I always tell my students to guess the world of the story and feel it when they read English books.
"Use your five senses and imagine the scene of the story first. Then you will be able to guess the meaning of the word even you don't know exactly what it means."
This is what I see when little children are read-aloud Japanese picture books. I think every child, who are read-aloud their mother language books, imagine the world of the story. They easily guess and imagine the scene and the characters.
Why cannot we do this in English?
Yes, we CAN.
Just IF, we start from really easy books...
I want to remind people who are teaching, or who are planning to teach English, using Extensive Reading method that;
The key IS;
How stundets can use their five senses, imagine and experience the story - enjoy the story.
The key IS NOT;
How students read-aloud fluently.
How many words students can translate into Japanese.
As I observe young learners reading books, I found that some children are not used to guess the image of the story. They tend to understand directly from the words. They are not used to transfer the picture of the book into animation in their mind. They see the picture as a stop motion and are not able to move the characters of the story when they are reading.
Those kind of children will struggle when they try to read paperbacks. The paperbacks are, which I mean is, the marketing books with almost no pictures. (Marketing books are the books which is not GR.)
Then, what kind of children step up to marketing books, which hardly have drawings in them?
Students who are able to imagine the scenes of the story from the sentences of the book, without translating English to Japanese.
Imagining directly from the English sentence is a skill which seems to be difficult for Japanese to acquire. But, if you start reading easy picture books, then you will get used to imagine the story directly from English, without translating. The drawings will help you imagine the scenes of the story, but you have to try to imagine your original scenes at the same time. While reading, let the characters move, then you will get used to imagine the scenes by yourself.
I think reading aloud is a best way not only for children but for adults too. If you are read-aloud, you will not be able to read the words (because they are too little for audience to read) and you will be able to look at the picture closely. Looking at the picture closely will help you imagine what is going on in the scene, and you will be able to move the picture and make it into an animation in your mind while listening.
So, read-aloud picture books to learners is one of the effective way to enhance learners' reading skill.
If you are a Japanese parent, you don't need to read English books to your child, as a preparation for studying English using Extensive Reading method.
Because, if the reader is not used to reading aloud English books, listeners will not be able to imagine the scene of the story. (Of course, listeners will not enjoy the reading aloud time... That is NOT good at all.)
If parents are confident reading in Japanese, I recommend them to read Japanese picture books to their children. This way, children will get used to imagine the story directly from the pictures. Even it is not an English book, it is OK. Children need to enjoy to be read aloud first.
I am not saying children don’t need to be read aloud in English. You can read aloud to them if they are able to run a film inside their mind while listening to you.
