Ingredients
- A text written for the lower levels learners, pre-A – A1 level, preferably accompanied by some visuals. The one pictured above which was the inspiration for this kind of an activity was taken from Super Grammar 2 by Emma Szlachta, CUP, p. 38
- A set of blue cards to cover some of the key words in the coursebook. It is much easier to manage if the text is displayed on the screen. The SECRET cards can be easily adjusted and moved around during the lesson.
Procedures
- In the first stage, the kids look at the illustrations and describe them. If you are looking for the ideas how to use with illustrations in the EFL classroom, make sure you check out these posts, here and here. There are lots and lots of ideas. This stage will give the kids an opportunity to produce some language and also to get ready for the reading.
- Kids read the text in silence, individually and, afterwards, in pairs, trying to guess what words are hidden under the cards. At this point all ideas are good ideas but the teacher should point out that there are some hints in the illustrations.
- The class read out loud together, led by the teacher or the students, and each pair proposes their ideas. The teacher is revealing the real words. It is not a competitive activity so no points are awarded.
- The following stage is the reading comprehension task, such as the one in the coursebook.
- The follow-up productive task can be a text interpretation: the teacher covers all the secret words again. Kids work in pairs, they read a text (one text per child). In step A: they try to remember what the original words are, in step B: the kids read the text again with their own ideas for all the secret words.
Why we liked it
- The activity is easy to prepare, especially with the use of the electronic devices.
- The activity can be used with practically any text and it is easy to adjust the level of development by limiting or extending the number of words, by focusing on some specific words ie only colours, only verbs or only a specific grammar word ie a structure or a part of speech, depending on the level of the students.
- This is one of the ways of breaking up the text and making it more manageable for the early readers.
- It is also a way of making it more interesting as it changes the reading task into something resembling a guessing game.
- It can be made productive and generative by the illustrations-based activities or by the creative reading (the final stage) which can also lead to a writing task ie describing your own room or your own dream room.
Happy teaching!