EPIC Teacher's Guide - Book - Page 12
d. Games for Practice and Reinforcement of Vocabulary
Games provide a wonderful opportunity to engage students in using the language
for real communication purposes. They are fun, motivating, and maintain the pupils’
interest while practicing vocabulary and natural lexical chunks and discourse. Many
can also be played in pair or group competitions.
Every unit in this program incorporates games. In addition to reinforcing the new
language in a particular part/unit, the teacher is also provided with games for
reviewing previously taught words. The teacher should play review games with the
class periodically throughout the unit to re-enter language and reactivate vocabulary
and lexical chunks that have been taught in previous units.
A full list of all the game instructions in the program appears in Appendix III.
8. Teaching Reading and Writing
In Epic, pupils are lead gradually from pre-readers to becoming English readers throughout
the program. Carefully designed to incorporate different areas of reading instruction and
enhanced by the central use of literature, Epic provides the framework for developing strong
and fluent readers.
a. Reading and Writing Readiness – The Aural/Oral Stage
The Epic program gradually and meticulously progresses from the stage of reading
readiness to beginning of reading and writing. Pupils begin the program by focusing
on listening and speaking. Learners are eased into the new language by learning
basic vocabulary and lexical chunks contextualized through engaging, thematically
appropriate stories. The pupils acquire a plethora of language, varying in
phonological makeup and syllable type. By creating a strong base of lexical
knowledge prior to beginning the teaching of reading, introducing new letters and
words can be presented through lexical items the pupils are already familiar with so
that reading carries meaning and prediction strategies can be applied. By first
learning them in an aural/oral context, these words become part of the repertoire of
the pupils and enable automaticity later, on their way to becoming fluent readers.
b. Phonemic Awareness
Exposure to spoken language and familiarity with the language helps create a solid
foundation on which to then build reading ability. Phonemic awareness skills are
vital to creating strong, fluent English readers. Pupils who have this type of linguistic
knowledge, use it to help them develop reading skills (Kahn-Horowitz, Shimron, and
Sparks 2005). Phonemic awareness also facilitates growth in phonological
representation recognition (Kahn-Horowitz, Shimron, and Sparks 2005; Good,
Simmons, and Kame'enui, 2001; Torgesen 2004). Learners who can differentiate the
individual sounds of a word, recognize their identity, and put the word together
again, have the foundation skills for using the alphabetic principle on which English
is based (Troia 2004).
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