English Reading Comprehension, Speaking and Writing

Feedbacks show that Primary school students usually have difficulties in reading comprehension, oral speaking and writing tasks. It is due to the fact that Hong Kong students generally are not getting enough exposure to English apart from their English lessons and tutorials.

Reading Comprehension is one of the most important sections as Hong Kong examinations put great stress on the reading comprehension section. Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. Everyone agrees that reading comprehension is not a simple matter of recognizing individual words, or even of understanding each individual word as our eyes pass over it. Comprehension is achieved by the bottom-up approaches of decoding a word, phrase and sentence level as well as the top-down approaches of predicting content and drawing on existing schemata to create meaning.

Secondary language reading comprehension can be a problematic process and many learners experience considerable difficulties in developing their expertise in reading. There are numerous reasons, which include issues with first language reading ability, low-level decoding skills, lack of cultural knowledge of the material, lack of motivation to learn, lack of diversity in teaching materials, lack of opportunities to read and inadequate exposure to reading materials, etc. In order to develop students’ potential in reading, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are required. Intrinsic motivation has been described as the sense of satisfaction which learners obtain from their performance and extrinsic motivation as factors which encourage participation in the lessons.

The English Reading, Speaking and Writing Programme aims at cementing students’ English fundamentals and equipping them with the necessary skill-sets and familiarity of the Hong Kong Primary School English curriculum. The programme will focus primarily on the three core skills: Reading Comprehension, Speaking and Writing. Each lesson will be based on a specific theme that draws students’ attention.

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