different contexts and situations.

 Classroom organisation. Creating a reading corner in which students can have access
to attractive readings in different formats contributes to a favourable reading climate.
Moreover, it offers the possibility to organise a books and comics lending system, which
is an adequate strategy to motivate our learners to get familiar with written texts in the
FL, thus developing a taste for reading.

4. Practical proposal

ROAD TO YOUR POST. Mariano Muñ oz

 In what follows I shall present a practical methodological proposal, spelling out some
procedures, techniques and activities to promote reading in English in the primary classroom.

Having in mind the aforementioned concept of “digital natives”, we should take advantage of
their curiosity and natural interest towards audiovisual and technological means to maximize their
interest and enhance their communication possibilities in the target language. As Read (2007)
points out, “through the useof specific IWB materials, interactive CD-ROMs and ready-to-use
website activities and games, children develop language and ICT skills in an integrated and
enjoyable way”.

In more practical terms, we may consider three main uses of ICTs in the FL classroom to
enhance reading:
Using ICT to communicate and collaborate: The first practical example of using ICT to
communicate is the creation of email groups to provide a communicative framework for learners
to communicate with the teacher and with other students from their class. This communication can
also be extended to students from other countries if we set a partnership exchange with another
school. Some European programs like eTwinning program or Erasmus+ project may provide a
safe digital environment for students to meet other European children and share some reading and
writing experiences that enrich their communicative and sociocultural competences.

Creating a classroom blog is an easy-to-devise and simple way to get students to receive
information at home and use the FL to express their feelings and opinions about familiar classroom
issues through the target language. The content to be uploaded to the blog shall depend on the
developmental stage and communicative competence of our group of students. In guise of an
example, we may think of simple games, “treasure hunts”, or simply information regarding their
preferences (i.e. music, sports, favouritegames, along with others).

In consideration of the foregoing, we can get learners to search, select and report information
to cover content from an experiential point of view. Some examples may be: “A holiday project”:
In this activity, students in groups may use the internet to prepare a journey to some English-
speaking capitals (i.e. London, Washington, Canberra,etc).

Apart from these interactive possibilities, we cannot forget that there is a wide range of
commercial proposals that may be used for learners to practise the FL in a contextualized and
enjoyable way. These commercial programs provide children with funny games (i.e.work in pairs,
match the word and the image, catch the word, etc) that can be graded to adapt the challenge to
their linguistic level.

Despite the fact that there is a world of possibilities concerning reading and FLT, we could all
agree that reading activities should be staged from simple to more demanding, hence the
relevance of staging tasks. Some brief examples might be:

In the pre-stage,to elicit vocabulary and detect previous knowledge, we can play a
matching gamedevised by the teacher with the smart board software. The game follows a simple
sequence in which students listen to parts of the body and “touch” the corresponding part of a
picture; and then repeat the same procedure by matching words and pictures.

In the while-stage, in the context of a storytelling based sequence of activities, we may

include:
 Lifting up cards of the character.
 Doing physical actions.
 Ticking words as they read them.
 Class shared reading.
 Tale bingo, in which students play this game using words from the story.
 Story line: students stick characters and actions in set of ordered blank squares as they
occur in the reading.

In the post-stage there is also a great deal of possibilities, as for example:

ROAD TO YOUR POST. Mariano Muñ oz

 In groups, students devise a different creative ending; (i.e. Little Red Riding Hood and the
Wolf become really good friends because the wolf is vegetarian). This can be done using some
easy-to-use software like Comic Life, through which learners can create their own comic in groups
using a laptop for each group. They are presented with a blank cartooned screen, for each cartoon
they open the pictures file and select and image; next they can open the scripts file and select a
dialogue out of three, complete a gapped version of a sentence or invent their own one.

5. Conclusion
In this paper the concern for reading in the educational legislation together with some
methodological considerations from the FL area have been analysed, to continue with some
practical proposals which could be adapted to different levels and ages. This summarizes the
appropriate answer to the question under consideration in this practical case. Notwithstanding, I
consider of utmost importance to remark the crucial factor of the role of the teacher to achieve the
ambitious goal of developing a taste for reading. In real practice this may entail the teacher acting
as a storyteller, clown, actor, organiser and promoter of reading events, such as treasure hunts or
many others. After all, the most important job of a teacher shall always occur in the space of a
motivating and encouraging classroom.”

6. Bibliography

 READ, C. “500 Activities for the Primary Classroom”. Macmillan. 2007.

 T. LINSE, C. “Practical English Language Teaching: Young Learners”. Macgraw-Hill
ESL/ELT. 2005.
 RD 126/14, 28th February, which establishes the basic curriculum at state level for
Primary Education.

REFLECTION AND CONCLUDING REMARKS.

This PCS demonstrates how important it is to understand that a modern FL teaching
approach must treat reading as an essential skill in the current competence-based curriculum. As
opposed to traditional methods, reading must be considered under the scope of communicative
strategies. This means that rarely a FL lesson is only focused on just one skill; on the contrary,
integration of skills in practical tasks seems to be the most appropriate path, as long as it is a
motivating one.
Motivation is undoubtedly the driving force for effective learning at any stage. If we want
children to develop their written comprehension, we should try to catch their eye with attractive
proposals close to their world. Volitional factors may determine the success or failure of a learning
experience, this is something that experienced teachers are very aware of; notwithstanding it is not
always an easy task. The competence framework in our legislation includes the development of
Key Competences as a necessary component for our students’ integral development; and without
any question, this framework is an inviting scenario for active methodologies. In a nutshell, as it is
widely accepted, motivation is an essential factor in learning.
Notwithstanding, how can a story contribute to the development of Key Competences? Let
us take as an example the story “Little Red Riding Hood” (LRRH) for children in the third year in
Primary.
Linguistic communication competence (understanding the plot of story and its vocabulary);
basic competence in Science and technology(Natural environment, the Wolf´s forest, develop
respectful attitudes towards nature and awareness on its preservation); Digital competence (use of
laptops to create a different version of the story in a comic format); Learning to Learn competence
(autonomous learning strategies such as collaborating to solve a “treasure hunt” to help LRRH go
back home safely); Social and Citizen competence (collaborate in a digital activity, take decisions);
Cultural and artistic competence (invent a creative version of the story); and Learning to Learn
competence (developing intelligent guessing as a strategy to infer meaning from the context).
Obviously, in real practise, all competences are put into motion in combination,so as to solve a
problem or obtain a product out of their previous active investigation and creation.

It also seems evident that a more detailed contextualization (i.e. a specific group in short
term planning, such as a unit) permits sounding more creative and decisive, since the activities
resemble more what the TBE do on a daily basis. In this sense, we may illustrate with the following
sequence for a post-reading stage activities presentation:

ROAD TO YOUR POST. Mariano Muñ oz

  Comprehensionand integration of knowledge. Children read and order the events of the
story in several cards. The activity can be more challenging if we mix texts with images, or
even if we demand both: picture and right simple text cards order.

 Describe a character.Oral presentations are considered as excellence in the practice of the

learners´ oral abilities (RD 126/14). Most certainly, the difficulties in these tasks are more
likely to be overcome if children really feel that the real goal is communicating something that
others can understand, without paying so much attention to possible errors. In order to do so,
children shall be supported to deal with breakdowns and some ground rules must have been
previously agreed for everyone to have a rewarding experience (i.e. audience applauding
after the presentation, and the like). In order to foster creativity and add a motivating visual
element, children can draw and describe their own versions of the characters and the
teacher can show the scanned image in the IWB.

 In groups, students devise a different creative ending; (i.e. Little Red Riding Hood and the
Wolf become really good friends because the wolf is vegetarian). As we know, collaborative
work is a source of enrichment for all children if the task if correctly monitored by the teacher.
In this case, a creative collective writing activity can be supported with simple models and
pattern for children to write a basic script. Motivation is ensured if children are asked to take
that simple script to a real comic format in which they simply have to drag an image (they
choose out of a set of pre-selected free pictures provided by the teacher) to a comic panel.
This can easily be done with the application Comiclife or a similar one; digital resources are
not a problem(there are plenty of apps created for a similar aim) as long as we have the
necessary teacher´s digital competence.

 Retelling the story is a practical way to review structures, vocabulary and functions. It can be
done in groups by guiding learners in the creation of a simple script with the help of a model.
If we want children to create a sense of reality, an audience should go beyond the classroom
walls, especially for these native students. Therefore, children in groups turn into scripwriters
and use their previous different story endings to write a full simple story, being helped by the
teacher. They rehearse and finally their particular version, which should differ from the
original one in a funny way, is recorded by the teacher to be uploaded to the FL blog.
Children shall count on parental support at home to design their costumes.

 Characters in role: In this activity students in group take on the role of a character (i.e. the
group of wolves, the group of grannies). They are given a set of sentences which they have
to read to obtain more information about the character. Finally, each group is interviewed by
the rest of “group-characters”, whose questions have been previously written with the help of
multiple-option sentences (i.e. to the wolves “why do you like eating girls?). This activity can
be especially attractive for gifted learners, who can at this level enjoy being asked by their
classmates.

Drawing the attention of children on reading is not an easy task in this rapid era of
technologies. It is the teachers´ task to attract students to the reading text, taking advantage of the
digital tools available for every curious teacher. In our view, there are some conclusions in this
PCS that can be extended to any PCS dealing with a particular skill:
 All skills must be covered in integration considering communicative strategies.
 Technologies play a key role, whatever the skill.
 Motivation and gradation of a sequence of activities from simple to more complex.

However, as for reading, it seems indispensable to develop this skill in a “hidden way”, as we
have already stated. Unfortunately, children tend to associate reading with burdening tasks, let us
try to show them how wrong they can be.

ROAD TO YOUR POST. Mariano Muñ oz