Ideas for Creating a Reading Environment for Children in Primary Schools (Brief Outline)

1. Basic con­di­tions: books, time and peo­ple

Books: Of course you need a cer­tain amount of books, inter­est­ing books, suit­able books, excel­lent books, and rich books.

Time: Appro­pri­ate time, rea­son­able arrange­ment, not too much (and impos­si­ble) but must be per­sis­tent; try to short­en the inter­val peri­od, it is best to have read­ing activ­i­ties every day; the time arrange­ment should be rit­u­al­ized and diver­si­fied, tak­ing into account read­ing aloud, con­tin­u­ous silent read­ing, recita­tion and read­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion for chil­dren.

Peo­ple: Qual­i­ties of a teacher (or guide) — under­stand­ing chil­dren, chil­dren’s read­ing, and chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture; lan­guage skills, sto­ry­telling skills, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills.

2. Ways to help chil­dren fall in love with read­ing

The basic method to con­sid­er first: read­ing aloud to chil­dren and con­tin­u­ous silent read­ing
Tra­di­tion­al meth­ods that should be pre­served and strength­ened: recit­ing (clas­si­cal poet­ry and mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary chil­dren’s poet­ry)
Impor­tant method of doing things with­in one’s abil­i­ty: read­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion (response, activ­i­ties)

In terms of time allo­ca­tion, it is par­tic­u­lar­ly rec­om­mend­ed to arrange “read­ing aloud to chil­dren, con­tin­u­ous silent read­ing, recita­tion, and read­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion” in a ratio of 3:3:2:2. The first three should be con­sid­ered dai­ly, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion can be done at any time and at your con­ve­nience, with­out forc­ing it.

Spe­cial empha­sis: In fact, read­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion can only begin after the read­ing activ­i­ty reach­es a cer­tain stage. If we overem­pha­size the impor­tance of read­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion and feel that “it does not count as a read­ing class with­out dis­cus­sion”, we may end up depriv­ing chil­dren of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to enjoy read­ing.

Spe­cial empha­sis two: Pure­ly mate­r­i­al and spir­i­tu­al rewards are not a good way to help chil­dren fall in love with read­ing. It is okay to change it up occa­sion­al­ly, but the great­est reward chil­dren get from read­ing is the joy of read­ing itself.

3. What kind of books should we focus on?

1. Mix­ing pic­ture books and chil­dren’s nov­els:

Advan­tages of using pic­ture books: They are rel­a­tive­ly short (actu­al­ly not short­er than text­books), are ide­al for read­ing aloud to chil­dren (includ­ing old­er stu­dents), are ide­al for read­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, can evoke a broad range of respons­es, are rich in cre­ativ­i­ty, the lan­guage of excel­lent works is refined and worth pon­der­ing, and the themes are rich and rel­e­vant to chil­dren’s psy­chol­o­gy and dai­ly life…

Case 1: Class­room Appli­ca­tion of “I Have Friend­ships to Rent” (Grades 2 and 3)

Dis­ad­van­tages of using pic­ture books: They are rel­a­tive­ly short; old­er chil­dren may ini­tial­ly resist; read­ing only pic­ture books may also indi­cate a lack of read­ing patience; and teach­ers may feel a lack of accom­plish­ment.

Dis­ad­van­tages of using nov­els: They are too long, so chil­dren may not have the time or patience to fin­ish them; they may only attract the atten­tion of some chil­dren; there may be ini­tial frus­tra­tions, which may damp­en the enthu­si­asm of both teach­ers and chil­dren; there are few oppor­tu­ni­ties for read­ing dis­cus­sions…

Using pic­ture books in con­junc­tion with nov­el read­ing can large­ly over­come the above-men­tioned “weak­ness­es”.

Case 2: Read and dis­cuss “Courage” and “You Look Deli­cious”; read aloud “Char­lot­te’s Web” and “Matil­da”; read and dis­cuss “Sophie’s World”; and watch the movie “Char­lot­te’s Web” togeth­er. (Grade 6)

Case Study 3: Read and dis­cuss “I Don’t Know Who I Am” and “The Lit­tle Black Fish”; read “The Big Tail of Dinosaur Agua” in con­junc­tion with the read­ing; and fol­low up with “Weird Books and Weird Read­ings” and “The Locust Clan.” (Grades 2 and 3)

(2) The won­der­ful uses of com­ic books and pic­ture books:

Excel­lent com­ic books and pic­ture books are not only the best start­ing point for chil­dren to read inde­pen­dent­ly, but also extreme­ly help­ful for the inher­i­tance and dis­sem­i­na­tion of cul­ture. Chil­dren who are accus­tomed to read­ing excel­lent comics are very out­stand­ing chil­dren who know how to enjoy the fun of life.

(3) Top­ics and extend­ed read­ing for knowl­edge-based read­ing:

Knowl­edge-based read­ing does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean read­ing knowl­edge-based books, which are also com­mon­ly known as pop­u­lar sci­ence books. Guid­ing chil­dren to read on mul­ti­ple top­ics requires a high lev­el of knowl­edge from the guide.

Case 4: Read­ing the “Jingju Cat” series of pic­ture books, read­ing “The Sto­ry of Jingju” and “Big Jingju”, under­stand­ing and col­lect­ing knowl­edge about dra­ma (espe­cial­ly Jingju), watch­ing the Jingju “Chang­ban­po” and “Wu Song Fight­ing the Tiger”; com­bined with read­ing com­ic books, read­ing “Romance of the Three King­doms” and “Water Mar­gin”.

It’s impor­tant to empha­size that the rich­ness of your read­ing depends heav­i­ly on the time you spend read­ing. If you have lim­it­ed time to read, or if the inter­vals between read­ings are too long, you’ll be stuck in the tedious and unan­swer­able ques­tion of “what’s the best thing to read with­in a lim­it­ed time?” The answer is gen­er­al­ly “it’s best to read every­thing,” but that takes time.

IV. Using the School Library: Books, Time, Peo­ple, and Rules

Book Dis­play: Cat­a­log and Search of Chil­dren’s Think­ing Styles
Bor­row­ing time: Pas­sive bor­row­ing time and free bor­row­ing time are equal­ly impor­tant

Focus on effi­cien­cy. The length of open­ing hours does not nec­es­sar­i­ly affect the bor­row­ing rate.

It needs to be open when chil­dren are most like­ly to bor­row books.
Peo­ple: It’s not just about the library teacher; it also includes at least the read­ing teacher, and in fact all teach­ers.
The library should be part of the class­room, and the class­room should be part of the library!
Chil­dren’s free read­ing and con­cen­trat­ed read­ing are equal­ly impor­tant
Rules: Library man­age­ment rules should be incor­po­rat­ed into the over­all teach­ing man­age­ment
For exam­ple, you can set up class bor­row­ing and per­son­al bor­row­ing, and ensure that the for­mer takes pri­or­i­ty

Draft­ed by: A‑League
Sep­tem­ber 17, 2008

Note: The above is a sum­ma­ry of Red Mud’s think­ing behind its “Seeds of Hap­pi­ness” read­ing pro­mo­tion exper­i­ment, and also serves as a brief out­line for intro­duc­to­ry train­ing for read­ing teach­ers. This exper­i­ment is ongo­ing, and the ideas still need refine­ment. This arti­cle serves as a start­ing point for fur­ther dis­cus­sion. If reprint­ed, please cred­it the source and include this note.