keep ‘em reading. rita & john rita platt is a nationally board certified teacher. her...
TRANSCRIPT
Keep ‘Em Reading
Rita & John
• Rita Platt is a Nationally Board Certified teacher. Her experience includes teaching learners of all levels from kindergarten to graduate student. She currently is a Library Media & Reading Specialist for the St. Croix Falls SD in Wisconsin, teaches graduate courses for the Professional Development Institute, and consults with local school districts.
• John Wolfe is a teacher on special assignment for the Multilingual Department at the Minneapolis Public School District. He has worked with students at all levels as well as provided professional development to fellow teachers. His areas of expertise include English Language Learners, literacy, and integrated technology.
•[email protected]• [email protected] •http://www.weteachwelearn.org/tag/rita-platt/• http://mplsesl.wikispaces.com/Home+Page• @ritaplatt• @johnwolfe3rd
Relax … Everything (and more) is on The Wikihttp://www.mplsesl.wikispaces.com/
1. What’s the role of reading in
English Learners’academic success –
and failure?
Why Are There So Many Long-Term ELs in Secondary Schools? Adapted from Breaking through : effective instruction & assessment for reaching English learners [2012, edited by Margarita Calderón.
From teacher and student interviews, we found insufficient rigor in K-12 instruction to be one of the main reasons we have so many long-term ELs in the upper grades. English learners do not progress academically when:
1. Independent Reading. Teachers do most of the reading for ELs. If ELs rarely get to read during the early stages of language development, their exposure to academic language and subject matter concepts is delayed.
2. EL-Appropriate Texts. ELs do mostly independent or silent reading of books that have been leveled using formulas for mainstream readers. This often results in “pretend reading” and trying to guess content from pictures. ELs need explicit instruction on reading—specific to their range of needs.
3. 3,000 words/year Vocabulary Learning. Elementary schools are not teaching three thousand English words per year within the context of learning all subjects. There are too many silent classroom assignments and too few opportunities for interaction to practice vocabulary within oral discourse, reading, and writing.
4. Vocabulary NOT Tied to Literacy. Schools that do teach vocabulary teach it in isolation, without connections to reading, writing, and content learning. These schools have forgotten that vocabulary is only a means to learning to read, write cohesively, and master content concepts.
5. Pseudo-Writing. Writing consists of canned mini-workshops that water it down to meaningless guesswork. Writing needs to be developed in tandem with the vocabulary ELs are learning and the text they have been reading.
6. Urge to “Cover” Content. Secondary teachers are not accustomed to teaching vocabulary and discourse, reading, and writing strategies within their content areas. They feel an urgency to “cover” their content. (Ways of integrating language, literacy and content are suggested throughout this anthology.)
7. Impoverished L1 and L2 in Bilingual Programs. Bilingual programs keep students in the primary language throughout elementary grades without teaching sufficient English. Even in dual-language programs, there is insufficient rich language development in the home language (L1) and the dominant language of the society (L2). There are newer structures for organizing a balance of English and L1.
8. ESL Teachers Have Sole Responsibility for EL Success. Only one ESL teacher or a handful of bilingual teachers are held responsible for ELs. When all teachers and administrators participate in year-long learning focused on ELs, all students improve, not just ELs.
9. Isolated PD. Professional learning around EL instruction is reduced to a couple of teachers attending a workshop and then training other teachers in one- or two-hour sessions. Comprehensive training for all teachers, follow-up systematic coaching, and continuous learning about ELs in the school’s professional learning communities should be the goal in every school.
The authors in this book describe strategies, plans, and resources for addressing these issues….
Margarita CalderónJohns Hopkins University
Why aren’t they reading?
Why aren’t they reading?
Too
HarD!
Readable vs. Unreadable (Technical Definitions)
WIDA Standards
Data Tells Us …
A closer look at Factor #1
1. Independent Reading. Teachers do most of the reading for ELs. If ELs rarely get to read during the early stages of language development, their exposure to academic language and subject matter concepts is delayed.
The Solution: Content-Related, Level-Appropriate Reading Circles
Grade 7 Social Studies Standard:
7.4.4.19. Regional tensions around economic development, slavery, territorial expansion and governance resulted in a Civil War and a period of Reconstruction that led to the abolition of slavery, a more powerful federal government, a renewed push into indigenous nations’ territory and continuing conflict over racial relations. (Civil War and Reconstruction: 1850-1877)
The Textbook?
Page 278 My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now
resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed when I could be a slave in fact. I did not hesitate to let it be known of me, that the white man who expected to succeed in whipping, must also succeed in killing me.
Covey knew this and never laid a hand on Douglass again. Running Away Some slaves tried to escape by running away to freedom in the North. The
risks were enormous. Slaveholders hired professional slave catchers and their packs of howling bloodhounds to hunt down runaway slaves. If caught, a runaway risked being mauled by dogs, brutally whipped, or even killed. Still, Douglass and countless other slaves took the risk.
Slaves found many ways to escape bondage. Some walked to freedom in the North, hiding by day and traveling at night when they could follow the North Star. Others traveled north by boat or train, using forged identity cards and clever disguises to get past watchful slave patrols. A few runaways mailed themselves to freedom in boxes or coffins.
Thousands of runaways escaped to free states and to Canada with the help of the Underground Railroad, a secret network of free blacks and sympathetic whites. The members of the Underground Railroad provided transportation and ―safe houses‖ where runaways could hide. A number of guides, or ―conductors,‖ risked their lives to help escaping slaves travel the ―freedom train.‖ One of the most successful was Harriet Tubman. Having escaped slavery herself, Tubman courageously returned to the South more than a dozen times between 1850 and 1860, guiding more than 200 men, women, and children to freedom.
Rebellion At times, resistance erupted into violent rebellion. Slave revolts occurred in cities, on plantations, and even on ships at sea. Fear of slave uprisings haunted slaveholders. Planters, wrote one visitor to the South, ―never lie down to sleep without…loaded pistols at their sides.‖
In 1822 authorities in Charleston, South Carolina, learned that Denmark Vesey, a free black, was preparing to lead a sizable revolt of slaves. Vesey, along with more than 30 slaves, was arrested and hanged.
Nine years later, in 1831, a slave named Nat Turner led a bloody uprising in Virginia. Armed with axes and guns, Turner and his followers set out to kill every white person they could find. Before their reign of terror ended two days later, at least 57 people had been hacked to death.
Denmark Vesey‘s and Nat Turner‘s rebellions panicked white southerners. In response, southern states passed strict slave codes that tightened owners‘ control of their slaves and provided for harsher punishment of slaves by authorities. As one frightened Virginian remarked, ―A Nat Turner might be in any family.‖
http://www.online-utility.org/
Flesch Kinkaid Grade Level: 9.66
SMOG Level: 11.45
Keep ‘Em Reading
They can’t all read the textbook … but they can all read about slavery.
Grade Lvl 4
Grade Lvl 2
Grade Lvl 3.6
Reading Time: Students read together to support their literacy near peers…
Grade Lvl 4
Grade Lvl 2
Grade Lvl 3.6
Each text tells how
slaves were mistreated. Be ready to explain that.
Each text describes
how a slave resisted. Be
ready to explain that.
Discussion Time/Jigsaw. An “expert” from each group reports to a JIGSAW group.
Each member of the group takes notes on
what they hear … with the expectations
for notes differentiated by
literacy & language levels.
Benefits. Every students gets …
• a steady diet of “easy texts”
• daily success as a reader
• interactive support from near peers for reading comprehension
• an ideal situation for cooperative effort since comprehension problems will tend to be at or above each group member’s ZPD.
• experience reading in the history/social studies genre
• background and general knowledge about the time and topic being studied
• vocabulary development related to the topic
• a chance to speak about the reading and to listen to others talking about texts on the same topic
“Precision Teaching.” After the “non-fiction reading workshop” portion of the class, you do “precision teaching” using visuals, graphic organizers, etc.
From the “reading
workshop,” students
• develop vocabulary & background knowledge,
• become familiar with how texts are structured in a specific subject, and
• get the daily, successful reading that will drive their growth as readers.
From the “precision teaching,” students
• receive “comprehensible input” in the form of proficiency-appropriate teacher language combined with paraverbal support for understanding
• develop the key conceptual understandings identified by the curriculum standards
• exercise their brains
The Goal: To Share FIVE Resources To Help You Support ELL Academic Language Development by
Developing Resource Expertise
Resource 1: ReadingA-Z.com
We have a District license for this!
We paid $2,798 for the year (so you might as well use it all you can).
Use a Correlation Chart
Find a related book at an appropriate reading level.
For example,
• imagine you’ve got a kid in a Human Geography class.
• the class is reading from a grade-level textbook about the environments humans live in…
• the kid’s ELL Level 2, reading at around a 2nd (or even 3rd-grade) reading level …
Question: Could a scenario like this happen in MPS District?
Resource 2: www.edhelper.comThis costs either $20 a year or about $40 a year
… depending on whether you want the super-deluxe access (cp., the VIP Lounge)
or the pretty-good-but-every-so-often-you-feel-excluded-from-the-cool-stuff membership (cp., the Cinnabon counter)
Same Deal …
2.6 grade level
Information embedded in story format … so easier
Resource 3: Buy Books.
Ask your school/
librarian/ department
to order books to
support the content taught.
http://bookwizard.scholastic.com/tbw/homePage.do
Subject: Electricity
Resource 4: Your Librarian/Media Specialist
Resource 5: Think CERCA & NewsELA
Resource 5: Think CERCA & NewsELA
So … Is this ideal?
Is the kid participating in the lesson?
Is the kid doing school-type (informational) reading related to the lesson?
Is the kid reading at an i or i+1 reading level?
If he’s involved in constructing meaning from an information text, is the kid developing his academic literacy?
Can you follow-up with all the activating strategies?
From Language-Rich Classroom, Ch. 6
Pair share?
Quick write?
Quick draw?
Hold ups?
Networking session?
4 Corners?
Likert Scale?
Explain it to your neighbor?
Transparencies?