Learning English With Your Children and Teens: Using Junk Mail to Practice English ▬ Iowa Reading Research Center

Learning English With Your Children and Teens: Using Junk Mail to Practice English

ESL - Realia

Iowa Reading Research Center: 3.30.2021 by Nicole DeSalle Writing Coordinator, Iowa Reading Research Center

We live in a digital world. And yet, in this age of text messages and smartphone apps, your postal mailbox might still regularly be stuffed with junk mail like sheets of coupons and advertisements. Although your instinct might be to put the papers straight into the recycling bin, there are ways to use that junk mail or other everyday objects (collectively referred to as realia) to support your literacy development of English as well as that of your children and teens. Language enables us to solve problems and to socially interact with others. Therefore, practicing with realia such as coupons and advertisements can allow you and your children or teens to practice scenarios and interactions that occur in everyday life. This kind of realia also can help you and your children or teens gain cultural knowledge about the United States, such as the kinds of products that can be found in stores and the kinds of information often found in advertisements

Building Skills Together: Activities Using Junk Mail to Practice English

The activities below are a few ways you can use junk mail like coupons and advertising to practice English with your children and teens.

Create a Picture Dictionary

You can collect many coupons and advertisements. To create a picture dictionary, organize them alphabetically in a scrapbook.

Practice Grammar: Countable and Noncountable Nouns

With your children or teens, identify the products on the coupons that are countable and noncountable nouns.

Practice Pronunciation: Ending Consonants (s)

With your children or teens, identify products on the coupons that end with the letter “s,” such as “eggs,” “cupcakes,” “paper towels,” and “bananas.”

Practice Speaking Skills: Ask and Answer Questions (How Much?)

With your children or teens, roleplay being a customer and a cashier. Use the sentence frames below to practice asking and answering questions about the coupons from your picture dictionary.

Editor’s note: Learning together can improve your children’s and teens’ English language skills as well as your own. This post is part of an ongoing series designed to help caregivers who are English learners find English learning opportunities for the family in their everyday lives.  READ MORE ➤➤

 

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 14

Reading Level: difficult to read.

Reader's Age: 21-22 yrs. old

(college level)