| Reading literacy is regarded as one of the most important abilities students acquire as they progress through their early school years.Many international assessment projects have taken care to focus on evaluating and improving children's reading literacy,including Program for International Student Assessment(abbreviated as PISA),Progress in International Reading Literacy Study((abbreviated as PIRLS).Compared with foreign research on reading literacy,domestic scholars and teachers are also paying attention to the development of students' English reading literacy,but the research strength and breadth are not enough.This paper aims to study the effect of English picture books on higher-grade pupils' reading literacy This research lasts four months and is carried out in Pitong Primary School with 104 children in Grade Five.This paper takes Schema theory;Krashen's input hypothesis and Piaget's cognitive theory as the theoretical support and intends to answer the following three questions: 1.What are major factors that impact the present situation of higher-grade pupils' reading literacy? 2.Can English picture books develop higher-grade pupils' reading literacy? 3.What strategies are used by teachers to make better use of English picture books to help students to improve their reading literacy?Through the analysis and discussion of questionnaires,reading tests and class observation and video-recording,the study makes such conclusions as follow: firstly,there are four major factors impact higher-grade pupils' reading literacy.(1)Children cannot enjoy reading or reading enough amounts of English reading materials due to lack of reading time.Therefore,they are not able to form a good reading habit.(2)Students show low motivation to English reading because most of reading materials are not interesting or beyond their real life.(3)Due to the lack of abundant English reading materials in bookstores or libraries,students cannot find enough reading materials for them to read.And because of their low English learning ability,it is difficult for them to choose suitable reading materials for themselves.(4)Children's problems in reading also hinder the development of their reading proficiency,or even reading literacy.Secondly,English picture books can develop higher-grade pupils' reading literacy.According to the results of the questionnaires and reading tests,the Sigs.(2-tailed)are all lower than 0.05,which means that by English picture books,pupils' reading proficiency is enhanced.And children are more willing to read English picture books.Lastly,according to the results of class observation and video-recording,there are some teaching methods for teachers to make better use of English picture books to improve children's reading literacy.(1)Picture Tour Approach is very systematic and ordered,which is suitable for all kinds of picture books teaching.(2)The Picture Walk Approach is a before reading activity in which the teacher “walking” through the text along with students.It gives children chance to connect the visual images in the story to their own experiences and predict the story before read it.(3)The Story Map Approach is a strategy that uses a graphic organizer to help students learn the elements of a book or story,by which students can understand the main idea of story well and stimulate their reading interest and confidence.(4)Jigsaw Reading Approach is a kind of student-centered,cooperative strategy.It can lighten students' learning anxiety and increase mutual communication. |
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