Therefore, reading ability deeply affects pupils’ English learning. It is the main source of language input. It can not only improve learners’ reading comprehension, but also develop listening, reading, and writing skills. New English Curriculum for Chinese Primary Schools (2011) puts forward two reading levels for students in primary school. At this level, learning English should involve helping students to:
1. Read and recognize all words studied.
2. Read aloud simple words according to spelling rules.
3. Understand short and simple instructions in textbooks.
4. Understand information expressed in simple texts like greetings cards.
5. Understand simple stories or short passages with the aid of pictures and form the habit of reading for overall comprehension.
6. Read aloud accurately all the stories and passages studied.
Reading teaching is a very crucial part in primary school that many scholars and teachers study on. Some obvious problems still exist in English reading teaching in higher grades of primary school, they are as follows:
1. Teaching materials are not suitable.
In the current situation, teachers often choose reading materials according to their interest, habits, familiarity, and convenience. They consider little about pupils’ cognitive characteristics and their interest. In a way, the lack of suitable reading materials accounts for the restriction of the reading materials selection.
2. Teaching methods of English reading lack of persity.
In the reading class of higher grades in primary school, some teachers may express, guide and practice the knowledge of language. They like to teach isolated knowledge in the reading material. Students are only asked to read knowledge. Some teachers neglect the reading instruction and interaction between them.
3. Students’ reading time is not enough.
Some students are only required to read the reading materials in the class. They are rarely asked to read more English materials outside the class. This has led to restrictions on their reading materials, which leads to poor reading skills. And also the perfect resources of reading have not been developed. On the basis of these practical problems, further research and experiments are needed to improve students’ English reading competence and reading efficiency.
1.2 Research Purpose and Significance
Through the practical research of reading teaching in the primary school, teachers accumulate the resources of drawing, provide the students with the opportunity to contact the original taste English, feel the charm of English, and arouse students’ expressive ability, in order to raise students’ interest in English reading and improve their ability to learn English. The use of English picture books plays the role of long-term teaching. For the study of the reading of English books in the primary school, teachers can renew their teaching ideas, adopt modern science, improve and perfect the teaching process of English in primary school, and attach importance to the teaching practice of English reading in the higher grades. It is propitious for teachers to change the teaching idea, establish the modern teaching method based on human being, and establish a scientific system of English teaching methods in primary schools.
Based on the current situation of primary school English reading teaching and some common characteristics of English picture books, this paper mainly aims to explore the effectiveness in improving students’ reading ability by using English picture books as the complementary of teaching materials in the reading class. What’s more, this paper will also give some suggestions on the selection criteria of English picture books. 英语绘本对小学高年级英语阅读作用研究(3):http://www.chuibin.com/yingyu/lunwen_206302.html