Today in EAL, Banan read a gorgeous book called 'Here I Am' by Patti Kim.
We looked at the cover and we already had lots and lots of questions.
Asking questions is an amazing way to help with reading comprehension.
Have a look at how it helps:
As Banan read through the text she asked 'Is this a book with no words?'
Yes it is... but we can use the pictures to get many clues about what the story might be.
It turns out this is a book about a boy who leaves his country and moves to a new country with a new school, new language, different alphabet and through the pictures we can see how he is feeling.
Banan was able to make a lot of connections with the character as she moved
from Egypt to The Netherlands and had some of the same experiences.
Making connections helps us with our comprehension too. You can see how below.
We also believe here at ISH, that being bilingual is amazing and we want to nurture both English and the child's Mother Tongue/Identity Language. Banan speaks Arabic but it's not always easy for her to write in Arabic, so we spent some time working on making connections between English and Arabic using 'Here I Am' to inspire us.
Because the text was a wordless text, Banan dictated the story in English to Ms Miriam and she wrote it down. The Banan translated the story into Arabic, using Google Translate when she needed help.
Ms Miriam thinks it amazing seeing Banan write in Arabic and wishes she could do it too!!
