A Study Of Picture Books In English Reading Teaching In Primary Schools

Reading teaching is an important element of English teaching in primary school.At present,students in primary school are still unable to get access to enough English reading resources except textbooks,and the scope in textbooks is relatively narrow.Moreover,when teaching English reading,teachers tend to pay much attention to students’ understanding of new words and sentence training rather than understanding the contents,which is not conducive to the improvement of students’ English reading interest and achievements.English picture books as an auxiliary extracurricular reading material have the features of vividness and intuitionistic,characterized by a large number of vivid pictures and easy-to-understand language.The repetition rate of difficult sentences is relatively high which is accord with cognitive development characteristics of primary school students at this stage.The pictures in picture books are more likely to attract their attention and curiosity,thereby increasing their interest in English reading.In this study,two classes of grade five of a primary school in Yan’an were selected as the research objects.One is experimental class and the other is control class.Based on Piaget’s cognitive development theory and constructivism theory,English picture books was introduced into English reading teaching process.The questionnaires and reading tests method were used to study the influence of picture books on students’ English reading interest and reading achievements.Before and after the experiment,questionnaires and reading tests were conducted on both classes.The questionnaire was used to get to know the changes of students’ reading interest,and the reading test was adopted to realize the changes about students’ reading achievements before and after the experiment.The experimental class adopts English picture book in reading course.Teacher designs reading teaching activities based on students’ interaction in classroom and feedback after class,while the control class conducts teaching according to the normal teaching methods.After the experiment,all the data before and after the test were sorted,compared and analyzed,and the following conclusions were drawn:Firstly,applying English picture book to reading teaching helps to improve the reading interest of primary school students,and students are more willing to take the initiative to read.Secondly,students in experimental class have made great progress in reading,and their scores have improved significantly also.Picture book reading teaching has higher requirements for teachers.Teachers should innovate reading teaching activities,selecting best picture book materials and adopting teaching methods for students.