{"id":732,"date":"2011-11-04T12:13:21","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T10:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teachenglishtoday.org\/?p=732"},"modified":"2011-11-04T12:13:21","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T10:13:21","slug":"putting-the-daily-newspaper-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/2011\/11\/putting-the-daily-newspaper-to-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting the daily newspaper to work"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_pdf\"<\/a>\"image_print\"<\/a><\/div>

Putting the daily newspaper to work<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

Peter Pienaar<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Formerly of the Faculty of Education, University to Durban-Westville<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This article was originally published in CRUX, October 1981. It has been slightly adapted.\u00a0 It is interesting to note that the concerns about children not reading is not new. The suggestion given at that time is also equally relevant today.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

What can we do about the incidence of reading retardation and reluctance to read in so many of our classes? How can we quickly redress the balance and pull some of our chestnuts out of the fire? How can those of us who have not actually been trained to teach beginning reading teach children the basic reading skills \u2013 how to decode running words, as opposed to words in isolation?<\/p>\n

Firstly, all reading (lessons) in school should motivate children to read out of school, omnivorously and voraciously.<\/p>\n

Secondly, we must ascertain where children are at, and accept where they are at; and thereafter we should give them what they<\/em> need rather than what we<\/em> need to give them!<\/p>\n

Fourthly, if there is a dearth of suitable reading material in your classroom, material that children both want and are able to read, why not contrive your own reading material, starting with the daily newspaper?\u00a0 Many parents buy a daily newspaper \u2013 or children can get them from their neighbours, or English teachers can ask other teachers to bring newspapers to school.<\/p>\n

Here is a report taken from The Natal Mercury<\/em>:<\/p>\n

TAKEN FOR A R1 000 RIDE<\/strong><\/p>\n

CAPE TOWN \u2013 An 18-year-old girl who hired a taxi from Durban to Cape was sentenced by Mr H.A.J. Swart to three months\u2019 gaol suspended for three years in the Magistrate\u2019s Court here yesterday for not paying the taxi fare of R1\u00a0000.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Coetzee, no address given, pleaded gui8lty to the charge of failing to pay the cost of the trip and further expenses to \u2018Flash Taxis\u2019 in August this year.<\/p>\n

Coetzee said in evidence that she thought she was pregnant and wanted to tell her boyfriend, who was a sailor on a Greek ship that was docked in Cape Town.\u00a0 She hired a taxi and said that she would pay on arrival in Cape Town. After arriving she then told the taxi driver that the captain of the ship had the money for the fare.<\/p>\n

The taxi driver waited for two days before he realised that the fare was not going to be paid. Coetzee was arrested soon afterwards. \u2013 S.A.P.A.<\/p>\n

This is how I would handle it in a 30-minute period with a \u2018diminished group\u2019 of 10-year-olds:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Put the following words on the board:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    t_x_;\u00a0 _a_e;\u00a0 g_l_y;\u00a0 p_eg_t;\u00a0 _al_o_;\u00a0 m_ny_;\u00a0 a_es_d;\u00a0 bu_l_r;\u00a0 l_x_ry; _s_ap_; st_ng_r;\u00a0 c_a_lty.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Read the article aloud to the children, simplifying if\/where necessary, and omitting the headline.\u00a0 Before you begin, tell the pupils: \u00a0\u2018Listen to this report and see if you can pick out the words which I\u2019ve put down on part of the board.\u2019<\/li>\n
    2. \u2018Now, who can complete one of the words on the board? Good, Sam, that\u2019s the word, and you\u2019ve spelled it right (Sam has come up to the board to complete it himself, of course).\u00a0 Now, who can complete another word? Fine, Jane, the word is \u201cguilty\u201d.\u00a0 Say it to the class. (You can get them to chorus it, too, if you want to reinforce the word.) \u2018Can you use \u201cguilty\u201d in a sentence, Mike?\u2019 \u00a0And so on until all 12 words are completed orally in a variety of contexts.<\/li>\n
    3. \u2018Now, which of these words were used in the story?\u2019 Underline and discuss with the class.<\/li>\n
    4. \u2018Who can use three (or more) of these words in a little story for us? Let\u2019s all try to write out a little story in rough (in pairs or individually)\u2019: You work with the children for about five minutes.<\/li>\n
    5. Five or six stories are read out at random round the class. Pupils vote for the best story. The winner, Jenny, writes out her story on the board, underlining the three (or more) words she has used.<\/li>\n
    6. Jenny\u2019s story is immediately posted on the Daily News board.<\/li>\n
    7. \u2018Now, what headline should we give the original story?\u2019 Write two or three headlines on the board, plus the headline used in the paper. \u2018Which is the best? Why?\u2019<\/li>\n
    8. \u2018Now tomorrow I want you, Muriel, to bring a story from the newspaper.\u00a0 You will read it to the class \u2026\u2019.<\/li>\n
    9. At the end of the month, take down, collate and bind the stories on the Daily News board and \u2018publish\u2019 in a monthly magazine format, any non-readers in the group doing the illustrations.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Who knows, you might even end up by getting the children voluntarily to read interesting news items to their parents!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      What can we do about the incidence of reading retardation and reluctance to read in so many of our classes? How can we quickly redress the balance and pull some of our chestnuts out of the fire? How can those of us who have not actually been trained to teach beginning reading teach children the basic reading skills \u2013 how to decode running words, as opposed to words in isolation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":867,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions\/867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}