Meaningful Homework

Meaningful homework is review and practice of skills that have already been learned in the classroom. Meaningful homework gives students the opportunity to apply learned skills in new situations at home and can also encourage self-discipline and responsibility for students (USDE, 2005). Homework is meaningful if students receive constructive feedback and if the homework targets a specific learning purpose for the student (USDE, 2005).

The intended homework objectives for students, particularly English Language Learners, should be to “practice or elaborate on what has been learned and to prepare for new information” (Hill, 2006).  Teachers need to clearly communicate expectations for homework so that students are aware of exactly what is expected of them. These expectations may be different from one student to another as teachers differentiate homework to make the content accessible for the student’s sate of language acquisition.

Meaningful, varied and specific feedback should be provided on homework assignments to make ELL students aware of what they are doing well and improvements they can make.  Feedback can come from the teacher, from fellow ELL students or from native English speaking students.

To overcome language barriers in home-school communication, teachers can encourage parents to engage with their children in their native languages. Parents can orally tell stories in their native language to develop language skills, “read” wordless picture books and make frequent trips to the library to help children develop a love of books (Colorn, 2007). Parents can also say rhymes and sing songs or simply engage in meaningful conversations with their students, requiring students to respond with more than one word answers (Colorn, 2007).   Educators can inform parents of the specific ways they can support their child’s learning at home by offering information sessions at school geared towards homework support. Teachers can also keep lines of communication open with parents, offering support and answering questions for parents.

Technology can support homework and independent work for ELL students because of the immediate, individualized and specific feedback that many programs, apps and websites offer for children. The interactive nature and guidance of the program can give students the enjoyable and motivating feelings of playing a game while also helping them to acquire their new language.  For instance, ABC Mouse is free for public educators and students can access their accounts from home.

 

Resources:

Colorín Colorado (2007). Empowering Hispanic Parents and Families at Home. Retrieved on 2/17/2015 from http://www.colorincolorado.org/educators/reachingout/empowering/.

Hill, Jane and Kathleen Flynn (2006). Classroom Instruction that works with English Language Learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

U.S. Department of Education (2005). Homework: The Basics. Retrieved on 2/17/2015 from http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/20469/.

 

Fiction and Nonfiction Texts

Kindergarten ELL readers must be explicitly taught how to differentiate between fiction and nonfiction texts to increase comprehension. However, age appropriate nonfiction texts for young readers do not always have the text features that more advanced nonfiction books may use, like an index, graphs, tables or charts. There are other features that can help students determine if a book is fact or fiction, such as the type of graphics or visuals, the author’s purpose (Did the author write this book to teach us facts about something?) and if the book has characters and a plot.

Below, I have illustrated the similarities and differences between a fiction book, Falling for Rapunzel (which by the way is a MUST read for Valentine’s day, the kids love this book!), and a nonfiction book Now I know: Animals at Night. I chose a “Box and T” graphic organizer to present this information because this is a graphic organizer that I use with kindergarten students quite frequently.  The box is for identifying similarities and the T illustrates differences. This is a useful way to get young kids visualizing similarities and differences and can be a stepping stone leading to the venn diagram.

	Differences:
Falling for Rapunzel By: Leah Wilcox		Now I know: Animals at Night By: Melvin and Gilda Berger
Fiction		Non-Fiction
-bright, vivid illustrations   -setting   -plot   -humor   -theme or a moral   -characters   -relationships between characters   -problem, solution		-fact boxes: “Did you know?”   -Images with captions   -Bubbles with zoomed-in pictures for kids to take a closer look   -glossary   -bold, italicized and underlined words   -interesting pictures of real animals

 

 

Similarities

-title page   -students can make connections to both genres   -print is organized left to right (concepts of print for younger students)

Visuals can help the students to determine whether they are reading fiction or nonfiction. If the student sees real pictures or graphs, tables or charts to help explain information, then those can be clues that the book is nonfiction. If the student sees things that are make believe, like a dinosaur wearing clothes, then they will know that they are reading fiction.

While reading nonfiction, utilizing the glossary for unfamiliar words in addition to reading the words in context can help ELL students to help to better understand vocabulary.  The glossary could even be used to pre-teach vocabulary prior to reading the text and then referred back to throughout the book. 

Humor and the moral of the story may be more difficult for younger students to grasp and the teacher may need to ask guiding questions to help them uncover humorous situations in the book and the moral of the story.

I have found that providing students with questions that they can ask themselves while reading independently to determine whether the book is fiction or nonfiction is helpful. I model thinking aloud the questions and their answers. It is important that the student uses more than one text feature to determine its genre, because sometimes books possess features from both. Here are a few example questions and thinking aloud that I might model for students…

“Does this book teach me facts? Nonfiction books teach me facts about a topic.”

“Does this book have characters? If the book has characters that have a problem, it might be fiction.”

“Why did the author write this? If they wrote the book to teach me about something it might be nonfiction.”

“What kind of pictures do I see? These are pictures from a camera of things in the real world. This might be a nonfiction book. Or do these look like make believe drawings or paintings? Then it might be a fiction book.”

Sheltering Lessons for English Language Learners

Sheltering a lesson plan can give English Language Learners the support that they need to access the same content as their English fluent peers.  It is important to keep in mind that while ELLs are learning a new language, they are also responsible for keeping up with content area learning as well. What may seem like a task that is way out of a student’s reach, can become a meaningful and beneficial learning experience with the addition of carefully planned sheltered instruction. Below are a few SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) strategies that teachers can use to increase comprehension for ELL students.

Prior to reading:

-explicitly explain both the content and language objectives: “our goal for today is _____.”

-preview vocabulary: write it on the board, read it aloud, give context, show pictures

-utilize a graphic organizer to encourage students to access prior knowledge

-ask guiding questions and give students time to discuss their answers in groups

-explicit instruction on reading strategies to increase comprehension

 

During reading:

-ask clarifying questions

-read aloud (either teacher or students) so that students can hear and see the words simultaneously

-slow and clear pronunciation

-remind students to utilize strategies

-model strategies within the text, “I do, we do, you do”

-repetition of vocabulary

-give students time to make connections and to process what they have just heard, seen or learned

 

After reading:

-review vocabulary

-provide students with opportunities to clarify misconceptions or ask questions

-give students time for discussion in groups

 

During sheltered instruction, the students should be engaged in reading, writing, listening and speaking, where they are both comprehending and producing language. Students should work in groups of peers where they can discuss ideas and share experiences.

Teachers must know their students and be familiar content area expectations in order to provide the appropriate amount and type of scaffolding to make content accessible and meaningful for the learner.

 

 

Resources:

Sheltered Literacy Lesson Video. Regis University. Retrieved on 2/2/2015.

Utilizing Running Records with ELLs

Running records are one of my favorite ways to assess students and to obtain usable information to guide further instruction. I appreciate how running records do not require extra materials and can literally just be done with the text, a piece of paper and a pencil! Running records do not take much time, however they can provide a quick snapshot of a student engaging in the reading process. This snapshot can then be used to identify weaknesses, or areas for future instruction, and also to identify strengths deserving of praise. This week, I administered running records to ELL students for the first time at Crossroads School.

The first student I worked with, M, is a native Spanish Speaker from Puerto Rico. This is his first year at Crossroads and he is considered a Level 1 ELL. He receives daily English instruction from the ELL specialist in a small group setting, where he is pulled out of his regular class. For M, I chose a DRA 3 book, In the Sky.  This nonfiction book is from the Journeys literacy program and discusses different things that can be seen in the sky in the day and the night. This book has 38 words and is 6 pages in length. It has color photographs to support each text and there is a window like photo around each picture. I introduced the text to M, and read him the title, then I asked him to read it aloud to me. He nodded and began reading. When he came to words he didn’t automatically recognize, he used his knowledge of phonics to say the sounds of the letters and blend them together.  As he read, I noticed that M’s eyes shifted back and forth from the picture to the words often. This tells me that he utilizes pictures for clues to the words.  He had 3 miscues, all substitutions, while reading and no self-corrections. Overall, he read at a 92% accuracy rate. He read:

Page 4:  Look at the cloud now.

Page 5: The cloud are in the sky.

 Page 6: Look at my window. What do you see?

Cloud was plural (clouds) in both sentences. “Look at the cloud” now is grammatically correct, however, “the cloud are in the sky” does not make sense grammatically. He kept the meaning of the sentence intact (M) and he read words that visually look almost identical to the actual words on the page (V). I would classify this error as a structural error (S), because changing a plural to a singular word here does not follow acceptable English Language rules and he did not recognize this or self-correct.  He also read, “Look at my window,” instead of, “look out my window.” The words at and out may look visually similar as they are both relatively short words ending in t and the substitution that he made still makes sense grammatically. His substitution of at for out, does however change the meaning. Looking at a window implies that the window is the focus, whereas looking out the window implies that whatever is on the other side of the window that is the area of focus. This substitution would be a meaning error.

Based on my analysis of his miscues, I was then able to provide him with two quick lessons before he returned to his class. Because M misread the word cloud twice, ignoring the ending, I briefly taught M about recognizing situations when he would see an s at the end or a word. If there is one cloud it is just a cloud, but when there are two or more they are clouds. I told him to keep an eye out for s at the end of words, because often that means that there are more than one.  The second quick lesson, was about self-monitoring. I turned to the page that said, “Look out the window. What do you see?”  We talked about how after talking about the sun, moon and stars, it wouldn’t make sense to say look at the window! This book is about things in the sky. When we read, it is important to stop and ask yourself, does that make sense? For future instruction, I model and give M opportunities to practice reading fluently. While he read accurately. His intonations were slightly off and almost every sentence sounded like a question.

The second student that I worked with, L, was also a first grader, but she is from France. Like M, she is a Level 1 ELL student and receives daily small group instruction as well. For her, I chose another book from the Journeys reading program, Snack Time. This nonfiction book is a DRA 3 with 50 words. This book features children enjoying food together during their snack time. There is a repetitive sentence pattern and the foods included in the book are bananas, apples, oranges and carrots. L read this book making 3 errors: two substitutions and one insertion. She read with a 94% accuracy rate. She reread two phrases, but made zero self-corrections.

While reading, L substituted the word “a” for “an,” for instance a orange and a apple. These substitutions did not affect the meaning of the sentence and the two words she interchanged do look visually similar. However, this substitution is a structural, or syntactic, error because words that begin with a vowel cannot be preceded with a in English, they must be preceded with the word an. L’s other miscue was an insertion, where she read, “she said that these carrots make a good snack.”  The text did not say these. This error did not interfere with meaning and the sentence she read was structurally acceptable, so this error was visual. Her voice did not correspond with the printed words in a 1 to 1 ratio. 

After her reading, I provided her with quick feedback and praise based on information from her assessment. First, I pointed out the word an on the page with the apples and asked her to say that word with me. I explained that an is a special word that only comes before words that begin with a vowel, a, e, i, o or u.   If the word is ant, you would say it is an ant. If the word is bear, it is a bear. Next, we went to the page with the carrots. I asked her to use her finger to point to the words as she reread that page. She reread it correctly and omitted the word “these” that she had added the first time. I explained that when we read, we must match our voices to the words on the page and we can’t add words that we do not see even if they make sense. For future instruction, similar to M, I would model fluency and provide L with opportunities to practice fluent reading. I may use rereading, partner reading and listening to audio recordings of books.

In my opinion, running records provide give quite a bit of “bang for your buck.” For teachers trying to maximize every minute of the school day, running records can give you a peek into a reader’s head in a very short amount of time. When administered properly and when the miscues are analyzed properly, running records can be a power tool to guide instruction for helping all students, including ELLs, become better readers.

 

Acquisition vs. Word Learning Views

After reading about the word recognition view of teaching reading and the acquisition, or sociopsycholinguisic view, I noticed that my approach to teaching literacy pulls strategies and activities from both views. When working with emergent readers, ELL students and students whose first language is English, I absolutely see the benefits of directly and specifically teaching sight words, phonics, and decoding. These skills and strategies give students different ways to identify words which can then increase comprehension of texts as a whole. I also think that the acquisition view's focus on making meaning makes sense. After all, isn't that why we read in the first place? To make meaning and understand what we read?  Pulling techniques from both views works for my students as they can use context clues and background knowledge (acquisition view) with phonics skills, sight words, and structural analysis to identify words and make meaning of what they are reading. Below is a list of activities from Freeman (2004), pg. 48, that I have identified as a word recognition activity or an activity that supports the acquisition view.

Student Activity	Learning/ Word Recognition	Acquisition/ sociopsycholinguistic	Reasoning
Look up words in the dictionary to write definitions	X		Vocabulary should be pretaught, according to the word recognition view. Preteaching vocabulary often “consists of defining words for students or giving students a list of words and having them look the words up and write definitions” (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 28)
Make a Venn diagram to compare two stories	X	X	Comprehension strategies, such as comparing and contrasting, are featured in both the word recognition view and the sociopsycholinguistic view as well.
Practice sounding out words	X		A primary learning strategy in the word recognition view is to “use phonics rules to sound out words and learn sight words” (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 25).
Read in round-robin fashion	X		A classroom practice consistent with the word recognition view is having students read aloud on a regular basis, sometimes in round-robin fashion (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 28). During round robins, or read alouds, the teacher or other students provide correction and feedback to the reader.
Correct peers when they make a mistake during reading	X		The word recognition view supports the belief that while reading aloud, giving a student a word or correcting a mistake helps the student to learn that word (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 28).
Identify words on a big book page that start with the same sound		X	Students are identifying words in the context of a big book. The Sociopsycholinguistic view of language acquisition supports “acquiring vocabulary by encountering words in context” (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 25).
Group cards with classmates’ names by a criterion on such as first of last letter	X		Working with words in isolation, such as names, aligns more with the word learning view.
Write rhyming poetry and then discuss different spellings for the same sound		X	The phonics lesson for this activity is embedded within rhyming poetry, which would fit with the sociopsycholinguistic view. Students learn the different spellings for the same sound as they encounter them in the poetry.
Ask the teacher how to spell any word they don’t know			This is not a strategy that aligns with either view. The sociopsycholinguistic view may not emphasize correctness of spelling, but rather would support writing that conveyed meaning. The word learning view might have writers use their knowledge of similar words and their knowledge of word structures to attempt the word followed by teacher correction.
Read a language experience story they have created with the teacher		X	Krashen suggests that when “people read texts that are comprehensible and interesting, they become more proficient readers and writers” (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 25).  Having created the story, it should be comprehensible and usually students find writing that they have created or that their peers have created to be interesting. This aligns with the sociopsycholinguistic view.
Work in pairs to arrange words from a familiar chant into sentences	X		With the sociopsycholinguisic view, students are not focused on identifying individual words (or arranging them), rather they are focused on constructing meaning (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 26). The word recognition view focuses on identifying individual words.
Divide words into syllables	X		The word recognition view may include this activity. Recognizing syllables may help students to deconstruct words into smaller pieces making them more manageable, or easier to read and pronounce (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 27).
On a worksheet, draw a line from each word to the picture that starts with the same sound	X		This activity sounds like a way to preteach vocabulary (or possibly a way to assess it), which aligns with the word recognition view because it is teaching phonics in isolation.

 

 

 

 

Teacher Action	Learning/ Word Recognition	Acquisition/ sociopsycholinguistic	Reasoning
Preteaches vocabulary	X		A classroom activity supported by the word recognition view is “learning the vocabulary in advance of reading” (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 25).
Does a shared reading with a big book	X	X
Makes sure that students read only books that fit their level	X	X	Both the word recognition view and the sociopsycholinguistic view support the idea that good readers understand what they read (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 25) Providing students with books at their level and slightly above their level will increase achievement.
Has students segment words into phonemes	X		With the learned view of reading, “readers learn a set of skills that allows them to make a connection between the black marks on the page and word in their oral vocabulary” (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 24). Students must learn how to blend and segment to pronounce and identify words.
Writes words the students dictate for a story and has students help with the spelling of difficult words		X	The student focus is on meaning as they dictate, the teacher then translates spoken words to written words on the page. The sociopsycholinguistic view focuses on meaning within context.
Asks students to look around the room and find words starting with a certain letter	X		Looking around the room for word that begin with one letter does not directly help students to better understand a text. It will however improve phonics skills and decoding abilities for students while they are reading. This aligns with the word recognition view.
Uses decodable texts	X		The word recognition view focuses on the students abilities to decode, or rather, “recode,” words on a page into words in their vocabulary through the use of phonics (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 26).
Sets aside time for SSR (sustained silent reading) each day		X	With the sociopsycholinguistic view of language acquisition, students “read silently using strategies the teacher has helped students internalize to construct meaning from a text” (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 25).
Teaches Latin and Greek roots	X		With the learned word view, students may use structural analysis to identify words, or their knowledge of Latin and Greek roots (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 25).
Chooses predictable texts		X	With the sociopsycholinguistic view, teachers may utilize familiar story patterns or predictable texts to encourage students to make and check predictions and also to increase their understanding of the texts.
Teaches students different comprehension strategies	X	X	Both views support different comprehension strategies. Comprehension is the ultimate purpose of reading.
Does a picture walk of a new book		X	To construct meaning according to the sociopsycholinguistics view, students “go through a process of sampling the text, predicting what will come next, filling in unstated information by inferring, confirming or disconfirming their predictions, and integrating the new information into what they already know” (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, pg. 26).  Picture walks give students the chance to preview, or sample, the text, while making predictions and activating schema.
Uses a variety of worksheets to teach different skills	X		Worksheets align more with the word recognition view. The sociopsycholinguistic view would support texts, instead of worksheets,as primary teaching tools so that the students learn words as they encounter them.

 

 Resources:

Freeman, David and Yvonne Freeman (2004). Essential Linguistics. Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann Publishing.