Reading Specialists Tutoring Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners by Barbara Steckel

8/8/2019 Reading Specialists Tutoring Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners by Barbara Steckel

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Through the Lens of a Video Camera: What Three Reading Specialist Interns Saw

and Heard as they Watched and Listened to Themselves Teaching Culturally and

Linguistically Diverse Students

And

How this Inquiry Helped me to Shape a Summer Clinical Experience

A. Introduction

The foreign-born population in the United States is increasing at a rapid rate. The

United States Census Bureau indicates that in the American foreign born reached the

greatest number in the history of the United States in 1990 (United States Census Bureau,

1993) and continued to increase by an additional 57% in the decade between 1990 and

2000 (as cited by Drucker, 2003). While the population of immigrants has grown,

relatively few classroom teachers report having adequate preparation to teach the sons

and daughters of immigrants, many having limited English language proficiency, and are

currently or will soon be populating classrooms throughout the United States ( (National

Center for Education Statistics, 2002a). A report to the Massachusetts legislature

(Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2009b) indicates

that 57, 000 English language learners are enrolled in Massachusetts public schools andare the lowest achieving subgroup based on state assessments, graduation rates, dropout

rates, and participation in special education programs.

Specialist teachers of reading are generally considered to be educators with

appropriate training and preparation to provide services to students performing at lower

levels than their peers due to limitations in literacy. Since a large and growing number of

students come from homes where English is not the primary language (August &

Shanahan, 2006) and, as such, require specialized instruction in reading and writing, it is

becoming increasingly important for reading specialists to be adequately trained with the

skills they need to meet the literacy needs of this growing population.

Many teacher education programs address principles of social equity literacy

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teaching to prepare teachers to serve all children, but little is known about how teachers

enact the practices that align with these principles once they become teachers (Kidd,

Lazar, & Steckel, 2010). This presentation focuses more specifically on learning how the

practicum experience of reading specialist candidates can strengthen the bridge between

theoretical principles of social equity teaching acquired throughout the program of study

and the application of these principles into their daily teaching practices.

B. Theoretical Perspective

Reading/literacy specialists are generally prepared with both theoretical

knowledge and practical applications for the development of literacy across the spectrum

from emerging literacy through comprehension of disciplinary content. Yet the specific

strategies and methods for applying these principles with students who are learningEnglish as a second language may not be applicable in precisely the same ways that have

proven to be successful with native English speakers. Several researchers have provided

comprehensive summaries of relevant principles of language acquisition, particularly for

second language learners. The following paragraphs provide a review of some of the

recurring themes in the literature and implications for practitioners.

Learning to read only happens once in life (Serpa & Lira, 2005). Building on this

notion, students who have accomplished reading in their first language may be able to

transfer the process of mapping phonemes, (language sounds) onto graphemes (printed

symbols): a process that defines early emergent reading across alphabetic languages.

Additionally, successful readers across alphabetic languages aspire to produce words,

phrases and sentences that are syntactically and semantically meaningful to them. Having

mastered these skills in a first language may serve as a bridge for aspiring language

learners to transfer these and other meta-linguistic skills, such as using cognates to access

information and support the comprehension of English text.

While there are many similarities between first and second language reading, It

would be a mistake to think that learning to read in a second language is simply a

mapping process during which the reader uses the same set of strategies in the same

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manner (Drucker, 2003, p. 22). The writing of Serpa and Lira (2005) certainly supports

this notion, emphasizing that putting best practices in place with students of limited

English proficiency will require, among other things, that classroom teachers and

specialists take into account a students level of first and second language proficiency as

well as the specific culture and background experiences that shape the way the individual

child reads the world.

With this in mind, learning a second language takes time. Social English is

achieved more rapidly than academic English, which can take from five to seven years in

the host country (Cummings, 1979) for students to reach the level of competence required

to learn academic content in a new language. Students who appear to have oral language

competency in a social setting, may be extremely limited in vocabulary knowledge andconsequently at a disadvantage for classroom learning.

Drawing from the report of the National Literacy Panel on Minority Children and

Youth (August and Shanahan, 2006) synthesize the results across relevant studies on best

practices for teaching language minority children. The authors make a distinction

between the achievement of minority language learners with regard to word level skills

such as decoding, word recognition and spelling; and text level skills, such as reading

comprehension and writing. Minority language learners, they argue, generally reach

levels of performance equal to those of native English speakers when it comes to word

level skills, but this is rarely the case for text level skills. Well developed oral proficiency

in the English language, including vocabulary development, listening comprehension,

and English syntactic skills are the foundation for gaining proficiency in English reading

and writing. Therefore literacy programs providing instructional support of oral language

development along with high quality literacy instruction in the key components of

reading are the most successful (p. 4).

The above review is intended to broach some of the recurring themes that may be

informative to teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse students. It is also intended

to serve as a theoretical backdrop for the question of how to improve the clinical

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internship experience to better support novice specialists as they prepare for the students

who will populate the classrooms of the future.

C. Methodology

Setting . In order to create a context for the project to be described, the unique

features of the university setting in which the project took place will be described briefly.

The Graduate School of Education is the largest of four schools that comprise the

university and offers opportunities for advanced study in many fields that lead to initial

and professional licenses, Masters degrees, Certificates of Advanced Graduate Study,

Ph.D.s, and Advanced Professional Certificates. Many of these degree programs are

offered on campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts with some offered in 23 states or online.

The project setting was a seven-week academic summer school program, jointly

coordinated by the University and city of Cambridge. It is within this summer program

setting that many of the Universitys elementary, special education, and reading specialist

interns choose to fulfill the practicum requirement for first or second licensure.

Participants. The participants in this project were graduate students who were

enrolled in the School of Education in the Specialist Teacher of Reading Program. The

participants were employed as full-time teachers ranging from kindergarten through

grade three during the academic year and attended classes on campus during evening and

afternoon sessions. At the time of this study the participants were completing their

practicum within the seven-week academic summer program during the summer of 2009.

This project focuses on the experiences of three of the interns in the group as each

of the three was tutoring a different English language learner who was preparing to enter

grade five during the following fall.

Methodological approach . This study combines two research methodologies. The

first, classroom inquiry (Hubbard and Powers, 2003) is the methodological approach used

by the three graduate students who were participants in this study. The inquiry process is

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viewed as the pathway from dilemma, to problem solving, to the empowerment of using

professional expertise. Educators frame a question, identify and try out solutions, collect,

and interpret their data, ultimately leading to an answer of relevance informative to daily

practice.

The second approach, the constant comparative approach of Goetz and

LeCompte, (1981) was used to analyze the data derived from graduate students and their

work with their tutees. According to this method, data are sorted into categories based

upon analysis of initial observations, compared across categories, and refined throughout

the collection process. By examining data produced by the graduate students emanating

from the documentation of their interactions with English language learners, it became

possible to for me to reflect on the practicum experience in general, and draw conclusions

about how it can be improved to better shape the experience of reading specialist interns

with regard to their work with learners of the English language.

Methodological procedures. Serving as the supervising practitioner and seminar

leader for seven interns, I was particularly intrigued by the notion of Sewell (2009)

regarding the use of videotapes to supplement the traditional supervision experience of

observation and feedback. The author argued that close viewing promoted a reflective

stance and enhanced the learning of novice teachers. Applying this to the summer practicum experience I believed that videotaped segments of instruction would serve as a

lens through which each of the interns could watch themselves (as well as the others) in

practice, and ultimately help each other to construct new insights about the student

learning that was taking place. The original inquiry was not specific to English language

learners since four of the seven interns were tutoring native speakers.

The group of seven interns discussed possible inquiry topics and decided they

wanted to learn more about the effectiveness of their practices with underachieving

readers and writers in general. As a group, the interns chose find out more about the

relationship, if any, between the nature of the questions they asked and the answers their

students provided during guided oral reading lessons and/or teacher read alouds. The

interns decided to pose a collaborative inquiry question: What do I learn about the types

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of questions I ask and the student responses they elicit when viewing videotape of my

instruction during a tutoring session?

With this in mind, the interns viewed and reflected on their videotaped

interactions with their case study student. They used the audio component of the

videotapes to transcribe their questions and their students answers. They studied the

transcriptions to seek patterns or trends that would allow them to draw conclusions about

question and answer relationships within the videotaped segment of instruction.

Since such a pressing subset of the training of specialist teachers of reading is the

development of English language literacy skills for a growing population of students with

limited proficiency, I decided to capture the opportunity to look closely at the data provided by the three interns who were tutoring English language learners. The rest of the

discussion, therefore, will feature the work of three interns with their respective students:

Youngseo, Ranjan and Sughanda, three culturally and linguistically diverse rising grade-

five students at varying levels of English language proficiency.

Data sources. The following data were helpful to the interns as they thought about

the responses of their students and were also helpful to me in my attempt to answer my

own question regarding the strengths and needs of the participating interns, and

ultimately, to learn more about how to enhance the clinical experience of future interns

with regard to teaching English language learners:

1. The Massachusetts English Proficiency Assessment (MEPA) scores that had been

obtained for two of the three students provided information about the level of

English language proficiency.

2. The case study assessment report provided a better understanding of the

instructional needs of the particular student. Each intern completed a case study

report for her tutee during the internship, which included assessment results and

instructional recommendations for the child they were tutoring. The reports

helped the interns to gather pertinent information about the student in area such

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as word identification, vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension, oral

language and writing proficiency.

3. The videotapes were approximately twelve to fifteen minutes in length and

provided a vivid picture of the language-based interactions between the intern

and the tutee. The videos were used as the data source for transcribing the

questions asked by the intern and answers provided by the student.

4. Lesson plans served to contextualize the videotaped segment within the sequence

of the activities of the forty-five minute tutoring session.

5. The transcriptions were analyzed for the questions or prompts that were and the

quality of the student responses.

6. The questionnaire was developed by the interns to help them draw conclusions

about the qualities of their questions and the student answers. The completedquestionnaires provided further insights into the interns reflections on practice

with regard to the English language learner she was tutoring.

Data analysis performed by the interns. The interns viewed and reflected upon

their videotaped instruction and on the performance of their tutee. They transcribed the

questions they asked and the answers provided by the student. They analyzed their

transcribed questions and placed them into categories: literal, inferential, or prompts

(prompts were defined as paraphrased questions or sub-questions to help the student

formulate a response). The interns used the questionnaire that they developed to reflect

on the relationship of their questions to the quality of student response.

Additional data analysis performed by me . Once the inquiry projects were

completed, I was able to analyze the overall quality of instruction by looking at the work

of each of the interns with her student, and comparing conclusions across the three

participants. This was accomplished by analyzing the relationship of the questions and

answers, viewing the videotapes, and by rereading the lesson plans. The interns case

study assessment reports and MEPA information also provided information about the

students level of language proficiency and created a context for evaluating instructional

practices. The questionnaires that the interns completed provided me with an

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understanding of their reflections on practice and what they felt they had learned from the

experience.

Categories were derived from the above data. The categories were defined by

examples of language enhancing instructional practices that were embedded within (or

absent from) each of the tutoring sessions. Looking across the three case studies would

make it possible for me to refine my understanding of the relative strengths and needs of

the interns by seeking more specific categories, such as the appropriateness of the

literature selections, whether the interns in general, were able to establish a culturally

relevant conceptual framework for comprehension, develop oral language, and extend

vocabulary. It was my overall goal to learn how to shape the practicum experience of the

interns by helping them to implement what they know about best practices in literacy,

while also acquiring the skills required to meet the special literacy needs of children whoare English language learners.

Limitations and strengths of the study. One limitation of the study may be that the

original purpose established by the larger group of interns was to determine what, if any,

relationship existed between the questions they asked and the answers their students

provided during guided oral reading lessons and/or teacher read alouds. They proceeded

to analyze their transcriptions with this purpose in mind. My purpose in looking across

these data was somewhat different; I was seeking examples of language enhancing

instructional practices that were embedded within the tutoring sessions.

Conversely, that the data were derived from the actual work of interns with their

students in a clinical setting may be considered a positive feature of the methodology.

Each intern was enacting a tutoring session targeted toward the instructional needs of her

tutee. In capturing their questions and student answers, they also captured the language

exchange or discourse that took place with their respective tutee during their session.

Therefore, I believe that the data were appropriately evaluated for both purposes: the

question and answer relationships as well as the presence or absence of language

enriching instructional practices.

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D. Findings

Youngseo . Is a Korean born child who arrived in the United States in February,

2009. Her family enrolled her in the six-week academic summer program beginning in

July. She was selected as a tutee because of her limited language and vocabulary and her

inability to comprehend books that she was reading. The summer classroom teacher

noted that Youngseo selected books that were below her grade level. Although she was

energetic in the one on one tutoring situation and made attempts to express herself, she

was unfocused and mostly silent in her classroom situation.

Her Massachusetts English Language Proficiency Assessment scores place her at

a level 2, a level at which a student can read and understand simple words and phrases,

and some simple sentences, demonstrate an awareness of some features of writtenEnglish and comprehend some simple below grade-level texts. Based on a comparison

with other students who have been in Massachusetts for one year or less, Younseo is

performing as well or better than most.

The case study assessment report completed by the intern revealed that Youngseo

was a fluent reader who could recognize many words in isolation. She was also skilled at

manipulating and identifying the phonetic aspects of language. Receptive vocabulary and

reading comprehension were her weakest areas. A reading attitude survey revealed a high

concept of self as a reader.

The videotaped instruction captured a segment of a shared reading of the book

Chesters Way by Kevin Henkes. Viewing the video revealed that at times Youngseo was

very engaged and particularly responsive to visual information such as pictures in the

text, but was also unfocused at times when the she was unable to follow the language of

the book during the read aloud. Analyzing the answers provided by Youngseo revealed

five correct out of twelve questions asked. The correct answers, whether inferential or

concrete were aided by the illustrations, which served to support the plot. The lesson plan

indicates that a written retelling of the beginning, middle, and end of the story was

conducted as a follow up activity. Table 1 below represents the questions and answers

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that were captured in the videotape during the tutoring session and transcribed by intern

#1. Table 2 represents the questionnaire used by the intern to guide her self-analysis. A

constructive evaluation of strengths and instructional limitation with regard to the

language needs of the tutee follows.

Table 1. Question Tracking Chart Used to record Interns Questions and Youngseos

Answers

Complete the chart by listing the questions you ask during the tutoring session and the

students responses

QUESTION RESPONSE TYPE OF QUESTION

Why do you think they saidthey were busy?

They were going to call and play.

Concrete

Why didnt they want to play? They were going to call. InferentialWhat do you think? No response PromptWhy are they hiding from her? They think it is scary. ConcreteWhy does she look scary? She is like a monster PromptWhat do you notice about the

cat?

It is Lilly Inferential

What did Lilly do? Where did

she go?

She surprised them. Concrete

Do you think they are going to

be friends?

They made another best friend Inferential

Why do you think so? They are going to be friends

and stay over each others

houses.

Inferential

What did she put on there? Sandwich ConcreteDid Chester, Lilly and Wilson

want to play with Victor?

They are going to run away? Inferential

Table 2. Inquiry Project Questionnaire answered completed by Intern #1

1. Reflect on the types of questions you asked your tutee. What types of

questions did you ask?

In the video snippet I asked twelve questions. Two of these questions were prompts. The remaining ten questions were divided evenly between inferential and concrete questions. My case study student is an English language learner.

I believe this affected the amount of concrete questions that I asked.

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Throughout the story I was trying to ascertain her understanding of the literal concepts in the text. By asking questions I was also modeling that it isimportant to think about the meaning of the story while reading.

2. Was there one type of question that seemed most effective based on the

accuracy of the students response?

Based on the students responses, concrete questions seemed to be most effective. She was able to answer most of the questions accurately using thetext for support. Based on her answers I was able to ascertain the studentsability to understand the vocabulary and concepts in the story. Thesequestions helped me to see the students deeper thinking. Upon analysis of her responses, however, one can see that the inferential piece of questioning wasmore difficult for this student. Her answers to these questions were short and

somewhat unfocused.

3. Now that you are aware of the types of questions you ask and the

student responses elicited will you do anything to change your practice

and future planning?

Asking good and thoughtful questions is a vital part of teaching effectivereading strategies. After watching this video, I realized the types of questionsasked vary with the student and the instruction that is needed. In the case of my video snippet, I was working with an English Language Learner. Thisnecessitated my questions to be a balance between literal and inferential. For this student the concrete questions needed to be asked to ascertainunderstanding. If my case study student were not an English language learner,the balance of questions asked may have been different. Reflecting on myself as an instructor gave me insight into how important it is to differentiate everyaspect of instruction based on student need. Something as simple as thequestions that one asks can have immeasurable benefits to a student when

Constructive Evaluation of Strengths and Needs of the Intern #1. While the text

chosen for the lesson is a well-loved selection for young children, the plot required too

many inferences for Youngseo to access without significant frontloading prior to the

shared reading. It is commendable that this intern comments on the need to move fluidly

between concrete and inferential questioning, and although she does state that she tried to

extend Youngseos understanding with inferential questioning, the self-analysis reveals

that the questions were primarily for the purpose of evaluation. One roadblock preventing

Youngeo from more accurate and elaborated answers to most of the questions is her

limited listening comprehension and her limited ability to articulate her thinking due to

lack of English vocabulary. The follow up written retelling was completed interactively,

and with the interns help, Youngseo was able to include some important events and

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express them in simple sentences.

A pre-reading activity using manipulative objects, such as stick puppets to

dramatize and talk about the plot as well for teaching and practicing related vocabulary

could potentially support comprehension and language development, helping Youngseo

to produce more expressive and accurate responses both in her oral answers and in the

written retelling that followed. Youngseos responses to illustrations provided a

particularly rich opportunity for using and extending oral language, an opportunity that

should be captured as she responds to other selections in the future. Also making a direct

connection to Youngseos own experiences coming to a new place and the challenge of

fitting in with other children who have different customs, games, and ways of doing

things might have helped her to better access the theme of the story.

Ranjan. This student has been attending school in Cambridge, Massachusetts for

two years since he and his family emigrated from Nepal. It was observed that Ranjan was

an enthusiastic and hardworking student with wonderful background knowledge that he

relied upon to help him with his language and comprehension of texts. He was selected to

become a case study student because he was about a year behind in his overall reading

level and would, therefore, benefit from individual tutoring on a daily basis.

The Massachusetts English Language Proficiency Assessment scores for the fall

of 2007 and the spring of 2008 (the last scores available) indicate a substantial

improvement from beginner into the intermediate category during his first year in the

country. Listening comprehension stands out as his strength, with writing and speaking

approaching expectations. Reading was his area of greatest need.

The case study assessment report completed by the intern revealed that Ranjan

was having particular difficulty with word identification, particularly with specific

orthographic patterns and with multisyllabic words in general. The intern notes that

building on and providing links to Ranjans background knowledge, pre-teaching

vocabulary to develop understanding of key content words, and helping Ranjan to

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understand and use non-fiction text features to enhance comprehension are critical

instructional needs as well.

The lesson plan included an activity to practice decoding multisyllabic words

containing /sion/ and /tion/ that were extracted from the text entitled Our West, to be used

in the guided oral reading activity that followed. The videotaped instruction captured a

segment of the guided oral reading featuring the hardships faced by pioneers as they

travelled west. Viewing the video revealed that, although he seemed to be struggling

during the brief oral reading that was captured on the tape, Ranjan was quite engaged

with the main ideas of the text regarding the decisions that were made by American

pioneers as they travelled west. His responses, ranging from simple yes or no answers to

fairly elaborate answers, were shaped by the way the questions were asked. Table 3represents the questions and answers that were captured in the videotape during the

tutoring session and transcribed by intern #2. Table 4 represents the questionnaire used

by the intern to guide the analysis of her questioning. A constructive evaluation of

strengths and instructional limitation with regard to the language needs of the tutee

follows.

Table 3. Question Tracking Chart Used to record Interns Questions and Ranjans

Answers

Question Response Type of QuestionWe can confirm our

predictions as we are reading.Do you remember what our

prediction was?

Yes Explicit

We did make a prediction thatthis was a Native Americanhelping the pioneers. Was our

prediction correct?

Yes Explicit

Do we know what salmon is? A fish ExplicitHow about venison? What doyou think?

Pause after first question.Ive heard of it. I know venom

Explicit

We read that pioneers facedsome big decisions. Whatwere some of these bigdecisions?

To cross rivers, take food andstuff, supplies out of wagons.The men would probablyswim and bring their cartsthrough. Unload the suppliesthrough the river and stuff.

Explicit

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Do you think it was difficult tomake these big decisions?How come?

YesBecause if wagon was like

pretty much heavy, and theriver was really deep thewagon would probably sink and they wouldnt have stuff and wouldnt have food.

Implicit

We also see this piece of paper on this page.What do you think this pieceof paper is?

Looks like sandpaper Maybe someone writing aletter

Implicit




I asked many questions to monitor Ranjans comprehension as he wasreading. The explicit questions that I asked elicited yes or no answers and could be easily pinpointed in the text we just read. I did not necessarily ask the student to describe why he chose yes or no. The questions that were not explicitly in the text and encouraged him to think past the written languagewere questions that helped him understand the text and the difficulties the

pioneers faced. These questions encouraged him to think critically about thehardships the pioneers faced. I also learned that I give many leads whenasking questions by questioning in a different way or narrowing the questiondown. If I had allowed the student to think over the question and allowed for more wait time, I think he could have come up with the response on his own.

2. Was there one type of question that seemed most efective based uponthe accuracy of the students response?

I noticed that the answers given by the student were most effective when I began by stating a sentence to build the students schema or background knowledge, then following up with a question. For example, I made the

statement: We read that pioneers faced some big decisions. Then I followed upwith the question: What were some of these big decisions? This type of questioning elicited the best responses.

3. Now that you are aware of the types of questions you ask and the

student responses elicited will you do anything to change your practice

and future planning?

I will certainly try to develop the students background knowledge. I think thishelped Ranjan develop a more detailed answer. I will also make sure that when I ask explicit questions, I try to delve deeper into the studentsunderstanding of the text by asking for more detail instead of accepting a yesor no answer.

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Constructive Evaluation of Strengths and Needs of the Intern #2. Ranjan lacks

oral reading fluency due to his challenges with word identification. It is commendable

that the case study report identifies the specific gaps in his knowledge of orthographic

patterns and structural analysis and you focus attention on these specific areas of need. In

addition, this student needs to read materials at a reading level that he can access more

easily in order to practice his word identification skills. Selecting a nonfiction piece for

Ranjan at level Q may have been too much of a challenge, but several supports were put

into place to help him. For example the intern read aloud to him when he was struggling

and provided support with vocabulary when it was clear that he needed it.

Other supports, such as pre-teaching the key vocabulary, particularly with this

content related selection, and helping Ranjan to create a framework for understanding thehistorical context and purpose for moving west would also have been beneficial. There

was a great opportunity to capture the personal similarity in his experiences moving to a

new country, and the decisions that his family had to make in the process. Reading aloud

and then having your student reread the same passage, or reading chorally; fading back

when he is reading smoothly, or joining in when he is faltering is another method for

providing scaffolding with a challenging text.

In the self-analysis the intern recognized that Ranjan relied on his existing schema

and therefore, she reiterated a point that had already been established in the text as a

prompt or platform for him to build upon as he attempted to construct his answer. His

most elaborate verbal responses came as a result of this technique of prefacing a question

with language from the text, and from another question that invited Ranjan to provide his

own interpretive insight.

Sughanda . Sughanda immigrated to Cambridge Massachusetts six years ago with

her family when she was four years old. She was selected for tutoring during the summer

of 2009 because the Cambridge Public School data indicated that she was approximately

one year below grade level expectations. Sughanda reports that she enjoyed the summer

program and has returned this year for the second time.

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Kite be a frog? a frog and they always wishedthey could make the frog fly.

Lets talk about what happenedwith the tea? What was going onwith the tea?

Well, um, Mrs. Chow said if astray tealeaf was in your cup, itmeant you have a boyfriend andMary Lewis was surprised that

she (Mrs. C) knew about Sammyin the fourth grade

Prompt

Did she really know aboutSammy?But

No, but she (ML) thought soUm, and ah, Mary Lewis hadntseen that kind of way of makingtea so she learned. Also she wasvery interested in it, so shewanted tea instead of juice.

Inferential

I was thinking about this sceneand the issue when Kelleennoticed Elaines rice at lunch.How was the way Mary Lewisreacted to not seeing tea inteabags different from the wayKeleen reacted? How that felt for Elaine?

She (ML) acted interested. Shedidnt act like Keleen, likegrossed out, I think. She actedvery interested and surprised.Keleen acted like she was grossedout by it. She thought it wasweird.

Inferential

So, Im thinking that Mary Lewiswas opened to new kinds of things and do you think Mrs.Chow felt comfortable explainingabout the tea?

She (Mrs. Chow) felt comfortableexplaining about the tea. Shedidnt feel uncomfortable becauseno one was saying it was weird.

Inferential




The majority of questions asked the student to use inferential thinking. Onlyone question could be regarded as soliciting literal information. Three pointswere also posed. However, overall, many questions were prefaced with myown thinking and the sense of exchange was more conversational thanquestion-and-answer. The conversational tone is most likely a product of

several sessions Sughanda and I spent exploring this narrative text. One of my practicum goals was to become comfortable with a comprehensionconversation rather than the comprehension check.

2. Was there one type of question that seemed most effective based upon the

accuracy of the students response?

Its difficult to rate the questions in terms of the students responses. As the

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conversation continued, Sughanda had so much to say. When transcribing theexchange, it is encouraging to see that she did so much of the talking. It alsoappeared that earlier in the exchange she needed to warm up, but soon did much elaborating. She may have been initially nervous with the videotaping.

As the conversation ensured, her responses to inferential questions were richwith detail, her own interpretation, and insightful thinking.

3. Now that you are aware of the type of questions you ask and the student responses

elicited will you do anything to change your practice and future planning?

When reflecting upon the types of questions and Sughandas responses, I fell fairly confident that the exchange encouraged her own interpretation of theevents. The question I am pondering is, What were my questions like at thebeginning of the Summer Compass Program? I am wondering about thisbecause it seems to me that Sughanda and I had a meaningful exchange, muchlike what happens in a book discussion group. But, how did we get to this

point? Did we both grow together? Was I able to recognize what she needed to engage fully in the literature and then further to express herself with

clarity?

I think it may have been helpful to have had some footage from an earlytutoring session to compare with this one. I have also been thinking a lot about my readings in the Fountas and Pinnell Teaching For Fluency and Comprehension. I think about where I am on the spectrum as the text presents

scenarios of different types of exchanges between teachers and students. I wasmost taken by the notion of a comprehension conversation vs.the typical comprehension check. I also feel strongly that we should expose students toquality literature where there is much to ponder and share. Insight into the

students thinking is truly evident when they are able to share their inferential insights. There have been occasions when a students response may seem

erroneous at face value, but may in fact, reflect original and insightful thinking.

Viewing the videotape and transcribing and analyzing the conversation wereworthy activities. Despite the limitations of the summer program in terms of time this inquiry project offered time to reflect on ones practice. The

perpetual cycle of reflection, exposure to new information. and exchangeswith students nourish the teaching soul and keeps it fresh and new. I will certainly try to develop the students background knowledge

Constructive Evaluation of Strengths and Needs of the Intern #3. The

conversational approach to this session captured an exemplification of effective

development of language and comprehension, precisely the area of relative need revealed

within the students literacy profile . The literature selection was certainly appropriate for

a fifth grade girl who could relate to the protagonists experiences of immigrating to a

new country. The intern provided impressive scaffolding by prefacing many questions

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with her own thinking, thereby providing a stepping stone upon which Sughanda could,

in turn, present her interpretive thinking. The intern makes the point that quality literature

(and in this case culturally relevant, quality literature) in addition to the conversational

format of the session served to stimulate original and insightful thinking on the part of

her student. In listening closely to the vocabulary of Sughandas responses, it seems that

there were times when she was grasping for words to express her ideas. For example,

when describing the process for making tea Sughanda said, that kind of way, and the

words grossed out and weird were used more than once. While these words are

typically pre-adolescent choices, substituting more precise vocabulary would serve to

build oral language and improve the overall quality of this students response.

In the self-analysis the intern also comments on the progression of tutoringsessions and wonders how the discourse patterns may have changed over time, allowing

tutor and tutee to fall into a conversational pattern.

E. Conclusions.

The students . There were similarities and differences with regard to the level of

English language proficiency and overall literacy profile of the students being tutored by

the interns participating in this study. It was advantageous to have three rising fifth

graders, all three of them having achieved literacy in their first language. At the time of

the study, Youngseo, from Korea, had been in the country for only four months.

According to her MEPA she was performing at a level 2, an impressive level compared

with other children who had been present in the state for one year or less. She was a

sojourner who would be returning to her home country after her parents completed the

work they were doing in Cambridge. Ranjan arrived from Nepal two years prior to the

study, and according to multiple measures had made substantial progress during that

time. Sughanda, also from Nepal, had been in Cambridge, Massachusetts for six years.

She told her tutor that she was a fluent speaker of both English and Napalese.

In terms of the literacy needs presented, it was interesting to look at three students

with very different overall profiles. Youngseo was skilled at the manipulation of English

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language phonemes and word decoding, but was understandably weakest in receptive

vocabulary, comprehension of language, as well as the ability to express herself using

oral language or writing. Ranjan, was very strong at listening to and comprehending

language, with his greatest area of need being recognition and pronunciation of specific

affixes, including those marking tense, and decoding multisyllabic words. Sughanda

demonstrated relative strength in word identification and demonstrated greater need in

language comprehension and overall fluency. Both Ranjan and Sughanda were

performing at approximately a year below grade level expectations, and as rising fifth

graders their limited vocabulary and challenges with comprehension of expository text

presented potential obstacles to their future academic success. All three of the students

enjoyed and profited from the benefits of the individualized tutoring provided by the

reading specialist interns during the 2009 summer practicum.

Scaffolds to support the development of language . The interns provided some

examples of supportive scaffolding to their English language learners. Illustrations in the

text served as a support for Youngseo who was unable to follow the language of the text

or the sequence of the plot during the shared reading. Re-reading to Ranjan helped him to

better understand the vocabulary of a challenging expository text. In spite of limitations

in her expressive vocabulary, an instructional conversation proved to be an excellent

scaffold for Sughanda and encouraged her to use language to express her interpretations

of a very appropriate selection of literature. It was clearly advantageous to move from a

question and answer format toward a more interactive conversational format. This

format, also called a comprehension conversation (Fountas & Pinnell, 2006), seemed to

elicit oral responses of greater quality, particularly in the case of the more advanced

language user, and promote opportunities for the teacher and student to co-construct

meaning.

For both Ranjan and Sughanda, the interns technique of prefacing a question

with a statement served to model language use, and seemed to help the student think

about and construct an answer. This was especially true in the case of Sughanda, but

present in a more limited way in one example with the work with Ranjan. Open-ended

questioning also resulted in relatively well-elaborated answers for Ranjan, as compared to

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the questions that could be answered with simple yes or no.

There were, in addition, some clear needs for scaffolding that were not present. In

two of the cases the need to create comprehensible input (Krashen, 1982) by building

background knowledge and pre-teaching vocabulary emerged as a theme. Having

selected the Lilly book by Kevin Henkes, more pre-reading work in the form of

vocabulary development, dramatization of plot, and connecting the theme of the story to

Youngseos experiences moving to a new country and making new friends would have

been appropriate scaffolds. Youngseo responded well to illustrations, creating an

opportunity to use and extend oral language. Ranjan struggled with the readability level

of the text, partially due to the expository text structures and with the vocabulary. As with

Youngseo, considerable frontloading would have served to scaffold Ranjanscomprehension and response. Pre-teaching the vocabulary, setting a conceptual

framework for westward expansion, and how establishing how his personal experiences

moving to a new country were similar to the experiences of the pioneers would have

been helpful for him.

In two out of three cases, the interns became aware of the potential limitations of

the materials they had selected for instruction. Youngseo might have been better able to

comprehend a nonfiction concept book, simplistically written yet presenting facts in a

mature and engaging fashion. Since Youngseo was interested in animals and the moon, a

selection with one of these topics with vivid illustrations would be advantageous for

future sessions.

As the interns reflected further on their work they provided some final

wonderings: How will Youngseos limited English proficiency affect her socially a she

enters the fifth grade? What are the most effective procedures for teaching vocabulary to

English language learners? How can the conversational tone be engaged in discussions

around nonfiction text?

F. Implications

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This inquiry identified the relative strengths and weaknesses within the

instructional practices of three talented reading specialist interns as they made their best

efforts to tutor students who were learners of the English language. Specific examples of

the scaffolding provided or needed to enhance comprehension and response may help

university supervisors, mentors and seminar leaders who are working with interns in a

clinical setting.

In many ways, these findings help me in my own struggle with how to make the

clinical experience a stronger bridge between knowledge of theory and its application to

the challenges of practice. For me, the question regarding how can we better prepare

mostly monolingual English speaking reading teachers to meet the challenge of teaching

literacy to children who are aspiring toward greater levels of English language proficiency may be folded into another pervasive question: How is good literacy teaching

of learners of the English language different from good literacy teaching in general?

The interns in this study applied what they knew about good practice, but in a

sense, we all needed to look at what they already knew through the lens of a video

camera in order to determine how greater attention to selecting and making personal

connections to literature, teaching vocabulary, and scaffolding response, for example,

could make a difference in the particular work they were doing with their English

language learners.

References

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Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority

Children and Youth , Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Calandra, B., Brantly-Dias, L., Lee, J., & Fox, D. (2009). Using video editing to

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cultivate novice teachers practice. Journal of Research on Technology in

Education, 42, 1, 73 - 93.

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interdependence, the optimum age question and some other matters. Working

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Drucker , M. J. (2003). What reading teachers should know about ESL learners. The

Reading Teacher, 57, 1, 22-29.

Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G., S. (2006). Teaching for Comprehending And Fluency:

Thinking, Talking, And Writing About Text . Majwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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reduction. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 12 , 51-70.

Hubbard, R., Powers, B., & Shagoury, R. (2003). Art Of Classroom Inquiry, Revised

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Kidd, J., Lazar, A., & Steckel, B. (2010). Novice Teachers Reflecting on Practice with

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preservice teacher-directed reflective conversations . Issues in Teacher Education,

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Serpa, M. de L, Lira, S. de A. (2005). Lesley University. Prepublication draft.

Documents

Reading Specialists Tutoring Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners by Barbara Steckel