Hi, all!

     It's been a while!!  I moved to Florida last year, and spent the last school year as a fourth grade classroom teacher.  It has been 14 years since I was a classroom teacher, and the standards have changed a lot!  Luckily, the majority of my students were ELL's (21 out of 25), so at least some of my ESOL experience was helpful!  Now that I've moved to Florida and am a classroom teacher, rather than solely an ESOL teacher, I need to learn more about teaching all of my students; most especially my US-born students of color.  Luckily for all of us, there are many educators out there who have been doing the work of researching and writing about the issues that impact students of color in public school classrooms. Our job is to listen, learn, and incorporate what these educators know in order to elevate our practice.
     

     With that, here we go! 

     I have some suggestions for a starting place for those of you just entering the world of social justice and education. For those of you that have been in this world for a while, you probably know most of these amazing educators already!

     Many fantastic educators impart their wisdom on twitter. I have several suggestions for you to follow. You'll get links to articles and books that will aid you on your journey to becoming a more culturally responsive teacher. I'll be talking about many of those resources here on my blog, reflecting on what the information in them means for me as a teacher as well as for my students. (This is not an exhaustive list, and people are listed in no particular order.)

     Anyway, here are some people to follow (you won't be disappointed!):

• Laura M. Jimenez
• Marian Dingle
• Ebony Elizabeth
• Christopher Emdin
• Jose Luis Vilson
• Shana V. White
• Val Brown
• Xian Franzinger Barrett
• Lynell Powell
• Sara K. Ahmed
• Mariana Souto-Manning
• Leigh Patel
• Kim Parker
• Sabrina Joy Stevens
• Cornelius Minor
• Dulce-Marie Flecha
• Kelly Wickham Hurst
• Julia E. Torres
• Clint Smith
• Rosa Perez-Isaiah
• Rebekah Cordova
• EduColor Movement
• Teaching Tolerance
• HipHopEd
• Teaching for Change
• All Y'all Social Justice Series
• Rethinking Schools

     

Anyone you follow that is not on my list?  Please share!!

💜 Jacquie

So, this Muslim ban...

Sudan

Like most of you, my news feed has been filled with articles and op-ed's about Trump's immigration ban that targets seven majority Muslim countries--Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya.  If you're reading this blog, I assume you have some ties to ELL's, and so you probably know immigrants from at least one, if not all, of these countries.  If you teach ELL's, as I do, you probably also have students from at least one of these countries, and you're outraged and hurting for your students and their families, as well as your friends and neighbors who are impacted by this executive action.

Maybe you've written e-mails or postcards, made phone calls, donated to causes, or attended a rally in opposition to this action.  I hope you have. Want to do something? Click here to find out who your representatives are.  Need to contact your Senators?  Click here.

Anyway, last night while I was trying to sleep with my mind repeating the news cycle in my head, I realized that while this anti-Muslim action is upsetting to me personally, it is so much more so to my young students.  I'm heartbroken and ashamed by the actions of my country, and I'm mature enough to fully understand the ramifications of this action.  However, my family and I are in no danger of being forced to leave our homes, nor do we fear for the safety of loved ones in other countries.  My students are not able yet, at their young age, to understand all of the information that has been in the news, and they and their families ARE directly impacted by the immigration ban.  So, my thoughts shifted to how I was feeling towards what can I do to help my students through this painful and scary time?

I got up out of bed and started doing some research.  I'm not a counselor, so I'm not in a position to determine the best ways to talk to students about the ban and how it affects them.  I began my search by looking for tips from professionals on talking to young children about tragedies in the news.  I found a wealth of information that not only supported my instincts for how to proceed (I do have a kid, so I'm not new to this!!), but I also found some helpful tips that I hadn't considered.

I read and reflected, and then compiled a list of what I felt were the most useful and pertinent tips for helping younger students (elementary and middle school aged) work through the immigration ban:

1. Do not bring up the immigration ban.  If your students raise the issue, proceed!
2. Ask your students what they already know.
3. Ask your students what, if any, questions they have. When answering questions, be careful to only answer with information you know for sure to be true.  It's okay to tell children that you don't know the answer.  Also, begin with the basics.  Children may not be ready for the full details, so start small.  If your students have additional questions, they can continue to probe until they're satisfied, but we don't want to overwhelm them with information.  Again, we don't know a lot of information yet about the ban and how it will all shake out in the end, so only give answers you know with certainty are true and verifiable.
4. If you feel comfortable, let your students know that you also feel sad about what is going on and that you are happy that they and their family are here with us in the U.S.  They have probably heard, if not experienced, the hateful rhetoric currently being spewed in our country. Let them know that you are on their side and that their school family supports them 100% (if this is the case. And I hope it is.)
5. Reassure your students as much as you are able.  Let them know that there are grown-ups working very hard on the issue, and that there is hope that things will be okay.
6. Most importantly, listen.  If a student honors you with their trust, sit quietly, listen, and validate their feelings.  It's important to clear up any misunderstandings, but it's also important that we not belittle their feelings with a trite, "It's all going to be okay. Don't worry." 

I know, as educators and as parents, this is a tall order.  How do you reassure your students when so much of our country's current political climate is eroding their sense of safety and belonging?  The answer is that there is no easy answer.  We need to surround them with love, make sure they feel safe and welcomed while they are at school, speak out if we hear hateful misinformation in any area of our lives, and continue to give our students the education they deserve so that one day they can be in a position to make sure actions like Trump's immigration ban don't happen again.

Here are the articles I pulled information from:

Talking to children about tragedies and other news events

How to talk to children about difficult news

Helping children cope: Talking to children about tragedy

When bad things happen: Tips for parents and educators

Yours in solidarity,

Jacquie

Making connections: Reading Wonder during Ramadan

Wonder, by RJ Palacio, is a book about a boy named August (Auggie) with a facial deformity.  He begins attending school at the beginning of fifth grade, hoping to be accepted for who he is, rather than ostracized for his face.  The book switches between Auggie's point of view and the point of view of his classmates and others.  The main theme of this heart-wrenching and brutally beautiful story is the importance of empathy, compassion and acceptance.

So, why Wonder and Ramadan?  It happened very naturally for me, as I was using Wonder in a book study during Ramadan.  I wanted to find a way to help students really connect with the text.  Several of the students I was working with were Muslim and the connection happened very organically.  As we continued to explore Wonder through the theme of Ramadan, I watched my Muslim students, especially the girls, gain a new sense of their worth in the classroom as ambassadors of their culture. The other students, I hope, learned about empathy, compassion, and acceptance not only through the medium of the text, but also as their classmates shared pieces of themselves and their culture during our discussions.

Some background on Ramadan:
Each day of Ramadan, every person over the age of 12 is expected to fast from dawn until sunset. The translation of the Arabic word "to fast" is "refrain." This means not only refraining from eating and drinking, but also refraining from idle gossip or unnecessary speech and unkind words and thoughts. The goal of Ramadan is spiritual purification. Many Muslims pray more often during this time. They ask for forgiveness of past sins, focus on positive acts for the benefit of others, and ask God for guidance for future living. The fasting is supposed to induce feelings of empathy for those who are less fortunate, as well as a sense of inner peace.  For more information, try this website, or go to an even better source: your students and their families.

Ramadan is also a time of fellowship, and people will often invite friends and family to share in the sunset fast-breaking meal, the Iftar.  I've been blessed to have been invited to share in many Iftars, and if you get the chance, I highly recommend accepting this invitation.  Not only will you eat some amazing food, but the bonds of friendship and community you'll make are life-long bonds.

As you begin the book study with a focus on Ramadan, modeling making connections will help students frame their own connections.  While non-Muslim students may be tempted to make connections between the book and their own culture, I recommend gently encouraging them to stick to keeping connections linked to Ramadan--especially if the other students are of the mainstream culture.  Muslim culture gets such little airtime in U.S. classrooms, so if you've made the decision to give your Muslim students the opportunity to really use their voices and be heard during this book study, be sure to keep that space open to them.

Some possible connections to make while modeling are:

Page 46: Precepts: rules about really important things

Page 47: What kind of person am I?

Page 48: When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind.

Page 65: Your deeds are your monuments; we are remembered for the things we do

Page 77: Other students talking about August

Happy reading,
Jacquie

Checking back in after a loooooong year!

I just want to preface this post by saying I love my job.  I truly do.  There is NOTHING else I can imagine doing with my life other than teaching English to my immigrant and refugee students.  Best. Job. Ever.

That being said, this has been an especially hard year, for many reasons.  The insane amount of testing we implemented this year in the great state of Ohio was the cause of some of the stress of the year, but I'll write about that and the implications of constant testing on ELL's in another post.  We enrolled more emergent ELL's this year at our school than any year past, and the ESL team was the target of some classroom teacher anxiety and hostility because of that.  However, we (ESL teachers) love, love, love emergent students, so any negativity thrown at us we eventually deflected with our joy at getting to know our new students and helping them acclimate to their new home.  As far as health goes, my daughter and I were sick almost all year.  No exaggeration.  If a virus was around, it paid us a visit this year.  Not fun.  As a single parent, she and I are together all the time, so we tend to share everything, including germs.  In addition to all of that, this year an ongoing personnel (not personal!) issue came to a head, but even that wasn't the lowest point of the year.

What was the lowest point of my year?  The day I lost a student.  She wasn't a current student.  She attended our school two years before, and she was a student that no one forgets.  Nebiat was a sweet and beautiful girl and so, so much more.  This girl worked harder than any other student I've had in my years of teaching.  She was self-motivated.  I didn't have to convince her that learning was important.  She knew that, and she demonstrated that knowledge by attacking every lesson in every subject with all of her energy and excitement.  Our sweet Nebiat was the student we compared others to, and most students, quite honestly, looked unfavorable compared to her.  Nebiat's thirst for learning, and willingness to work hard, are sadly uncommon characteristics in many students these days.  In one of her first days in ESL, she shared her shame at being unable to read.  After several weeks of working with Nebiat, it was obvious that her difficulty with reading did not lie with her, but rather with poor previous schooling.  She grew as a reader, and her confidence grew along with her reading ability.  Nothing could stop her.  Nebiat could have been ANYTHING she wanted to be, and she wanted to help others.  Her bright light was dimmed far too soon, and I'm sad and angry about it.

Nebiat wasn't part of my biological family.  She only attended our school for a little over a year.  So, why am I so devastated?  I almost feel unworthy of my grief.  She wasn't my daughter.  She wasn't even a current student, although I consider all of my students to be my students for life--regardless of age.  So many other people were close to her and deserve to grieve for her.  It makes sense for them to feel a grief so deep that it's hard to pull out of it.  Why am I feeling this way?

It's because of who Nebiat was as a person.  This girl was amazing.  After she moved on to middle school, I would still see Nebiat at her apartment complex where I frequently visit to spend time with students and their families.  Even if she was in a group of her middle school friends, she always broke away to come over and talk to me.  She asked about my daughter and the other ESL teacher she worked with at our school.  She excitedly shared what she was learning in school, what her teachers were like, and how her grades were.  She told me about her friends and the silliness they got into. That sweet girl would hang out with me and talk for as long as I wanted, never looking over to her friends as if she needed an escape from this crazy teacher who won't stop talking to her!  I can't explain how much that meant to me coming from a middle school girl!

Nebiat deserved a long, amazing life. Her short, amazing life touched mine in ways that I probably still haven't realized.  I thought her funeral would bring me "closure," but I don't know that there ever is closure when a child dies.  I just know that I will never forget her.  As cheesy as it sounds, she really will always be in my heart and on my mind as I go throughout my life.  I feel a strong need to make sure no one forgets that she was here and that she was amazing.  and that I loved her.

I wish I had a book to recommend for teachers dealing with grief over the death of a student. Throughout the past few weeks, I have looked for such a book or article.  I needed to know that what I was feeling was normal.  I found many resources on how to help students deal with grief, but nothing that was written for teachers.  So many of us love our students as if they are our own.  When we lose a student, it is a profound loss for us.  At least, it is for me and for Nebiat's other teachers.  If you know of a book or article that is dedicated to helping teachers deal with the death of a student, please leave a comment below.

Take care of yourselves and your students,
Jacquie

Choosing Texts for Early Readers

As an ELL teacher, choosing texts to use with my students is perhaps one of the most challenging parts of my job.  Each week, I struggle with how to focus my text selection: vocabulary topics?  grammar function?  fluency?  literary devices?  And then, from where should I pull the texts: guided reading room?  library?  from the same publisher each time, or mix and match?  In her book Becoming Literate, Marie Clay asserts that "it is the individual child's achievements and where he next needs to go that [should govern] the selection" (p. 182).  So, with the multitude of information our lower-level ELL's need to know, how do we choose a text that will meet their needs, but still foster a love of reading?

Some tips from Marie Clay:

• Use texts you have previously read to students.  Known texts are "still new and challenging because the child is bringing that prior knowledge to the text...using a different kind of support from the interactive sharing of the task with the teacher" (p. 184).  Be sure to couple the re-reading of the text with a new focus.  If the original sharing of the book focused on vocabulary, have the re-reading experience tackle a literary device used by the author.
• Be wary of using contrived texts: "If [students] have only read controlled vocabulary texts [they] will have difficulty with texts that do not control the vocabulary" (p. 187).  Relying on contrived texts can also have a detrimental effect on oral language development if students learning English are presented with one way of "speaking" English in texts and then are expected to understand and respond to the language those around them produce naturally. 

• Story books should be an integral part of a student's reading journey, but should not be the only method used to teach students to read. "To learn to anticipate the language and situations found in stories children have to build up a vast experience with children's story books...Some children do not get those experiences before they come to school and teachers who use a story book reading programme must provide them with make-up experiences" (189).  ELL's often come to school with very little knowledge of story structure or the purpose of reading.  It's therefore imperative that we provide as many opportunities for our students to interact with quality literature as possible.  However, story books are not often written for beginning readers to read on their own.  Portions could be read by students in a big-book or projectable format.  Language Experience Approach texts could be created by students based on the story books to give students a pathway into the text.

• While LEA's do give children who are learning English a textual experience with which they can connect, "it is not enough to read only natural language or language experience texts.  Children need book experience to read books.  Book language has different forms and different frequencies of occurrence from spoken dialects.  Natural language texts can be regarded as transitional texts, used when the child is just beginning to relate what he knows about oral language and print to the written texts he is trying to read"  (p.191).

For slower readers and those who are learning to read while at the same time learning English, natural experience texts and repeated contact with familiar literary texts initially presented by teacher are a natural starting point for literacy development.  Consistently working only with simple, controlled material can "develop habitual responding for that type of material.  This learning will not transfer readily to more complex texts" (195).  Staying away from such contrived texts is especially critical for ELL's.  Students must be exposed to rich language use and have the opportunity to swim around in it and be immersed.  This is the only way their oral language, and then later their written language, will develop to the depth of meaning that native English speakers enjoy.

Happy reading,
Jacquie

Directionality and Storybook Reading

In Chapter 6 of Becoming Literate, Marie Clay writes that children face three main challenges after their initial experiences with print.  One of those challenges is the directionality of print.  In English text, of course, this means learning that print goes left to right.  Period.

I hadn't considered this skill to be anything unusual for children to learn until Clay opened my eyes: "The child's everyday experience has actually trained him in different habits from those he needs in reading.  An orange, a dog or a favourite toy must be recognized from any viewing angle.  Meaning is constant when the object is small or large, is upside-down, back-to-front, or sideways to the viewer...On entry to school he has to learn that in one particular situation, when he is faced with printed language, flexibility is inappropriate."  (Clay, 1991).  DUH!  I had never thought of directionality in reading as something entirely foreign in its adherence to one serial direction in the world of a child for whom every other experience has been multi-directional.

After that "ah-ha" moment, I decided to check out whether or not my kindergarten students truly understood the directionality of print.  Using the Sulzby Storybook Reading Assessment, I had my students read a Goldilocks book to me.  The students were already familiar with the text from a read aloud the previous week.  The book has multiple lines of print on each page, so I was able to gauge whether or not students had learned the following:

• directionality
• return sweep
• high frequency words
• using pictures to gain meaning
• the language "style" of story telling

In addition, I was also able to take notes on what aspects of oral English the students have acquired.  For example, whether or not they correctly form and use plural nouns or regular past tense verbs. 

The Sulzby assessment taught me a lot about my students!  I was surprised to learn that one of my students has not yet mastered directionality.  Not surprisingly, he was also the only one who didn't use the pictures to tell a story, but rather just labeled what he saw in each picture.  He jumped back and forth between right and left pages of the book and only attended to the pictures.  He paid no attention to the print.  My other two kindergarteners demonstrated knowledge of each of the skills I was assessing.  One of the students even made a serious attempt to read each word on the page, and he did a great job of it!

Now, I know which of my students are ready to move on, and which needs more work with simple, one lined texts and retelling stories after read alouds.  I highly recommend reading the Sulzby article (link above) and trying this assessment with emergent readers.

Happy reading!
Jacquie

Islands of Certainty

The title of this blog post is one of my favorite Marie Clay-isms: "islands of certainty."  She writes that "in the familiar story the child locates a word he knows and builds a response around it.  Then the child's reading of text comes to be controlled by particular words even though he can only recognize one or two words" (Clay, 1991).  These familiar words are the "islands of certainty" in a sea of unknown text.  Often, for emerging readers, these islands are sight words.

If you visit pinterest, you'll find a plethora of sight word games and activities geared to helping children memorize these most common words in English text.  However, the majority of the activities involve memorizing the words out of context.  For ELL's, sight words are often meaningless, so it's imperative that literacy teachers of ELL's focus on meaning and usage when teaching sight words and present the words in connected text.

Introducing new sight words doesn't need to be overly complicated, even when working with emergent language learners.  For example, when working with my first grade emergent students, I introduce new sight words with the following 5-day procedure:

1. Oral language practice: I write five new sight words on index cards.  We practice reading them out loud.  I use each word in a sentence or two as examples.  Then, the students all use each word in a sentence.  My students love making up sentences so well that they usually have multiple sentences for each word!  This is not only a great way for the students to get oral language practice, but it's also an opportunity for me to ensure that the students truly understand what each word means and how to use it.  I can gently correct any misunderstandings before they become fossilized.
2. Words in context: I write sentences with each sight word on sentence strips that I post on the board.  The sentences are taken from those that the students invented the day before.  We read the sentences together out loud.  Then, the students choose one of the sentences to re-read with expression.  This is also a big hit!
   
3. Guess the covered word: I cover or remove the targeted sight word from each sentence, and the students have to choose the correct word to go in the sentence.  We then do the same procedure with new sentences using the targeted sight words.
   
4. Writing sentences: Students write sentences of their own using each of the targeted sight words.  Then, they share their favorite with their classmates.
5. Fast ten: This is a quick check of the new sight words and a few known sight words.  Students write the words on white boards as quickly as they can.  They only win "points" if they not only write the word quickly, but also correctly.

Throughout the week, we find and circle the targeted sight words in our focus story and in our shared writing.  This gives students many more examples of the use of sight words in connected text.

I keep a list of the sight words that I've taught to the group.  When I read with each student individually each week, I double and triple-check that these "islands of certainty" remain not only in the students' reading repertoire, but that they are also using those sight words correctly in their oral language.  The one-on-one time I eke out to read with each student gives me the perfect venue for checking progress on a number of skills.  Carving out that time isn't easy, but it's well worth the effort!

For more activity ideas that use connected text to teach new words to ELL students, check out Phonics They Use by Patricia Cunningham.

Happy reading,
Jacquie

Language Experience Approach and Dr. Seuss

In honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday, for the past two weeks my reading instruction has centered around texts my students created after repeated readings of The Sneetches, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, and Green Eggs and Ham.  I used the Language Experience Approach with students to create texts on their level that we could read and work with all week.  In their article, The Power of Language Experience for Cross-Cultural Reading and Writing, authors David Landis, Joanne Umolu and Sunday Mancha assert that LEA is "a means of providing interesting and relevant texts for diverse students' reading and writing."  I often use LEA when I want to introduce my students to rich literature that is too vocabulary dense to be an appropriate text for them to work with independently.

My kindergarten students listened to and (even during the first reading!) helped me read Green Eggs and Ham.  We used the book to study transportation and food vocabulary, most of which were new to my students.  Then, we wrote a very simple text together about foods we don't like to eat.  Every few lines, we threw in their favorite refrain, "I will not eat it here or there.  I will not eat it anywhere."  They gleefully shouted those lines when we came to them.  Using our Language Experience Approach-created text, students took turns tracking the words and performing the return sweep while reading.  We also used their text to practice counting words in a sentence and to identify words they knew using word swatters.  This was a quick way to take notes on which of my kindergarteners are still working on many of these Concepts About Print, and which have already mastered them.

In first grade, we read The Sneetches.  We're in the middle of a unit on friendship, so this book fit in nicely!  In addition to focusing on the theme of the book (not judging others by what's on the outside), we also wrote a summary of the book that we used as one of our texts this week.  Two of my first graders are still working on one to one matching and recognizing kindergarten sight words, so that was their focus with our word work this week.  My other students are working on r-controlled vowels and transition words like "First", "Next", "Then", so they worked with those skills.  Language Experience texts give teachers the opportunity to use one text to work with students at a variety of levels, which is very helpful in an ESL pull-out class setting.  We often have limited time (30-40 minutes) and multiple levels of language proficiency in our small groups, so being able to use one text to teach many skills makes better use of our precious time!

My second grade students also created a Language Experience text, but theirs was a different format.  Before I read And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, I explained to students that the story was about a boy who, when walking home from school, imagines all the wonderful things he could see.  We then made a list of all of the things they see on their bus ride home from school.  Once we made our list, I read them the book.  We discussed the differences between what the boy imagines he could see and what we really see on our way home each day.  The following day, I re-read the book.  We then made a list of the imagined sights along Mulberry Street.  The students then made lines to compare similar items in the lists.  We talked about why it's important to make connections while we read.  The students completed our book study by writing their own version of the book: And to Think That I Saw It on Walnut Street (our school's street name).  We published the stories and hung them in the hallway for our friends to read.

LEA gave my students the opportunity to work with great literature at their level.  By taking their ideas and thoughts about what we read together, I was able to correct grammar in a natural, conversational setting, encourage the use of new vocabulary, and demonstrate to students that their words and thoughts are worthy of study.  All in all, a fun and successful week using the Language Experience Approach to make Dr. Seuss's lovely literature accessible to my students learning English. 

Happy reading,
Jacquie

Assessing and Grouping ELL's for Guided Reading Instruction

Guided Reading, focused small group reading instruction, has become a staple of effective reading programs in schools all around the world.  In each of those schools, though, Guided Reading may be implemented in many different ways.  When I first learned to use Guided Reading, the component that was most stressed was that students should be reading the same book, out loud at the same time.  We were trained to tune our ears in to one student each day as he/she was reading aloud with the group and provide support as needed.  I taught for many years believing that Guided Reading was nothing more than a group of 3-5 students reading at the same time, at different paces, and sometimes at very different skill levels.  According to Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, experts on early literacy, this difference in reading proficiency among students is one of the main causes of concern for teachers trying to implement Guided Reading instruction.

Because of this, initial and ongoing assessment of students is essential.  Dr. Jan Richardson, in her book The Next Step in Guided Reading, gives several examples of assessments that can be done with readers at many different levels.  For students in grades kindergarten through second grade, Richardson recommends assessing letter identification, sight word reading, sentence dictation, and taking running records.  Running records are an integral component of Marie Clay's Reading Recovery Program.

When analyzing a running record, Richardson identifies six steps to include in the analysis (p. 41-47).  I found these to be extremely helpful:

• Step One: Determine the accuracy level
• Step Two: Analyze errors (structure vs. visual errors)
• Step Three: Analyze strategies
• Self-monitoring
• Cross-checking
• Self-correcting
• Step Four: Assess fluency (Words per minute, expression, attention to punctuation)
• Step Five: Assess comprehension
• Does the student substitute words that make sense?
• Does the student reread to confirm or repair meaning?
• Does the student read with expression?
• Can the student retell the main ideas and some details of the text?
• Step Six: Select a focus for instruction:
• Risk-taking (stop correcting the child; provide encouragement instead)
• Self-monitoring
• A caveat when working with ELL's: asking "What would sound right?" or "What would make sense?" (p. 43) may not be appropriate for students at intermediate or below English proficiency levels.  Students still learning English will not always be able to identify what sounds right or makes sense in what is still an unknown language.
• Decoding
• Fluency
• Oral retell
• Comprehension

So, what if your students are Transitional, Intermediate, or Fluent readers?  Richardson has assessment suggestions for those readers, as well (p. 49-53).  For Transitional readers, she includes a Word Study Inventory (p. 48) that I just started using with one of my second grade groups, and I love it!  In the inventory, the teacher dictates words with common phonics skills to the student and then plans word study based on the areas that need improvement.  For Transitional, Intermediate and Fluent readers, Richardson recommends the following assessments:

• Oral reading (running record)
• Retelling
• Comprehension questions
• Determining instructional reading level (student reads with 90% accuracy and 75-85% comprehension)
• Cpmprehension Interview

The above mentioned resources, and many others, can be found in the textbook or on Jan Richardson's website.  I highly recommend both!

For ELL's, Guided Reading can be very beneficial in not only improving reading and writing, but also for strengthening  listening and speaking skills.  When a teacher modifies Guided Reading instruction to include targeted vocabulary instruction (including any front-loading of background knowledge), attention to the structure of English, cultural relevance, academic language, as well as development of oral language, ELL's can make dramatic gains in reading comprehension.  In the article Modified Guided Reading: Gateway to English as a Second Language and Literacy Learning, the authors add an important element to the assessment and grouping piece of Guided Reading: the inclusion of English language proficiency level in forming small groups for reading instruction.

Preparing for Guided Reading by assessing and thoughtfully grouping students based not only on reading and writing skill assessments, but also language proficiency, is an important first step to successfully implementing Guided Reading instruction in the classroom.

Happy reading!
Jacquie

Oral Language Development and Reading Readiness

Marie Clay, expert on emergent literacy, emphasizes the importance of oral language skills in the development of reading readiness in young children.  In her book Becoming Literate, she writes, "Children who have been read to a great deal will already know, in some way, that the language of books is different from the language that they speak.  They will be developing 'an ear' for bookish or literary forms of language." (p. 28).   Children who are read to at home easily figure out that the pictures tell a story and can create a story based on pictures.  So, what do we do about children who have never heard a story read aloud until beginning kindergarten?

The majority of ELL's that I've worked with over the years have parents with little to no educational experience.  Many of them are illiterate in their own language, as well as in English. That leaves the important work of developing that early reading readiness to the children's first teachers.  Marie clay posits that "most difficulties in learning to read stem from inappropriate experiences rather than from impaired structures.  Unfortunately they are equally difficult to overcome." (p. 43).  As teachers of ELL's, we need then to step up our practice to include dedicated time spent creating meaningful opportunites for students to develop their oral language. 

Marie Clay has also researched school entry, which is a very different experience for non-English speaking children--whether immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants--from low-income families.  Many of their parents have little, if any, experience with school and so do not prepare their children for school the way that many "typical" US families do.  So the teacher must take each child's individual experiences prior to beginning school and build upon those so that all of the students have common experiences to share.  "Schools have created policies which exclude unready children from opportunities to learn to be ready.  Sometimes they are found to be unready to attend school; sometimes they are retained in a class where they did not learn in the hope that second time around something surprising will happen.  Schools demand from the child performances which the school itself should be developing." (p. 68)

So, what then do we do to build the oral language and early reading experiences children need to be successful readers?  For one, we know that awareness of rhyme and alliteration has a positive correlation to reading and spelling success.  Children who start school already knowing, for example, nursery rhymes, have a leg up on children who start school without this knowledge.  Poetry should be an integral part of our early instruction of ELL's who are learning to read.

There are many oral language development resources available for teachers and parents/caregivers.  Here are a couple that I found to be useful:

Tips on promoting oral language development with students:
http://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clds/files/early-childhood-resources/Promoting%20Oral%20Language%20Development.pdf

Fun oral language activities that promote reading readiness:
http://www.literacyconnections.com/OralLanguage.php

Happy reading!
Jacquie

Marie Clay's Theories and ELL's--First Post

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I'm beginning my Reading Endorsement at Otterbein University this semester.  One of our texts this semester is Becoming Literate by Marie Clay, the reading guru who created the Reading Recovery approach.   I've only read the Introduction and Chapter One so far, but several things have already struck me.  Clay mentions the multitude of research she has done on beginning reading which has informed her theory of what good readers do and how to help struggling readers.  On pages 11-13, Clay gives just brief summaries of some of her research, but I noticed the following similarity in her research: the children she studied are all English speaking (different dialects, but English speaking nonetheless) and appear to come from literate families, as she writes that "a group of co-operative mothers kept diary records of what literacy activities the children were producing at home" (pg. 11). 

I did a little extra checking.  Marie Clay does appear to have excluded ELL students in the Reading Recovery studies done outside of the United States.  However, when Reading Recovery was studied in Ohio schools, no children were excluded based on language difference.  I'm excited to read more about the study done through Ohio State University to see what, if any, conclusions were made about the effectiveness of Reading Recovery with ELL's. 

I also found links to fourteen other articles that studied Reading Recovery with ELL's on the What Works Clearinghouse site.  Unfortunately, because none of the studies had a comparison group, no conclusion could be drawn about the true effectiveness of the program with ELL's.  I still plan to read each of the articles, though, just to get as much information as I can.

As all of my students are ELL's, and most of them are the children of parents who never learned to read or write, I look at research studies through a different lens.  My experience learning to read as the daughter of college-educated, upper middle class white American parents is very different from the experience of my students.  So, while Clay recommends that "when we are reading about learning to read we can always check what authorities are claiming against what we are able to observe in our own behaviour as readers" (pg. 9), as a teacher of children whose background is very different from mine, I feel I need to also check what I read against the reading behaviors I see in my students.  As Clay says, instruction should start not where the teacher is, but where the student is (pg. 16).  I'm looking forward to learning more about how children develop literacy so that I can better help my students become strong readers and writers. 

Happy reading,
Jacquie

Two Interesting Articles

After almost a year's absence, I'm back to my blog!  I'm starting my Reading Endorsement at Otterbein University here in Ohio--I'm really excited about the classes I'll be taking!!  As part of the first class, I need to write a blog post every week, so this should get me into the habit of posting...(I hope!!)

Below are two articles that I posted for colleagues on Schoology.  If you haven't already checked out Schoology, I highly recommend it.  The site is very similar to Facebook.  School districts can get a district account so that all of its educators can be linked together for the ultimate professional collaboration experience!  Our district has even developed high school courses for students and professional development courses for teachers through Schoology.

This study was recently released.  It looks at technology's effectiveness in teaching ELL's. The focuses on a few different programs: RocketShip Education, HELP Math, ELLevation, Achieve Language, Voki, and the ESL program in Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. 


Good article about the challenges ELL's face having to learn English at the same time that CCSS are asking for students to master sophisticated language. It discusses the challenges, highlights initiatives and strategies to advance ELLs' language and content learning, and outlines how policy and practice must change to help ELLs graduate ready for college and a career.

Happy reading!
Jacquie

Boost Reading Skills With One Small Change

                                                         

An OSU study found that making one little change to reading aloud--referencing print--boosts children's reading skills later on. Interesting! Is this something you do when you read aloud to your students? your children?

InfOhio Resources

                          



InfOhio offers free Webinars that would be great to use with ESL students.

The live webinars are from 3:30-4:30, but each webinar is archived so you can view it anytime. A couple of interesting ones are:

• INFOhio - we're not just English anymore! Enrich, Enhance, and Extend Curriculum with New Digital Language Content
• The K-12 e-reader: Uniting students with e-reading devices
• How 2 Engage in 2.0 Tools.

Many others look good, too!  Enjoy!

Digital Literacy and Online Safety Resource

                                    


This site has great resources for teaching digital literacy & ethics/safety online. Curriculum is divided by grade levels: K-5, 6-8 and 9-12.

Common Sense Media offers this FREE Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum to help educators empower their students and their school communities to be safe, responsible, and savvy as they navigate this fast-paced digital world.

For ESL teachers, I think it is critical that we teach our parents and students how to safely navigate the internet as it may be completely unfamiliar territory for them--especially our newly arrived families and those from regions with little or no access to technology.

Autism and Somali Children

Minnesota researchers began an ongoing study into whether or not there is a higher incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Somali children.  With funding from the CDC, the National Institute on Health, and Autism Speaks, they began conducting the Somali Autism Surveillance study in July of 2011.  They are only studying children in public schools, which is a potentional serious limitation because many Somali students attend private schools.  Researchers also indicated that they've had issues getting access to medical records-- because parents are refusing access and the majority of the children who were born in Somalia have no medical records prior to entering the U.S.  Here is a link to the Minnesota study.

Also from Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Health created  Autism resources in Somali.

For those of you who work with Somali students, this information will hopefully serve as a starting point for important conversations.

Using 365 Projects to Promote Learning for ELL's

Many of my friends have gotten into a 365 Project or two, and while I've admired their work, I never considered doing one myself until today.  First of all, what is a 365 Project?  Usually, it is a "photo a day" project...an individual's documentation of daily events and memories, or a photographer's portfolio of great photos, day by day.  This idea has been expanded to include portfolios of different sounds, quotes and videos.  I've even seen a "Quilt a Day" project!

So, how could ESOL teachers use 365 Projects to facilitate language instruction?

• Teachers can use the "Photo a Day" idea to begin a collection of photos for vocabulary instruction.  How often do we look online for an existing photograph to use, only to settle (often hours later) for a photo that doesn't quite capture what we want to teach? 
• Create a teaching portfolio, using a photo or video clip of a great lesson you teach each day.  This is a great way to share teaching ideas with colleagues.
• "A Piece of Realia a Day"--Make a list of items you wish you had to teach core content concepts and vocabulary.  This list would, of course, be ongoing!  Every day, collect one item on the list to build up your collection.  As you find the items, you might also want to photograph them so you have a catalog of your items that is easy to access while you plan lessons.
• "A Word a Day" lessons are nothing new, but they can be updated for the 21st century!  Have students create an e-dictionary of social or academic vocabulary that they encounter daily.  They can use your 365 photo collection to illustrate their dictionaries!
• If your students have access to a digital camera, they can start their own "Photo a Day" projects.  This could be done individually, in a small group, or as a class.  Students can use their photos to inspire writing ideas.  Emergent level students could use their photos to participate in Shared Writing activities.

These are obviously just a very few of the ways a 365 Project could be used as a tool for language learning!

I'm starting my Vocabulary Photo a Day project tomorrow!

Book Study: Why Do ELL's Struggle With Reading?

Why Do ELL's Struggle With Reading? 

Distinguishing Language Acquisition From Learning Disabilities

Currently, I’m leading a book study in my district, using the book Why Do English Language Learners Struggle With Reading: Distinguishing language acquisition from learning disabilities (Edited by J.K. Klingner, J.J. Hoover & L.M. Baca).  The book is a good “anchor” for discussions about the similarities and important differences between students learning English and those with learning disabilities.  Each chapter is written by different authors, including the editors, and covers background necessary for developing an understanding of the process of learning English as well as how a learning disability might manifest itself during that process.

The first chapter gives background information on English language acquisition and learning disabilities, as well as statistics related to over and under-representation of minorities in Special Education programs.  The second chapter, which in my opinion is one of the more valuable chapters in the book, lists and describes eight common misconceptions about learning a second language.  Response to Intervention is the subject of chapters three and five, with an emphasis on how RTI should look for English Language Learners and how to use data to inform our decisions about students.  Chapter four focuses on helping classroom teachers distinguish between learning disabilities and language acquisition.  Chapter six covers special considerations when testing ELL’s for learning disabilities, including a section on using authentic assessment.  Finally, the last chapter brings it all together with practical applications.

Like I said earlier, I use this book as an “anchor”.  It is our starting point for discussions, but I’ve brought in other articles to expand on the information covered in the book.  I have the links to a few of those articles listed below.  Also, I’ve attached the study guide I created for the book study.  Why Do English Language Learners Struggle With Reading is a useful resource for both teachers and administrators who want to dig deeper into an ELL’s academic performance and understand more of the factors that lead to success for linguistically diverse students.

STUDY GUIDE:

Why Do ELL’s Struggle With Reading:

Distinguishing language acquisition from learning disability

Session One: Introduction and Chapter One

Background Information

Discussion Questions:

1.  A lot of statistics were thrown out in pages 5-8.  Were any of them surprising?

2.  Look at your students.  What percentage of them are LD?  ESL?  both LD and ESL?

3.  Do you think ELL’s in your school are over or under-represented in Special

     Education programs, or neither?

4.  What assessment does WCS use to identify students with LD?

5.  Are native language assessments available?  If they are, should they be used?  What are some pros and cons of using native language assessments?

6. Applications/ implications?

Session Two: Chapters 2 and 4

Misconceptions and helping classroom reading teachers

Discussion Questions:

1.  What do you think of the concept of “potential bilinguals”?  Is this different from the

     way ELL’s are viewed in your building?

2.  After reading about MacSwan’s 2004 research comparing three standardized Spanish assessments with natural language samples, did your opinions about using native language assessments change at all?  How and why?

3.  In Escamilla’s research findings, he refers to looking at some writing errors as signs

     of “emerging biliteracy.”  Is this valid?  Have you noticed native language

     interference in your students’ writing?

4.  Do you think it’s important for reading teachers to learn which sounds in a student’s

     native language do not exist in English in order to help the student with phonemic

     awareness?

5.  Do you agree with the assertion in Chapter 4 that teachers don’t spend much time

     teaching comprehension strategies to students?

6.  What are your thoughts on the motivation piece when it comes to learning how to

     read?  Could some of ELL’s lack of motivation be a response to an ineffective

     reading program?

7.  Respond: “Another way to think about this is not that the children have disabilities,

     but that they are in ‘disabling contexts’”.

8. Applications/ implications?

Session Three: Chapter 3

RTI and ELL’s

Discussion Questions:

1.  What does RTI look like at your building?

2.  How does ESL staff fit into the RTI model?

3.  Which, if any, of the challenges faced by Marble Mountain Elementary School are

     similar to challenges your school faces (or has faced) with implementing RTI?

4.  Is RTI in your building very different from the old IAT process?

5. Applications/ implications?

Session Four: Chapter 5

Data-driven decision making in RTI       

Discussion Questions:

1.  In this chapter, the author makes a definite distinction between learning disabilities and learning differences.  What were your thoughts on this distinction?  I have an article to share about this issue!

2.  Any thoughts on the chart showing similarities between cultural/ linguistic behaviors and suspected learning disabilities (Table 5.1 on page 79)?

3.  Are the interventions done in your building for RTI appropriate, evidence-based interventions?  How do you know?  Where could we look to find such interventions?

4.  What would non-discriminatory progress monitoring look like?

5.  In RTI meetings, does the team consider alternate reasons for suspected problems?

6. Applications/ implications?

Session Five: Chapter 6

Considerations when assessing ELL’s for SE

Discussion Questions:

1.  Do you think it is important to look at the linguistic appropriateness of standardized assessments used to determine LD in ELL’s?  Have you done this before?

2.  What assessments are used in WCS to determine whether or not an ELL has a LD?

3.  Do you use Classroom Based Assessment/Measurement in your classroom?  If yes, what is your experience with it?  Do you consider it valid and reliable?

4.  What are your thoughts on dynamic assessment?

5. Applications/ implications?

Session Six: Chapter 7

Putting the pieces together

Discussion Questions:

1.  What are your thoughts on the checklist of components for a successful learning environment for ELL’s?  Would you add anything to this list?

2.  Will you change anything you do after reading and discussing this text?  If yes, what would you change and why?  If no, why not?

Links to some additional resources:
Considerations in implementing intervention assistance teams with ELL's
Disproportionality in special education identification and placement of ELL's
Separating differences and disabilities: a powerpoint presentation from Cross Culture Ed
Separating difference and disablity by Catherine Collier

Happy reading!
Jacquie