Wow! Things are really starting to wind down! I learned a lot this week about the instruction of English Language Learners (ELLs).

Literacy Development of ESL Children

I think I remember reading this particular document in a previous module but it gives some helpful information about differences in English speaking children versus English Language Learners (ELLs). Obviously, learning in English speaking classrooms, ELLs often have difficulty understanding the material or understand what is going on. The text mentioned that English speaking students normally have had 4-5 years of language development before entering school. Now, imagine an ELL in an English speaking classroom. They don’t have the same exposure or practice with the language as their classmates. I can’t imagine how these students would feel! I learned that it is important to help these students acquire metalinguistic knowledge and apply phonological/grammatical patterns. Teachers who have such students must promote shared experiences and use creative and interactive uses of language for ELLs.

Teaching English Language Learners

This document explained that teachers often lack giving effective, meaningful instruction to learners with diverse backgrounds such as ELLs. To prevent this from happening in future classrooms, the text gave some great ideas of how to differentiate instruction in a reading workshop. Some things it mentioned is that teachers should focus on comprehension, meaning, and decoding of words they already know. They should also point out similarities between the student’s native language and English as well as the differences. I learned that when doing activities, hands-on activities are the best way to help them learn! Reading predictable books and reading books more than once is beneficial to these students as well. Parents should be encouraged to participate in their child’s learning and be asked to read to them at home. Bilingual tutors have been found to help these students a lot by helping them understand what they need to do to encourage participation.

Reading Instruction for ELL—Part 1

I thought this was a very helpful article to read. I learned more about what it means to use the Language-Experience Approach on page 3. Ultimately, this practice involves students providing text through dictation. This helps introduce students to reading text. I like this approach because it helps children read with their interests and experiences in mind. It also allows them to learn through age-appropriate text. I liked the example given on pages 4-5 about a teacher giving her students the task of writing a newspaper about a recent earthquake they had. This idea was thought of to help an English Language Learner in the class understand what an earthquake through the process of reading and pointing to words. As I read in a previous article, pages 6-7 addressed the need to provide ELLs with quality pieces of literature. It mentioned that books with patterns and repetition are good ones to use.

Reading Instruction for ELL—Part 2

This article explained even more ideas to use with ELLs in the classroom. The authors suggest that providing students with opportunities to illustrate stories and poems (page 2). I like this idea because students can express themselves without using words and can be used with younger and older students. Also, the articlemention that ELLs could benefit from reading Big Books or oversized books because they present predictable stories and reading patterns that students can easily memorize after 2-3 reads. I really like the idea of having students to make Big Books based on their favorite stories/books (page 3). Another idea addressed here was to allow ELLs to be involved in Directed-Listening Thinking Activities (DL-TA). This is all about helping students make predictions in stories they read. I really like the way the authors described how one teacher named Lisa used DL-TA in her classroom (pages 4-5). I also liked the idea of holding a Readers’ Theater in the classroom as a way to allow students to respond to literature. Essentially, students have the opportunity to act out characters or events from a story (page 6-7). I can see how this would help ELLs because it tells a story without reading. The last thing the authors mention is to have students create story maps (page 7). Here, they can use story grammar or the basic structure of a story to help them remember what the story is all about.

Reading Instruction for ELL—Part 3

This article discussed some ideas to use with intermediate ELLs. One thing mentioned was the use of cognitive maps, or graphic drawings to help them summarize a piece of text. This can improve their comprehension and memory of characters, setting, and plot (page 3-4). The article also pointed out that more advanced ELLs benefit from Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DR-TA), much similar to DL-TA except that here, students read the text silently after making predictions (pages 5-7). I like the idea of having student use Literature-Response Journals, or personal notebooks in which they write their own thoughts and ideas about the stories they read. The article suggests giving students questions to spark their ideas and encourage writing in these journals (pages 7-9). Lastly, this article elaborates on the idea of using Readers’ Theater, but using it for more intermediate ELLs. Here, they may go beyond recognizing characters and settings but they create their own scripts for a possible performance. This requires them to be able to identify character motivation and the problems/conflicts they may face (page 9). I think this is a great way to introduce ELLs to more sophisticated elements within a book.

Levels of Language Proficiency for ELLs

This document provided some more helpful information about ELLs. As a future teacher, it will be important to understand the different levels at which ELLs transition into learn in the English language. I learned that the different stages include: Beginning/Reproduction, Beginning/Production, Intermediate, Advanced, Formerly Limited-English Proficient /Now Fully –English Proficient, and Fully-English Proficient/Never Limited-English Proficient.

Scaffolding Reading Experience—Part 1

This article discusses what scaffolding really means. Ultimately, a scaffold is a temporary, supportive structure that assists students or groups of students in something they cannot do on their own or as well without the scaffold (page 3). This places a student in a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). It is the teacher’s responsibility to gradually take apart and rebuild the scaffold so that responsibility can be transferred to the student(s) (page 3).

I learned that scaffolded reading experiences require pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading activities to help students learn to successfully read. The Scaffolding Reading Experience (SRE) involves two phases: planning and implementation. With planning, teachers must consider the different students they have, the type of reading they choose for them, and the purpose of why they are reading. With implementation, this is where the before, during, and after activities are completed (page 5). I like how the article gives possible components of these different types of activities (page 7). Pre-reading activities are given to remind students of things they already know and build on that knowledge, engage them an upcoming book, and more importantly, give them motivation to read (pages 8 -9).

Scaffolding Reading Experience—Part 2

During-reading activities involve having the students do things for themselves as they read and also involve things that teachers do with them. The article mentions that giving students the task of reading silently. The authors feel that this is the most important activity and that with the more practice students get with reading to themselves, the more they will get better at it and become accomplished lifelong learners (page 3). Teachers should also incorporate Reading to Students into their instruction. Oftentimes, stories and other pieces of literature are better understood when they are read aloud. In addition, it usually makes the reading experience more meaningful or powerful when something is read aloud versus read silently (page 3-4). Guided reading is another thing the article mentions for teachers to use. This helps students identify important themes or generalizations to look for as they read. I learned that guided reading often begins as a pre-reading activity but is extended into during-reading activities (page 4). Another activity students do as they read may involve them orally reading text. This is an important task because students can read aloud and then share their ideas about what was read. This promotes the sharing of different interpretations. The article cautions to only use this strategy with more proficient ELLs for reading aloud can be nerve-racking and embarrassing for students who struggle with reading (page 5). Lastly, the article mentions that another activity to do during reading involves modifying the text to make it easier to understand for different learners. If students have difficulties understanding something, teachers may need to find different texts that will help students better understand the text they are reading. Modifying the text may also include drawing pictures or graphs to examine representations (page 5).

This article also goes into detail about different post-reading activities teachers can incorporate into their instruction. These kinds of activities help students create and organize information they remember from reading different kinds of text. Questioning is one thing the authors suggest using. Whether it is answering a question orally or writing it down on paper, questioning often promotes the use of higher-level thinking skills and checks for student’s understanding of information learned (page 6). Engaging in discussions is another activity to be a part of after reading. Letting students discuss can help them learn so much and gives them plenty of opportunities to share their ideas and interpretations (page 7). In addition to discussions, the article talks about Building Connections. Here it is important to lead students to build connections from what they read in a book or piece of text to different parts of their lives. I can see how this would be very beneficial for students in multicultural classrooms (page 7). A lot of teachers turn to giving writing assignments after reading. By doing so, students are able to discover and create their own ideas and interpret their own understandings. This is also used to help ELLs receive practice with writing in English as well as their native languages (page 7-8). Another activity some teachers incorporate into post-reading time is drama. Performing plays, skits, or role play are all ways students can become actively involved in what they learned or read. This is definitely one way they can express themselves and by practicing lines, they are able to practice building reading fluency (page 8). Other ways students can express themselves is through graphic, artistic, and nonverbal activities. Application and Outreach activities also help students in many ways after reading text. This is where students work together or conduct activities outside of class such as surveys or interviews (page 7-8). Re-teaching is the last activity the article suggests for a post-reading activity. It explains that although students may receive a lot of practice applying a certain concept or idea, further instruction may be needed (page 9).

It was great to read about the different sample SREs the article provided. I was able to see what instruction may look like for a simple and substantial SRE instruction using different resources (page 10).

Scaffolding Reading Experience—Part 3

The final part of the article focused more on what a differentiated SRE looks like using a challenging science text. It described doing a pre-reading activity to motivate and engage students about learning what waves are. Here, as a class, they act out what a wave is. Next, the teacher teaches the important concepts of amplitude and frequency and then writes the headings of important things addressed in the textbook on the board (pages 2-4). These items are listed in English as well as the native languages for the ELLs in the classroom.

During-reading activities include reading the first section of the chapter aloud to make the students feel comfortable with the text. The authors also say to prepare and play an audiotape for the ELLs in the class where the text is read at a slower pace and enunciated clearly for them to understand. As these children do this, the other students must be given something to do during this time (page 5). Post-reading activities may involve the teacher gaining ideas and other perspectives by engaging in a discussion. The teacher gives students questions to think about ahead of time and then allows them to talk. Additionally, the teacher may want his/her students to show their artistic side by creating poems, stories, or dramas involving waves. The article mentioned that these tasks could be spread out over a course of several days.

I learned a lot about what an SRE-centered lesson plan looks like. I understand that it is the most appropriate approaches to use in multicultural classrooms. I’m sure this information will come in handy in my future teaching!

Inquiry: A Project Approach With 5th-6th Grade Special Needs Students

This was an interesting video to watch. It was great to see how a teacher took a real problem and turned it into an activity for her students to explore and solve. I really liked the beginning activities she did with her students and made the activities she incorporated meaningful for her students. I think this is a great video to show that learning can be fun for students with many different needs. Teachers can use real world problems (such as the relocation of a road) and use it to integrate all subject areas. I think the biggest thing I took away from this video is when the narrator said that these types of activities help children “learn how to learn” (about 11:15 in video).

Response to Intervention Process for Special Education

This was a great document to read because it gave step by step instructions on what to do when intervention is needed for students to receive the help they need in the classroom. The first step involves screening and testing on benchmarks to identify students who may need intervention. When students do not meet these standards or benchmarks, the second step is to give them additional instruction to increase their reading levels. Step three involves monitoring the progress of the students receiving help. Assessments are given—often multiple times a week to check for improvement. For students who continue to struggle, step four involves teachers to individualize interventions that may include more assessments and additional intervention from other educators or specialists. The final step involves gathering all the data on a given student to determine the need for special education services.

Wow! So I learned quite a bit this week. It was very helpful to read up about the different approaches and strategies teachers can use when teaching English Language Learners and students with special needs.
Thank you for reading my post!
Kelsey