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.