Category Archives: Reading

Language Acquisition Considerations when Assessing ELL’s Reading Proficiency

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DRA, LRP, Benchmark Books…whatever name they go by, the bottom line of each of these reading assessments is to hopefully allow teachers to get a better understanding of students’ reading proficiency.

ELL students have extra steps when they read.  Not only do they have to think about the code of the language and actually reading and pronouncing words (phonics and phonemics) but, they also have to negotiate the language structures in text, and use them to create meaning and understanding (semantics, syntax, and comprehension).  And do all this in a language that isn’t their first!  Phew!  That is a lot for them to think about!

With that in mind, then, there are a few considerations to keep in mind when doing and examining these assessments with ELLs.

First, look carefully at the students’ oral reading proficiency assessment.  If they are making errors, what do those errors tell you?  Are they language errors like dropped endings, mispronunciation, or trouble with certain language structures?  Or are they skill-based errors like phonics miscues or trouble with sight words?  What do those errors tell you about the student’s English language proficiency?  How can you use that knowledge to continue to address both language-based and skill-based instruction in their guided reading groups?

Second, what does the comprehension piece of the reading assessment tell you?  Did they pass the reading accuracy and fluency portion of the assessment but struggle on the comprehension?  If so, then they will require explicit instruction on how to slow down, read for meaning, and check themselves to make sure they are understanding text.  Did they pass the comprehension portion but had a low fluency rate (reading rate)?  What is the reason behind that?  Were they reading word-by-word and struggling with decoding?  Or were they simply reading slowly because they were going through a meaning-making process and working hard to make sense of text?  We want to make sure that we are placing ELLs in guided reading groups where they are comprehending text.  This may mean that their instructional reading level is higher than their fluency level (reading rate) might dictate.  We want them to be reading at this instructional level, as we continue to work on reading fluency through guided reading and other portions of their days.

If you’d like to talk more about looking at reading assessments through an ELL lens, please contact your building’s ELL Coach!  We can share the language acquisition perspective and talk about how to use those assessments to guide reading instruction with ELL in mind.

To get a closer “how to” look at giving a DRA, LRP, or Benchmark Book to an ELL student check out the ISELL post A How-Two Guide to Assessing Reading Proficiency with ELLs which tells you all about it!

 

Thoughts about Reading

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A book was recommended in a meeting I attended last week. (Personal recommendations are powerful!)  I got a copy of it and started reading. I couldn’t put it down. It confirmed my thoughts about reading and how we need to provide choice and time for our students to “get the bug” and develop a true love of reading.  The title is The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. Miller refers to Stephen Krashen, an ELL expert, and his studies about reading. Stephen Krashen has been advocating free voluntary reading for years as a powerful method to acquire language. In her book, Miller provides examples from her experiences and practical methods to help teachers implement a free reading program in their classrooms. It is a book I would highly recommend!

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/

 

How do we help our English Learners understand the complexities of the English language?

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Teachers often focus on building vocabulary and background knowledge for English learners. This is important but there are also other things to consider. According to David and Yvonne Freeman, when readers gain information and understanding from text, they use three cueing systems. Those three cueing systems are graphophonics, semantics, and syntax. Graphophonics is the subconscious knowledge of phonology(sounds) and orthography(spelling). Semantics is the meaning of words and syntax is the order of words in a sentence.

One of the first things teachers do to help English learners is to teach them the English alphabet and the sounds associated with the letters. Teachers can provide lots of opportunities for students to practice learning these sounds and words as they provide meaningful lessons. Teachers use lots of strategies to help students visualize and conceptualize the meaning of the lesson. Stephen Krashen refers to this concept as comprehensible input. He emphasizes that students will learn when they understand the messages.

Teachers also explicitly teach English learners about context clues. These are hints about the meanings of words that come from definitions, restatements, examples, or descriptions. These are semantic cues. English learners are constantly learning vocabulary and helping them with context clues is valuable.

For syntactic cues, “readers use acquired knowledge of syntactic patterns to predict the morphological categories of upcoming words”(Freeman, 242). The syntax provides a structural frame that certain categories of words would fit. Both the order of words, or syntactic pattern, and the inflectional endings, morphology, provide important clues. Most native English speakers have this subconscious knowledge because they have grown up surrounded by English. This is an important skill to help English learners develop.

Teachers can help students learn these different patterns by using cloze activities in which they give students a passage with some of the words missing. Teachers could delete different types of words to help students focus on different aspects of syntax. They could remove all of the adjectives before the nouns, or all of the conjunctions for example.

Another way to help students learn about syntax is to help them develop their own theory, or rules about word order in a language. Teachers could prepare a list of words and ask students to observe and evaluate the words. Students could categorize words and then group the words that seem to go together. Then students could find connections among the words to create sentences and come up with a rule, or theory to support that.
One example could be the question rule. The teacher could provide lots of questions from statements. The students would then look at the patterns and come up with their rule.
Students can learn from reading.
Can students learn from reading?
In this example, the rule might be to move the second word in a statement to the first word in order to change a sentence into a question.

The Freemans stress how important it is to help students learn about syntax as well as semantics and graphophonics. “Teachers who understand syntax can design lessons to help students acquire academic language”(Freeman, 246). There are five syntactic challenges for English learners when they read academic texts. These include passive voice, comparatives and logical connectors, modal auxiliaries, verb phrases containing prepositional phrases, and relative clauses.

The passive voice is when the subject is being acted on and not performing the action. This is usually found in academic texts because the person doing the action is not usually the focus of the sentence.

Comparatives and logical connectors are often found in academic sentences. They include more/fewer and than, then and not only, and but also. These words and patterns are demanding because they require readers to make connections and remember the first part of the sentence and how it relates to the second part.

Modal auxiliaries are words that give shades of meaning such as permission, obligation, necessity, and possibility. Some of these modals include could, should, would, and might. An example sentences would be, “The liquid could have been substituted for the gas”(Freeman, p. 247) These modals are difficult for English learners because the differences in meaning may not be clear.

Prepositional phrases following verbs create more complex sentence structures. This is difficult for English learners because they need to comprehend all of the information in one sentence. An example would be, “Rainwater seeps into the ground after a storm”(Freeman, p. 247).

Relative clauses are also difficult for English learners because these make sentences more complex and readers need to understand several related ideas in one sentence. A relative clause contains a subject and verb and begins with a relative pronoun (who, whom, whose, that, or which) or a relative adverb(when, where, or why) and it usually functions as an adjective answering what kind, how many, or which one.

English learners need this type of academic language broken down and syntax should be explicitly taught. Teachers can do this by providing graphic organizers, doing hands-on activities, and collaborative projects. These types of activities will help make the meaning of the text comprehensible.
Bibliography

Freeman, D. and Freeman, Y. (2004). Essential linguistics: What you need to know to teach reading, esl,s pelling, phonics, grammar. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.

Guided Reading Considerations with ELLs

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Guided Reading with ELLs contains another component beyond a regular guided reading lesson.  It is a wonderful opportunity to help students make connections with text and provide ELLs with the opportunity to rehearse language, including academic vocabulary!

A few key components to keep in mind are:

  • Building Background Knowledge:

This goes beyond a gist statement, but it shouldn’t last 10 minutes either.  It is important to find a balance where you are helping students activate their prior knowledge, but still doing it a concise manner.  For example, making “I already know” statements about the subject of the text takes only a few minutes, but gets students minds prepared for the vocabulary they are about to encounter.

  • Vocabulary Introduction:

Jan Richardson’s four-step vocabulary introduction works great for ELLs.  You provide a student friendly definition, connect the word to the students, connect it to the text, and then have them turn and tell a neighbor what the word means.  The thing to keep in mind with ELLs is that you aren’t always just choosing out individual vocabulary words.  You might be choosing figurative language, an idiom, or an unfamiliar phrase.  For example, if a book has the words “station wagon” in the text, this will require an explanation.  Nothing about that phrase offers a clue that a station wagon is an older car that many ELLs (and native speakers, for that matter) are unfamiliar with.

  • Guided Writing Responses to Text:

This is a vital opportunity to work on comprehension of text while rehearsing and providing opportunities to practice academic vocabulary.  This component of guided reading provides the perfect chance to scaffold learning for ELLs.  You may be responding to the text by using a “Somebody Wanted But So” frame or writing a key word summary or practicing writing a quiz question with an answer frame.  There are many ways to respond to text.  The important thing to keep in mind is how you can provide scaffolded support for ELLs’ language in their response and provide opportunities for them to rehearse and practice so they can make the language their own.

If you are interested in watching what adding these components might look like, check out our Guided Reading Model Lesson Videos!

Wondering what lesson plans for this all looks like?  Want some examples?  Check out the plans we’ve created here.

Word study is another component of a transitional guided reading lesson plan and one that can be very beneficial to ELLs, addressing not only phonics and decoding needs they may have but also providing a time to practice language structures that may be tripping them up, like word endings, past progressive verbs, comparative and superlative adjectives, etc.  Want to find out more about what word study looks like?  Check out our tutorial videos here!