A balanced literacy diet is good for the soul and comprehension skills

What the experts say about reading comprehension strategies:

Comprehension strategies are not ends in themselves; they are means of helping your students understand what they are reading. 
~ National Reading Panel

Great books are central to teaching comprehension. 
~ Stephanie Harvey

Reading is not just about what is going on in the book - it's about what's going on in your head!   
~ Adrienne Gear

The benefits of reading aloud:


Reading aloud is the foundation for literacy development. It is the single most important activity for reading success .

(Bredekamp, Copple, & Neuman, 2000)


Lets get down to discussing strategy once again:

Activating previous knowledge/understanding is an essential ingredient in cooking pot of building reading comprehension skills. 

It allows for new information "to stick" to the older information and be more easily recognized, understood, and memorized/remembered.

Thinking aloud is of importance when discussing a text or an excerpt from a book-make a connection between the book/text and your own life, think aloud as you share ( talk to yourself.) 

• Think of what the story/text reminds you- can you relate/understand from a personal experience? 
• Are there new words in the text? If so- write them down in the sentence you saw them/ read them and look the words up in a dictionary.
• Try to avoid translating to your own language as far as possible- it doesn't help to decode the meaning of each word - this only leads to  "missing the forest for the trees"- you miss the main idea.( It is easier to memorize new vocabulary and use it accurately/correctly- in full phrases.)
• We want and need ''scaffolding'' - something to work with that gets imprinted on our memory- FULL SENTENCES- Chunks of language- learn from context.

Enough banter for now- I will leave the questions to you- feel free to ask advice in class- if you need further explanations or tips- feel free to contact me.

The Dance

I have sent you my invitation, the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living. Don’t jump up and shout, "Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!" Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires, spiralling down into the ache within the ache. And I will show you how I reach inward and open outward to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, everyday.

Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart. Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are, 

And see who I am in the stories I am living. And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day. Show me you can risk being completely at peace, truly OK with the way things are right now in this moment, and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring. Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall, the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will. What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance, the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart. And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business without letting business determine who you are. When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul’s desires have too high a price, let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world the stories and the songs you want our children’s children to remember, and I will show you how I struggle not to change the world, but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude, knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging. Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words, holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest intentions has died away on the wind, dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale of the breath that is breathing us all into being, not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don’t say, "Yes!" 

Just take my hand and dance with me.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Why should I read? In which ways is it going to help my English? ------->Mary Oliver poetry

When was the last time you read a text in English----> outside of class?

Just a poem or a short e-mail? I have time and time again emphasized how important reading is as far as learning English is concerned-develop your reading skills, put to practice your comprehension skills. I challenge you!

• Can you understand individual sentences?
• Are you able to notice the grammar in a piece of writing?
• Did you know that there is a strong correlation between reading and vocabulary knowledge? ( Students with a strong vocabulary awareness are usually very good readers.)
• How do I expand my vocabulary? ( A most common question...) Well, read! Read extensively! 
• Reading is not only a good way to acquire vocabulary- but also for academic achievement!

The Journey 

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice --

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do --

determined to save

the only life you could save.

― Mary Oliver

Adjectives- why can we use a list of them/paired adjectives and compound adjectives explained!

Here is a post in celebration of another stellar day of teaching English as a foreign language!

I had a jolly good question asked me today, to do with Adjectives:

''Teacher Bee-Why do we sometimes see lots of adjectives in one sentence?''

• Why can we use a list of adjectives together?  
• Are they accompanied by a comma? 
• Do we use a comma with them?

Let's begin with the listing:

Adjectives can be classified into roughly nine categories.

In English, we generally use them in this order:

•  quantity-->opinion-->size-->age-->shape-->color-->origin-->material-->purpose.

We know that mostly, we place adjectives before a noun. It is rather uncommon to place more than three adjectives together- however entirely possible and grammatically correct.

There are about nine different ''Adjective groups'' and we can list them as follows:

• Determiners- a, an, her, five, many, much several...
• Opinion - pretty, ugly, smart, cheap...
• Size - long, fat, thin, tall, large, small ...
• Shape - circle, square, tall, short etc.
• Age - old, young 10 years, a year, a week, new ...
• Color - blue, purple, pink, grey...
• Origin - English, Asian, German,South  African,Chinese...
• Material - cloth, glass, gold, silver ...
• Purpose - sleeping bag, coffee table,safe island, basketball court...

When we use two or more adjectives that are from the same group,  "and" is placed between the last  two adjectives.

Example:

Her hair is long, straight and grey.

When there are 3 or more adjectives from the same adjective group- remember to place a comma between each of the adjectives.

Example:

A pretty,intelligent, lively girl. (A comma is not placed between an adjective and the noun.)

Example of using multiple adjectives:

QUANTITY( Ten) OPINION( well educated) SIZE(short) AGE(young) SHAPE(round) COLOR ORIGIN(South African) MATERIAL  PURPOSE NOUN(men)

Let's touch on a most important type of adjective- the much neglected compound adjective:

What are compound adjectives?

Do you read the newspaper? Do you ever watch cooking shows? I am not sure if you have noticed, however- compound adjectives are often used in newspaper articles, on cooking shows and in ''real English'' -

A few examples:

ADJECTIVE + PRESENT / PAST PARTICIPLE

• ill-equipped= without the ability, qualities, or equipment to do something
• Quick-witted = intelligent
• middle-aged = being roughly between 45 and 65 years old
• Absent-minded = forgetful
• Thick-skinned = not easily offended
• open-ended=An open-ended activity or situation does not have a planned ending, so it may develop in several ways

ADJECTIVE + ADVERB + PRESENT PARTICIPLE

• heart-rending= causing great sympathy or sadness
• Long-lasting = Existing for a long time
• Never-ending = Not ending
• Mouth-watering = Appealing to the sense of taste
• Far-reaching = Having a wide range, influence/effect
• Record-breaking = Surpassing any established record

A compound adjective is formed when we put two or more adjectives together to modify a noun. We make sure that these are hyphenated to avoid confusion or ambiguity. (an example of) (the fact of something having more than one possible meaning and therefore possibly causing confusion.)

For example:

1. Adriana is a quick-witted person.
2. She lives in an English-speaking country.
3. She e-mailed a 2-page document.
4. Yen is a hard-working student.
5. Iris is a sound-minded individual.
6. Elisabeth is a strong-minded lady.
7. Birgit has deeply-rooted beliefs about life.
8. The brightly-lit streets make it easy to drive at night.
9. Diana sent a well-written homework assignment.

New combinations are always possible, so if you think something may work,why not get creative? Try creating your own words- get adventurous!

Last but not least----> try to ''NOTICE'' These when you see them! Try to make a note of compound adjectives that you come across(find) in your reading and observe the way they are used with nouns.

Make your own list and start using them in conversations :)