3Ps in teaching primary students to read

THERE are three keys shaped with the letter P that will help make reading easier to teach to primary students: Practice, Persistence, and Patience. First, we tackle practice. Repetitive practice of reading should be emphasized.

This requires the effort from both the teacher and the pupils – a lot of it. According to a news article in The Huffington Post, a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology by University College London health psychology researcher Phillippa Lally with her research team revealed that developing a habit takes 66 days – a little more than two months. With repetition of reading exercises but with different material, what is being learned like intonation, grammar, and vocabulary become more embedded into the pupil’s mind.

But some pupils would say “Ugh! It’s too grueling! Two months?!” How will we get pupils to read when some of them are already focused on their gadgets or are simply not fans of reading? Persistence is the only choice. Nobody becomes good at something when they just do it once or a few times. Even the best continue to find ways to improve.

But how can we get the pupils to persist despite, even for adults, reading seems to be an overwhelming task? Ask them to read about what they are interested in through writing on a sheet of paper their name and their interests. Then, a few days later, give them guide questions related to the topic they are interested in like those asking information about the characters, their motives, and other specifics like facts if it is an educational book. Make them research for those facts using books.

The pupils have to read their answers to you aloud. It would help them notice errors in pronunciation, intonation, and grammar and vocabulary in what they are reading. Add variety to your activities so your pupils will not be bored. Boredom lessens enthusiasm. Focus on one reading topic on one day, f ocus on a different one on another. Also adding variety to the reading experience is having plenty of books that tackle many kinds of disciplines and story genres.

Another thing that would make the pupils persist in getting their reading right is your patience. Being patient with t he pupils will help them become more patient with themselves. If you show composure they are more likely to calm themselves down and will be more able to remember what you taught them and apply it or find what is wrong and work on it.

Being patient also requires knowing them by their pace of understanding the lesson and how they learn and adjusting to these things when the pupil shows difficulty in learning a particular thing. If you want teaching reading to be a breeze, remember and execute the three Ps. (

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