Top Picks for Engaging Reading Materialsl for Middle School Age Students with Low Levels of English- Part 1

After a long hiatus while I had a child (he is 6 and a half years old now!), settled into teaching (this time in China) I'm back on the blogging scene!

Part one of a Multi- Post Series of Articles:

Engaging Reading Materials for Middle School Age Students with Low Levels of English

This post is a cumulative review of the best sources of reading materials for middle school age students  (Grade 6 to 8) with low levels of English that I have found over the last 10 years of teaching in Chile and China.

Evaluation criteria

1. Engaging Stories - stories that have proven to be interesting to boys and girls of this age (age 10 to 14)
2. Language Appropriate - for those with an ability that falls in the range on the CEFR scale of high A1 to A2 level students  (info on CEFR- Common European Framework for Reference for Languages at https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-language; or look at Shannon Kennedy's simplified explanation here ); or, to look at it another way, language suitable for students with Lexile score of between 250 and 800 
3. Well designed books in terms of being useful for teaching (vocabulary learning activities and guided reading questions at the beginning and end of chapters, activities for developing listening, speaking, writing, grammar competencies as well as building reading comprehension skills; inclusion of non-fiction author bios and articles on topics related to the story or historic era).
4. Appealing illustrations -  appealing to Grade 6-8 students
5. Not too long (appropriate length for different levels of learners, not full length novels)

MY TOP PICKS, BASED ON WHAT I HAVE TAUGHT: 

High A1- Low A2

“The Red Circle” Sherlock Holmes -Graded Reader (Cideb- Blackcat); ISBN 978-88-530-09500

Poems byShel Silverstein(A Light in the Attic); ISBN 9780061905858

Creation mythsfrom around the world

o  Leeming, David Adams; Leeming, Margaret Adams (1994). Encyclopedia of Creation Myths (2nd ed.). ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-87436-739-3.

o  Leeming, David Adams; Leeming, Margaret Adams (2009). A Dictionary of Creation Myths (Oxford Reference Online ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-510275-8.

(Wikipedia has a good list based on these sources)

“StoryCentral 5” & 6 MacMillan Press -graphic novel style reader, student book, workbook, teacher book ; series ISBN 978-0-230-45198-8


High A2
•    William Shakespeare: Scenes from the life of the World’s Greatest Writer by Mick Manning (Graphic novel) ISBN 978-184-780-7595

 “The Call of the Wild” Cideb- Blackcat Green Apple series Step 2)978-88-7754-859-7

“King Arthur and his Knights” Cideb- Blackcat Green Apple series Step 2)

“Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn” Cideb- Blackcat Green Apple series Step 2)

Greek Myths

“Jason and the Argonauts” (Cideb Blackcat Green Apple) (G6)

 “The Classics: Greek Myths Stories of Sun, Stone and Sea”) by Sally Pomme Clayton and Jane Ray (Grade 6 )  See also: Mr. Donn’s Myths – myths and legends told in casual, easy English (informal register) (Grade 6- 7)

“Legends of the British Isles” Cideb- Blackcat Green Apple series Step 2) 978-88-530-0618-9

“Robin Hood“ Cideb- Blackcat Green Apple series Step 2)

“BlackHeart” Cideb- Blackcat Green Apple series Step 2)

Shakespeare

•     “Romeo and Juliet” (Grade 7+) Cideb- Blackcat Green Apple series Step 2)

•      “Macbeth”- (graphic novel style) (Grade 7-8) Cideb- Blackcat Drama series Step 2)

•      High A2 Novels and Non-Fiction

         

NOVELS, NOVELLAS, AND SHORT STORIES – HIGH A2 LEVEL

Books by Michael Morpurgo:

The Island Tales
(includes“The Wreck of the Zanzibar” – short story; 
“Why the Whales Came”  -novella) – lovely, MYP appropriate sketch illustrations in this particular book ISBN 978-1-4052-67-95-3 – **warning some of the covers for this book 

are too ‘little kiddish’ and lack illustrations; middle schoolers will turn up their noses at them)

“Butterfly Lion” by Michael Morgurgo-short novel (125 pages);has detailed sketch illustrations amidst the text ISBN 9780006751038

Sci-Fi Story by Katerine Paterson-“The Last Dog” (Grade 7)  science fiction short story- has many scientific words but the plot is fairly easy to understand- free pdf workbook http://www.b-g.k12.ky.us/userfiles/1111/Classes/7276/Last%20Dog.pdf
that has nice illustrations and guided questions and vocabulary pull-outs

NON-FICTION RESOURCES-  A1- A2 (and higher +)

“The Rabbit Proof Fence” (High A2)by Doris Pilkington Garimara (Oxford Bookworms Graded Reader) ISBN 9780194791441

Dossiers in all of the Graded Readers (non-fiction background articles and author bios) 

Articles in Readtheory.org (Grade 1 + articles and so A1 +)

Articles with lessons- https://breakingnewsenglish.com (Level 1 and Level 2 articles, and so, A1+)

Achieve3000.com (paid subscription- has differentiated articles -Lexile 250-940; and so, suitable for A2+)

More Related to this Topic

Graded Reader Publisher Lists (by target age group, by genre) and Comparisons- fabulous compilations of by Rob Waring (there are a number of Teen and Adult series of graded readers)

http://www.robwaring.org/er/scale/ERF_levels.htm

Cideb Black Cat Catalog- https://www.blackcat-cideb.com/en/catalogue/english/graded-readers-en/

** a local Guangzhou distributer of Cideb-Blackcat Readers is 4kidsbooks DOTorg, in Guangzhou, China

Stay Tuned for an upcoming post on Reading Resources that have proven to engage B1 - C2 level learners (Intermedite, high intermediate to 'bridge" level, near native English speaker level students in Middle School)

Good Pronunciation Symbol Chart With Audio and Animation For Teaching English Sounds

I started teaching a pronunciation and intonation workshop at the local public library and quickly discovered I needed some pronunciation symbols to help teach my students what each symbol sounded like. It is so difficult for ESL students to know how to say the different vowels and vowel combinations in our vast assortment of words.

It was hard to find what I really wanted since pronunciation symbol charts don't really cut it on their own.

A chart with symbols and sample words doesn't really help someone who has never heard, or cannot remember how to say the sample word in English. The symbols used in a lot of dictionaries (phonetic symbols, rather than phonemic symbols) often confuse my students since they don't know how to pronounce the vowels in the first place from one word to the next. And the American versus British variations on pronunciation, which are depicted using different vowel phonetic symbols ( sounds in speech)  is simply too much to add on top of this.

This is why I like to stick to the international symbols. These translate well to the sounds that occur in all languages in the world, functioning like a rosetta stone.


And so my hunt for pronunciation symbol charts with audio clips began. Below are my suggestions for the best ones I have found to date.



WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR:

- the international sound symbols shown in a chart that was nicely laid out, and easy to read

- example words in English and possibly another language to help learners remember the sound
in a word context

- audio clips of how to say the sound

- instructions (preferably animated images) about how to make the sound- including descriptions of showing how to position your tongue and lips and mouth to make the sounds

MY TOP RECOMMENDATION:

 1. English Cafe / University of Iowa

http://englishcafeonline.com/archives/tag/consonants

Pronunciation tool embedded on this site ( University of Iowa webtool) 

http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english/frameset.html

http://englishcafeonline.com/archives/tag/consonants

 

This chart on this page shows the consonant and vowel symbols- the international symbols and a sample word below.

Scroll down to see a tool that shows you - visually, with animation - how to say the sounds.

(animated model showing a cross section of a person’s mouth when making the sounds, so you can see the way to position the tongue and lips in real time).

Don't let the scary linguist terms on the menu bar scare you off. 

Just click on the pink menu tabs (any word),  and then click on a symbol in the main part of the page below and watch what happens; you will quickly figure it all out.

How To Use This Site/ Tool in Detail:

1. Scroll over a word (fricative, liquid, nasal, etc).
2. Click on a symbol ( the thing between the /slashes /) that shows up in the white space to the bottom left below.
3. Watch the animations of the mouth and the video clip of the woman saying the sound.
4. click on each example word to hear it pronounced

Since the tool uses the proper names of the phonemic sounds ( fricative, nasal, dipthongs, monothongs, etc) it would be intimidating, but since it the diagram and letters look like something you can click on, and they are , it is fairly easy to navigate. It would be best to use it 'live' in class to show people how to use it.

Great Sites For Teaching How to Pronounce 'ed' Endings

A common problem adult learners of English often have is how to pronounce the 'ed' ending on words.

I always wind up spending time on this when teaching the past simple verb tense and decided to look for sites to help students learn and practice on their own. Here are a few recommendations.


TOP PICKS
Here are my top picks of sites with resources to help students learn and remember how to pronounce 'ed' at the end of words:

1. Elemental English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j32SurxnE4s

2. Perfect English Grammar
 http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/how-to-pronounce-ed.html 

 3. The English Club
http://www.englishforeveryone.org/Topics/Pronouncing-ED-Endings.htm

 4. English Maven
http://www.englishmaven.org/
http://www.englishmaven.org/Pages/Pronouncing%20ED%20Endings.htm

IN MORE DETAIL:
1. Elemental English has a great 8 minute video on this topic so students can watch, see the spelling and hear the pronunciation for the different endings. It goes on to describe why the 'ed' pronunciation changes. The lesson is described with words of the lesson listed right below the video as well, for those who prefer to read rather than listen and watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j32SurxnE4s

2.  Perfect English Grammar gets to the heart of the lesson immediately, with a short written explanation of each rule followed by lots of examples (written and audio clips) of each way 'ed' can pronounced.
http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/how-to-pronounce-ed.html

3. I liked this description from The English Club site because it had a 2:36 minute audio clip:
http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/-ed.htm
 English Club - ' ed' endings

Related to this, you can find a worksheet that uses a lot of the same examples as you find on English Club here: English for Everyone has a free, printable worksheet and answer key on this topic:
http://www.englishforeveryone.org/Topics/Pronouncing-ED-Endings.htm

Worksheet:http://www.englishforeveryone.org/PDFs/Pronouncing%20ED%20endings.pdf

Answer key:  http://www.englishforeveryone.org/PDFs/Pronouncing%20ED%20endings%20-%20answers.pdf

4.  English Maven  has 5 interactive multiple choice exercises and one final exam for students to practice what they have learned. (One page has the explanation and another a list of exercises and final exam.)
http://www.englishmaven.org/Pages/Pronouncing%20ED%20Endings.htm
If the link above doesn't work, then go to the homepage and search for 'ed' endings.
http://www.englishmaven.org/

Screenshot of Exercise 1

Screenshot of the lesson portion of the English Maven website: 

More Words -If you are having trouble thinking of examples of words that end with 'ed', look no further:http://www.morewords.com/ends-with/ed/


 I also considered (but can't really recommend):
5 Minute English  http://www.5minuteenglish.com/apr18.htm
 I liked the clean layout and explanation of how to pronounce the different 'ed' endings ( voiced / unvoiced), and the fact that there was a quick quiz at the end to check your understanding, but without an audio clip or video clip it would be hard to make sense of the lesson unless you were a native speaker, or had one with you while reading through the lesson.


I hope this proves useful to you!