PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 1 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE INTRODUCTION : By raising our students’ awareness of reading as a skill that requires active engagement and by teaching explicable reading strategies, we help our students to develop good pronunciation, articulation, rhythm, fluency and accuracy. GOALS : - good pronunciation - use of appropriate rhythm and stress to achieve well-paced, fluent reading - to build important literacy skills such as comprehension PROCESS : Select topics which are related to students’ interests and experiences or explore universal contemporary themes and issues. DURING READING : • read with a purpose in mind and give complete attention to the reading task • create visual images • focus on unity and coherence, articulation, and good pronunciation • identify with and develop an understanding of the characters (story) AFTER READING : • reread important words when necessary • paraphrase and summarize major ideas • recognize how particular elements create moods or tones • seek additional information from other sources as needed or desired
READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 2 Honorary Advisor : Bro. Surakit Srisrankulwong, Ph.D. Committee : Bro.Achin Tengtrakul, Ph.D. Bro.Bhuvarindhara Khemrachanon, M.A. Bro.Pathanant Chaiyara Bro.Siriroj Viriyasirimongkol, Ph.D. Board of Director Mrs.Krongjit Vanichawan, M.a. Mr.Avirut Wisetchart, M.A. Mrs.Chonticha Nuamphummarin, M.MOD. Mr.Khemmatat Nakpan, M.A. Ms.Yaowaluck Yoochareon, M.A. Editorial Team : Members of the Foreign Language Department Design & Layout : Mr. Wutichart Chatarupacheewin, M.FA. Mr. Sarayut Jorjaroenpanich Mr. Peerawit Arjloi Audio Recorders : Mr. Chart Peeratee Produced by : Saint Gabriel’s College BANGKOK, THAILAND Copyright @ 2024 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 3 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE CONTENTS 1. Holidays 4 2. Google 7 3. Is Pluto a Planet? 10 4. The Mysterious Rainbow 12 5. King Lear 15 6. Biography of Abraham Lincoln 18 7. Digital Habits Across Generations 21 8. Remembering Queen Elizabeth II 24 9. Are Mobile Phones Necessary? 27 10. Television is Educational 30 11. The story of Silicon Valley 33
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 4 1. Holidays Story By: Andrew Frinkle Henry liked Spring Holidays because he liked the weather. Sometimes it was hard to get excited about May Day, or President’s Day, but St. Patrick’s Day was fun. It was amusing to wear green and eat green foods, even if he wasn’t Irish. Easter was a good holiday, too. You could see the Easter Rabbit, hunt for eggs, find candy, or go to church if you wanted. April Fool’s was also
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 5 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE pretty fun. Henry liked playing jokes on his family and friends. Sandra liked Summer Holidays, like Independence Day. She always went to the air show to see airplanes or hot air balloons. In the evening they’d shoot off fireworks. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day were usually in the summer, or close to it, too. On Cinco de Mayo, her family ate Mexican food, just for fun. On Memorial Day, Sandra went to visit her grandfather’s grave. It was a sad day, but a good day to remember. Judith loved Fall holidays most. Sweetest Day wasn’t that popular, but it was a nice day to be kind to the poor, and sometimes she got candy. Halloween was such a great time. You could dress up in costumes and go trick-or-treating. Things were all decorated in very scary ways, and it was fun to watch scary movies with your family. Thanksgiving was just a few weeks later. She always ate so much turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and sweet potato casserole. Between Halloween’s candy and Thanksgiving’s turkey, it had to be the best food season of the year.
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 6 Winter holidays were Thomas’ favorites. Christmas was a great time to be with family, to eat wonderful food, and to give or receive gifts. His family often went caroling, and the decorations were probably the best of the year. New Year’s was exciting because everyone stayed up late and cheered when the year changed, and there were often fireworks. Not only that but both holidays were sort of two days: Christmas Eve had Christmas, and New Year’s Eve had New Year’s Day. If you didn’t celebrate those, there was always Chanukah or Kwanzaa. Valentines’ Day even fell in the winter, even though it was February, and on Chinese New Year, his whole family ordered takeout from the Chinese Buffet. None of them could decide for certain who had the right opinion, but they all agreed that holidays were fun. Some were for seeing people you loved, and others were holidays that reminded you to be kind and generous. They were certainly all very fun. https://www.havefunteaching.com/resource/subject/reading/ reading-comprehension/holidays-reading-comprehension-worksheet/
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 7 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 2. Google You know that you're doing something big when your company name becomes a verb. Ask Xerox. In 1959 they created the first plain paper copy machine. It was one of the most successful products ever. The company name Xerox grew into a verb that means "to copy," as in "Bob, can you Xerox this for me?" Around 50 years later, the same thing happened to Google. Their company name grew into a verb that means "to do an internet search." Now everyone and their grandma knows what it means to Google it. Unlike Xerox, Google wasn't the first company to invent their product, not by a long shot. Lycos released their search engine in 1993. Yahoo! came out in 1994. AltaVista began serving results in 1995. Google did not come out until years later, in 1998. Though a few years difference may not seem like much, this is a major head start in the fast moving world of tech. So how did Google do it? How did they overtake their competitors who had such huge leads in time and money? Maybe one good idea made all the difference.
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 8 There are millions and millions of sites on the internet. How does a search engine know which ones are relevant to your search? This is a question that great minds have been working on for decades. To understand how Google changed the game, you need to know how search engines worked in 1998. Back then most websites looked at the words in your query. They counted how many times those words appeared on each page. Then they might return pages where the words in your query appeared the most. This system did not work well and people often had to click through pages and pages of results to find what they wanted.
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 9 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE Google was the first search engine that began considering links. Links are those blue underlined words that take you to other pages when you click on them. Larry Page, co-founder of Google, believed that meaningful data could be drawn from how those links connect. Page figured that websites with many links pointing at them were more important than those that had few. He was right. Google's search results were much better than their rivals. They would soon become the world's most used search engine. https://www.ereadingworksheets.com/worksheets/reading/nonfictionpassages/google/
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 10 3. Is Pluto a Planet? By: National Geographic Kids (Adapted by Have Fun Teaching) Many people are saying that Pluto is no longer a planet. Are they right? Is Pluto no longer a planet? There's debate in the scientific world about this issue. National Geographic News says that, according to the International Astronomical Union, a full-fledged planet is an object that orbits the sun and is large enough to have become round due to the force of its own gravity. Because Pluto doesn't meet these standards, the IAU classifies Pluto as a dwarf planet. Not everyone agrees that this is a good way to decide, though. Andy Cheng, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University, says that the new rules aren't clear enough and asks the question "how round is round? ...I'll still continue to maintain that Pluto is a planet," he said. Owen Gingerich is an astronomer and historian at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and head of the IAU committee proposing the definition. He favored a special
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 11 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE distinction for Pluto. Gingerich supported a proposal to call the big eight planets classical planets as opposed to just plain "planets" and Pluto and the others dwarf planets, so there would be two classes of planets. He believes that reclassifying Pluto as a dwarf planet is not "sensitive to the historical and cultural role that Pluto has played." The argument continues. In the meantime, however, many people are correct new textbooks will list Pluto as being a dwarf planet. What do you think it is? https://www.havefunteaching.com/resource/subject/reading/ reading-comprehension/is-pluto-a-planet-reading-comprehensionworksheet/
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 12 4. The Mysterious Rainbow by Guy Bellaranti Almost everyone loves rainbows. But where does that rainbow in the sky come from? How is it formed? Is there a pot of gold at the end of it? Two primary things are necessary for a rainbow to occur: sunlight and water. Sunlight usually appears white to our eyes. However, the light is actually made up of many colors. In fact, it is made up of the entire color spectrum of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and all the color shades in between. When we see a rainbow, what we really see is this light spectrum reflected in drops of rain. Here is how it works: First, the Sun has to be shining from behind you. The sunlight enters the raindrops. The raindrops slow the speed of the light rays and refract, or bend, them. Each color of the light spectrum is bent but by different amounts. Light rays on the violet and blue side of the spectrum are bent more than light rays on the red side.
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 13 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE Some of the light is also reflected, or bounced, back through the side of the raindrop it originally entered. The angle between the light ray coming in and the ray going out is slightly different for each color. When many raindrops refract and reflect the rays of sunlight, a circular bow of color, or primary rainbow, is produced. The red band is on the outer edge and the violet to blue band is on the inner edge.
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 14 Sometimes some of the sunlight is reflected twice before emerging from the raindrops. On this second reflection the light rays exit the drops at larger angles for each color. The result this time is a secondary rainbow. In the secondary rainbow, the red band is on the inner edge and the blue is on the outer. The secondary rainbow won't be as bright as the primary because there was a loss of light with each reflection. When both primary and secondary rainbows are formed, we see a double rainbow. As for the question about a finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow... Well, no such find has ever been reported. But does it really matter? Isn't seeing a beautiful rainbow sort of a pot of gold all by itself? www.mathworksheets4kids.com
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 15 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 5. King Lear By William Shakespeare King Lear was old and he was a weary of the business of his kingdom, and wished only to end his days near his three daughters. Two of his daughters were married to the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall; and Cordelia, his youngest daughter. Lear called his three daughters, and told them that he proposed to divide his kingdom between them. “But first," said he, “I should like to know
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 16 how much you love me." Goneril, who was really a very wicked woman, and did not love her father at all, said she loved him more than words could say. “I love you as much as my sister and more," professed Regan, Lear was pleased and turned to, Cordelia. “What can you say?" “Nothing, my lord," answered Cordelia. “I love your Majesty according to my duty no more, no less. I am your daughter and you have brought me up and loved me, and I return you those duties back, obey you, love you, and most honor you." “Go," he said. He divided the kingdom between Goneril and Regan, and told them that he should keep a hundred knights, and would live with his daughters by turns. The King of France was wiser, Cordelia became Queen of France. The King went to stay with his daughter Goneril, who had got everything from her father, and now began to grudge the hundred knights. She was harsh and undutiful to him. Lear set out for the castle of Regan. But she also said that fifty knights were too many to wait on him. When Lear saw that they wanted to drive him away, he left them and wandered in misery, but his servant,
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 17 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE the Earl of Kent, met him, and made him to lie down in a little hovel. The Earl of Kent hurried to the Court of France to tell Cordelia. At Dover she found poor King Lear, wandering about the fields. They brought him back and fed and clothed him, and Cordelia came to him. Now Lear knew at last which of his children it was that had loved him best, and who was worthy of his love. www.englishlinx.com
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 18 6. Biography of Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 in northern Kentucky. At the time of his birth, Kentucky was part of the western frontier of the U.S. His father was a farmer and at one point was relatively wealthy. However, when young Abraham was only 7 years old, his father lost his land. The family moved to Indiana, where his mother died when he was 9. When he was a young man, Abraham’s family moved to Illinois. Abraham had little formal education growing up. He loved to read, so he educated himself. In Illinois he studied law by reading law books. He became a lawyer in 1837 in Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln’s political career began early, and he served in the state legislature and in the U.S. House of Representatives. Lincoln was a gifted speaker. He won national attention for his speeches against slavery during several debates. This led to his nomination for the presidency, which he won in 1860.
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 19 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE President Lincoln’s election angered the Southern states and seven of them announced they would leave the U.S. and form their own government. In 1861, South Carolina troops fired artillery at Fort Sumter, a U.S. military fort. This began the Civil War. The war would be the central feature of Lincoln’s presidency.
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 20 Lincoln’s goal through the war was to reunite the North, known as the Union, with the South, known as the Confederacy. As commander in chief, he selected the Union generals to lead the Army. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which signaled freedom for the slaves. Lincoln was reelected in 1864. After four long years, the Union won the Civil War in April 1865. Lincoln’s goal to reunite the country had come true, but he would not live to see it. Just six days after the end of the war, on April 15, 1865, President Lincoln was killed by John Wilkes Booth. He was the first American president to be assassinated. Abraham Lincoln is considered one of the greatest American presidents. He calmly led the country through the most difficult time in its history, the Civil War. He is remembered today for his wisdom, his compassion and his patriotism. Reference : www.k12reader.com
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 21 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 7. Digital Habits Across Generations Today's grandparents are joining their grandchildren on social media, but the different generations' online habits couldn't be more different. In the UK the over-55s are joining Facebook in increasing numbers, meaning that they will soon be the site's second biggest user group, with 3.5 million users aged 55-64 and 2.9 million over-65s. Sheila, aged 59, says, 'I joined to see what my grandchildren are doing, as my daughter posts videos and photos of them. It's a much better way to see what they're doing than waiting for letters and photos in the post. That's how we did it when I was a child, but I think I'm lucky I get to see so much more of their lives than my grandparents did.' Ironically, Sheila's grandchildren are less likely to use Facebook themselves. Children under 17 in the UK are leaving the site - only 2.2 million users are under 17 - but they're not going far from their
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 22 smartphones. Chloe, aged 15, even sleeps with her phone. 'It's my alarm clock so I have to,' she says. 'I look at it before I go to sleep and as soon as I wake up.' Unlike her grandmother's generation, Chloe's age group is spending so much time on their phones at home that they are missing out on spending time with their friends in real life. Sheila, on the other hand, has made contact with old friends from school she hasn't heard from in forty years. 'We use Facebook to arrange to meet all over the country,' she says. 'It's changed my social life completely.' Teenagers might have their parents to thank for their smartphone and social media addiction as their parents were the early adopters of the smartphone. Peter, 38 and father of two teenagers, reports that he used to be on his phone or laptop constantly. 'I was always connected and I felt like I was always working,' he says. 'How could I tell my kids to get off their phones if I was always in front of a screen myself?' So, in the evenings
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 23 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE and at weekends, he takes his SIM card out of his smartphone and puts it into an old-style mobile phone that can only make calls and send text messages. 'I'm not completely cut off from the world in case of emergencies, but the important thing is I'm setting a better example to my kids and spending more quality time with them.' Is it only a matter of time until the generation above and below Peter catches up with the new trend for a less digital life? Source: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/reading/b1-reading/ digital-habits-across-generations
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 24 8. Remembering Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8th 2022, was one of the best-known people in the world. She lived a life that covered almost a century, and a century of enormous change. Elizabeth II was the older daughter of King George VI. As a teenager she lived through the Second World War when she trained as a nurse and as a mechanic. Her father died suddenly at a young age in 1952. At the time Princess Elizabeth (as she was called) was on a trip to Africa. She was just 25 and had two young children, Charles and Anne. Her coronation took place in Westminster Abbey, London, on 2nd June 1953. It was the first big event to be shown live on television to viewers around Britain, and live on radio around the world. When she became Queen in 1952, her first prime minister was Winston Churchill. For over 70 years, she was Britain's head of state. She was also head of the Commonwealth, and the head
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 25 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE of state of several Commonwealth countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other smaller nations. As head of state, she took an active part in life, meeting with her prime ministers every week, and undertaking thousands of official functions. She was head of state, but she played no part in politics, and had to remain strictly neutral in all circumstances. It was not an easy life, but she did not think of retiring when she reached the age of 65. She continued with her official business until two days before her death. For most of her life she was very popular with people in Britain and around the world. There was a period in the 1990s, after the death of Princess Diana, when she lost some of her popularity, but her difficult years did not last long. In 2002 she celebrated her Golden Jubilee, marking 50 years on the throne. After that, she remained popular, indeed very popular, for the rest of her life. She was like a national figurehead, the nation's grandmother. People liked her, and
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 26 more importantly they respected her. As head of state, she was so much better than any politician! Even though she has now left us, she will continue to be present in British life for many years to come. Her head is on banknotes and coins, her initials E II R are on red letterboxes all over the country, her name has been given to London's newest underground railway line, and her image is in millions of photos taken over the past 96 years. https://linguapress.com/intermediate/elizabeth-II.htm
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 27 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 9. Are Mobile Phones Necessary? Mobile phones are everywhere. They are an integrated part of society and most adults around the world have one. However, many people believe that mobile phones are taking over and destroying people’s ability to communicate faceto-face. While I understand these concerns, I strongly believe that mobile phones are necessary and, if used responsibly, are a very important and useful tool in modern life. Firstly, I believe that mobile phones are a necessary aspect of modern-day life because they are a convenient way for people to continue to work and communicate while away from their office. For example, if an employee is working overseas or is on a business trip, their mobile phone allows them to stay in contact with clients and colleagues. By using their mobile phone, important information can still be received and sent; work can continue without delay. Mobile phones are no longer used just for making phone calls. People send
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 28 emails and access the internet via their phones and many people use them to record important information. After all, a mobile phone is much easier and more convenient to carry around than a laptop. Secondly, I believe that mobile phones are useful to have in the case of an emergency. For instance, if a driver breaks down in the middle of nowhere, they can use their phones to contact either family and friends or a breakdown service for help. Before the days of mobile phones, drivers would either have to sit and wait for a passing car or leave their car in search of a phone box. Mobile phones allow drivers to remain safely in their car,
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 29 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE waiting for the arrival of help. Due to the fact the mobile phone is ‘mobile’, people tend to keep it close, either in a pocket or in a bag, and take it with them wherever they go. This means that in the event of an accident, such as falling over and spraining an ankle, people are able to use their phones to call for immediate help rather than waiting to be found. Many parents also choose to give their children a phone in case they get lost; a lost child with a phone can be easily contacted and found. In conclusion, although there are some negative aspects to the use of mobile phones, I believe that the advantages of having them outweigh the disadvantages. Instant and remote communication ensures that information can be passed on with the simple press of a button. Whether this is the sharing of emails for business purposes or in the case of emergencies, it is clear that mobile phones are a useful, necessary part of life today. Reference : https://www.twinkl.co.th
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 30 10. Television is Educational Everyone now agrees that television has many educational benefits because there is an excellent range of quality children’s programs available to watch. Children are able to learn many skills that they would in school, like reading, writing and counting, as well as learning about the world around them because of the great coverage, we get from news reporters and television broadcasts.
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 31 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE Firstly, I believe that children can develop a variety of skills often learnt at school from television. Play School and Sesame Street are just some of the popular children’s shows that teach numeracy and literacy skills. In addition to this, children are able to watch programmes, which dramatise classic children’s fiction, bringing the stories to life. ‘Misery Guts’, by Morris Gleitzman, is currently being viewed by children throughout Australia. Not only do they learn about the world around them, but children are also exposed to some great authors and literature. Secondly, it is without a doubt that television allows children to learn about the world around them. Some children are fortunate enough to travel with their families; however, not all have the opportunity to see these places. Without television, we would have to rely heavily on pictures, newspaper articles and radio broadcasts, which of course would take a lot longer to reach us and wouldn’t be as thorough. Documentaries are a great way to teach children about the world
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 32 around them. For example, a documentary on the most dangerous African animals can be enjoyed by children even though they may not actually be able to travel to Africa. The teacher can show these animals in their habitat, without being there in person. The children, therefore, have a clearer idea of how the animal lives and survives. To sum up, I most certainly feel that television provides a range of educational opportunities for children. Reference : https://www.twinkl.co.th
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 33 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 11. The Story of Silicon Valley It is not made of silicon; and it is not a river valley; but forgetting that, Silicon Valley is probably the most famous valley in the world. Although it is not the place where the first computer was built (that was Manchester, England), Silicon Valley, near San Francisco, was the birthplace of the modern computer industry. For this, we can say thank you to scientists at the universities in California, and to the Hippies of the 1960's. It was in the nineteen-sixties that American "youth culture" really began. California, of course, already existed; but the Sixties Generation rediscovered it. At the time there were really two different forms of youth culture; the "Beach Boy" culture on the one hand, and the anti-establishment hippies and radical students on the other hand; and they all dreamed of California. For the Beach Boys, that meant southern California, where they could sing about surfing and cars; for the Hippies and radicals, it meant San
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 34 Francisco, "flower power" and revolutionary new ideas. The campuses at Berkeley and Stanford University, near San Francisco, were hot-beds of new ideas, new technology, new culture, and new ways of living. When they finished university, many of the best students did not look for jobs with big companies like Ford or Exxon. Instead they wanted to be free and run their own operations.... and stay in California, not far from San Francisco. Silicon Valley is thus a group of small towns, including Palo Alto and San Jose’, a few miles south of San Francisco. The high-technology industry was already present around San Francisco. Intel had been founded in 1968, and in the same year the first San Jose’, in the heart of Silicon Valley
PRIMARY 6 READING ALOUD 35 ST. GABRIEL’S COLLEGE computer mouse was built at Stamford University. In 1970, Xerox opened a research center in Palo Alto. There were also other electronics companies, like Hewlett Packard, and Fairchild, the world's first "semiconductor" company. Then, in 1976, an electronics student called Steve Jobs started a small computer company in his garage; he gave it the same name as the Beatles' record company: Apple. Very soon, more companies, like Seagate and Google appeared. "Silicon Valley" had arrived. There was even a sort of primitive Internet connecting many addresses in Silicon Valley, called the Arpanet. Today, Silicon Valley is still the home of the computer industry; it is still full of high technology, but it is not the only center for high-tech in the USA. Today there are computer firms all over the USA.... and all over the world; but Silicon Valley still has the largest concentration of high-tech companies and research centers. https://linguapress.com/intermediate/silicon-valley.htm
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Reading aloud has proved its importance as an essential component of our curriculum and education; hence, we need to find ways to promote and enhance it at all levels. Reading aloud is a vital aspect of key competencies and contributes to the personal and social well - being of our students. The importance of reading aloud can’t be underestimated. The more our students practice, the better they become fluent, exquisite readers. SAINT GABRIEL’S COLLEGE 565 Samsen Rd., Dusit, Bangkok 10300. THAILAND Tel. 0-2243-7002, 0-2243-2153, 0-2243-0065 Fax: 0-2243-2150 http://www.sg.ac.th