Category Archives: Reading

Reading Comprehension: Jigsaw Cooperative Learning

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Jigsaw Text Reading

This reading strategy is a powerful way to support ELLs as they are challenged to comprehend difficult texts about new or unfamiliar concepts.  It also provides a setting for interaction among students which is an important component of effective instruction for ELLs.

Steps in the Process:

  • Form cooperative learning groups called ‘home’ groups. Students in this group will then be assigned to an ‘expert’ group.  All students will eventually return to this home group.

  • Each expert group is assigned a different section of the text to read.  They can take turns reading orally as a group, to partners, or as individuals (tailor this to the needs of your students).

  • After reading, assign roles within each ‘expert’ group for students to take notes, identify essential vocabulary, and/or answer key questions about the text.  A graphic organizer can help keep students’ thinking in order and make it easier for them to later present to their ‘home’ groups.

  • Ensure that each ‘expert’ group understands the materials they have read in order that they may share it with their ‘home’ groups.

  • ‘Experts’ share their learning within their ‘home groups.’  The same or a different graphic organizer may help students with this process.

ELL Strategies for Reading and Fluency

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Unique variables present themselves when teaching fluency to English Language Learners. In this session, we will explore the balancing act around the instruction of fluency to enhance reading comprehension for English Language Learners. Some of the main points are as follows:

  • Reading Fluency is reading accuracy+automaticity+ prosody. In order for students to show us they are truly fluent and are on a solid pathway to understanding, students need all three.
  • Reading fluency is not reading fast.
  • Reading fluency for ELL’s can be misrepresented. We may diagnose a low fluency score as a need for skills based instruction. Although ELL students need access to those skills, if too much time is spent on these skills students may still struggle.

So how do we use the instruction of reading fluency to enhance comprehension?

Timothy Rasinski talks about deep reading and wide reading. We will discuss these strategies and activities that may encourage not only reading fluency but oral language fluency as well. For ELL’s if they do not have oral language fluency in place, we cannot expect them to have strong skills in reading fluency. As a result of this, we need to make sure that we are creating a balance in our approach to teaching fluency so that students are working on both oral language and reading language skills succinctly.

To see resources, links to videos, and the presentation slides for this session, click here.

To see examples of fluency assessments to use with students, click here.

To see Timothy Shanahan speak about reading fluency for ELLs, click here.  You can also read his blog regarding ELL’s and Fluency.

You can also read ELL’s and Reading Fluency in English and Reading 101 for English Language Learners from Colorin Colorado’s website!

Planning for the Reading Continuum 6-12

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Though LPS has not adopted the Common Core State Standards; we are, as a district , working to ensure that all students are becoming critical thinkers who will be successful in college and in their careers.  As a result, many content areas are using close reading as an instructional strategy.  This session focused on how to use this strategy in the ELL classroom.

Please see some of the resources used in this session.

Resources:

Reading Continuum 6-12 Presentation

Close Reading Strategy Steps

 

 

A Continuum of Change-Secondary August Staff Development

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In order for English Language Learners to work at an independent level on grade level materials, we need to focus on the language of the learning.  When ELL students are in general education classrooms, what strategies will they be using? What will it look like? What will it sound like and what will they be expected to do to be an active member in the classroom and access learning at an independent level?

To access the General Education pacing guides for reading, the language required for each skill taught and the common strategies that are used across grade levels, please see the following supports generated by the ELL Instructional Coaches:

ELL Language Support Guides by Grade Level

Kindergarten                     Fourth Grade

First Grade                         Fifth Grade

Second Grade                    Sixth Grade

Third Grade

 

 

Language Continuums

Language Continuum for Comprehension Skills and Strategies

Language Continuum for Grammar

Langauge Continuum for Vocabulary Strategies

Pacing Guides Across Grade Levels

Grammar Pacing

Comprehension Skills Pacing

Comprehension Strategies Pacing

Vocabulary Strategies Pacing

Click here for supports in planning and using online resources, as well as for recommendations about what pieces would be most appropriate for use in instructing language learners.

To utilize some of the components McGraw-Hill Wonders curriculum in your ELL classroom digitally, please click here.

For further information about why ELLs need to have language presented at their language level and scaffolded instruction in order to progress through both language learning and speaking, listening, reading, and writing, please read more here.

Planning with the Reading Continuum for K-5

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We are always working at moving students toward grade level curriculum.  The work we do to provide students English language development with text that is accessible for their language level is crucial in helping them progress through the four domains of language.

Please examine the supports we’re providing.  These supports give students a chance to rehearse academic language, skills, and strategies that they will encounter in their general education classrooms while using text that is accessible with teacher support and text that is accessible independently.  Both are vitally important as we scaffold and solidify language for kids.

Resources:
Presentation for Planning for the Reading Continuum K-5, including information about what  assessments are and are not appropriate for ELLs at various language levels. 

K-1 Planning with the Reading Continuum Exemplar

2-5 Planning with the Reading Continuum Examplar

K-1 Blank planning template as a PDF

2-5 Blank planning template as a PDF

K-1 Blank planning template that you can adapt 

2-5 Blank planning template you can adapt

 

 

How do I access Guided Reading Texts for ELL through Library Media Resources?

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Lincoln Public Schools’ Library Media has a large collection of guided reading texts ready for ELL teachers to check out for use in their classrooms.  The books are a range of levels and genres and can be used to support language acquisition through guided reading.  You can either check out these books through your library media specialists at your buildings, or you can come down to LPSDO and search the collections in person.

To locate the titles online, you can follow this pathway:

1. From the Lincoln Public Schools Home page, click on library media services under the instruction tab.

2. On the right hand side, there will be a selection of several different catalogs to search from. Select the Professional Library  Catalog.

3. Type in DRA as the keyword. You will see a list of books. To refine your search, look at the bottom left hand corner of the screen.There will be a box with choices for ways to sort your selections. Scroll down to Collections and select it. Some options will drop down for you to choose from. Select Leveled Readers.

4. All of the guided reading texts that are for ELL teachers should come up for you to select from.

 

Please contact Library Media Services or your ELL Instructional Coaches if you have any questions.

 

 

 

Creating Continuity between General Education and ELL in Reading

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Working Towards Independence, Keeping Language a Priority

In order for English Language Learners to work at an independent level on grade level materials, we need to focus on the language of the learning.  When ELL students are in general education classrooms, what strategies will they be using? What will it look like? What will it sound like and what will they be expected to do to be an active member in the classroom and access learning at an independent level?

Get to know your students. Where are they in both BICS and CALP language development?  How will we use the instructional materials provided in our classrooms such as McGraw-Hill, Rigby and the like as a vehicle to teach academic language and concepts?

To access the General Education pacing guides for reading, the language required for each skill taught and the common strategies that are used across grade levels, please see the following supports generated by the ELL Instructional Coaches:

ELL Language Support Guides by Grade Level

Kindergarten                     Fourth Grade

          First Grade                          Fifth Grade

Second Grade                     Sixth Grade

Third Grade

Language Continuums

Language Continuum for Comprehension Skills and Strategies

Language Continuum for Grammar

Langauge Continuum for Vocabulary Strategies

Pacing Guides Across Grade Levels

Grammar Pacing

Comprehension Skills Pacing

Comprehension Strategies Pacing

Vocabulary Strategies Pacing

Click here for supports in planning and using online resources, as well as for recommendations about what pieces would be most appropriate for use in instructing language learners. 

Click here for supports for Kindergarten and First grade in using online resources.

To utilize some of the components McGraw-Hill Wonders curriculum in your ELL classroom digitally, please click here.

For further information about why ELLs need to have language presented at their language level and scaffolded instruction in order to progress through both language learning and speaking, listening, reading, and writing, please read more here.

Differentiation for Preproduction/Early Production students in the Classroom

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Belmont Elementary School offered a flex session to staff focused on strategies that could be used in the classroom when teaching preproduction (level 1) English Language Learners. The session was led by Hilary Walker, an ELL teacher and team leader at Belmont and Molly Williams, an ELL Instructional Coach for Lincoln Public Schools.

The main discussion centered around the idea, “When teachers use scaffolding with comprehensible input in mind for level 1 English Language Learners, students will be able to acquire the necessary language to access academic content,” and because of this idea, it is very important to consider input processes (reading and listening) and output processes (writing and speaking) in instruction.

Participants took part in a “show, not tell” experience as they watched lessons and discussed the instructional strategies that enhanced learning through taking language acquisition needs into consideration.

To view the video that highlights effective strategies for level 1 English Language Learners, click here.

To view the powerpoint, click here.

After discussing effective strategies to use keeping language acquisition in mind, three activities were introduced that could be used in the general education classroom promote learning with appropriate scaffolds. The activities were Classroom Surveys, Story Retelling Cards, and Using the Story of Puzzles. To see those activities, click here.

Additional Resources:

Online resources are also a great way to use technology to support input and output processes. There are some great sites that focus on the rich culture of oral storytelling and also the form and function of language and learning. To access a list of online resources, click here.

There are also some great articles through Colorin Colorado and Reading Rockets that have published ways to support preproduction students in the classroom. Click on the specific titles below to read more:

Support ELLs in the Mainstream Classroom: Reading Instruction

Oral Language Development and ELLs: 5 Challenges and Solutions

To watch the YouTube video in full entitle Immersion by: Media that Matters click here.

Reading and ELL Flex Session, November 7, 2012

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This session addressed many of the challenges faced by English learners. It is helpful for teachers to understand these challenges so that they can provide support and teach students effective strategies. All students use three cueing systems as they learn to read. Those cueing systems include graphophonics, semantics, and syntax. ELL students have additional needs. Building background knowledge and vocabulary are two areas needed by English learners. Teachers can use various strategies such as mental images, visualization, kinesthetics, graphic organizers, and physical representations to help students. A third area of need is in learning language patterns. David and Yvonne Freeman have presented five syntactic challenges for English learners. They are modals, passive voice, comparatives and logical connectors, verbs with prepositional phrases, and relative clauses. There are many things teachers can do to help ELL students with these challenges. Some examples are scaffolding instruction, using graphic organizers, using hands-on activities, promoting oral language development, and providing opportunities for practice and feedback.

To access the powerpoint presentation, click here.

To access the bookmark, click here.

 

Freeman and Freeman (2009). Essential Linguistics, What You Need to Know to Teach Reading, ESL, Spelling, Phonics, Grammar. Heinemann Publishers.

Enhancing Reading in the ELL Classroom Through Comprehension and Questioning

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At our ELL flex session focusing on comprehension and questioning, we had the opportunity to talk more about what supporting these two things across language levels looks like and how doing so provides support for language acquisition.  ELL teachers participated in the sharing of three big ideas throughout the session:  ELL implications on reading fluency, the comprehension strategy of questioning, and a chance to apply more comprehension strategies across language levels.

Fluency    We began by investigating how reading fluency consists of two components:  word identification or decoding and the comprehension or construction of the meaning of text.  Both of these components must be happening simultaneously for students to be considered fluent readers.  We considered the ELL implications on fluency disruptions, fluency support, and fluency measurement.

The find the Powerpoint presentation of only the Reading Fluency portion of this session, please click here.

Questioning      We discussed how to scaffold the reading strategy of questioning across language levels.  Teachers had the chance to think about how to access higher order thinking skills, even with low language levels, and rehearse the reading strategy of questioning at the same time.

Access this questioning activity and the resources for higher order thinking skills below:

Blooms Taxonomy

Depth of Knowledge Chart

Tiered Thinking Across the Stages of Second Language Acquisition

Comprehension Strategies   Finally, teachers had the chance to apply what partnering a research based comprehension strategy with higher order thinking skills looks like when scaffolded across language levels.

The strategy handouts and additional resources to support the strategies are:

Making Connections

Retelling

Monitor and Clarify 

Summarize

Graphic Organizer used to scaffold comprehesion strategies across language levels

Teachers shared their ideas about scaffolding comprehesion strategies across language levels in a Googledoc.  Check out their great ideas here.

To find the entire powerpoint, including all the information about fluency, questioning, higher order thinking skills, and comprehension strategies, please click here.