Reading with English Reading with English Language LearnersLanguage Learners

Dr. Susan Rutledge, Ph.DCurriculum and Instruction in

TESOLwoyaoni@yahoo.com

“We learn language, we learn through language, and we learn

about language.” (Freeman & Freeman, 2004)

Empathy Exercise

• Close Your Eyes & Listen

• Song

• Open your eyes

• How do you feel? Let’s listen again!

• Now how do you feel? What made this experience different?

Attitudes/ Perceptions of Learners

Strategies

Theory/ Philosophy

READING

Who are ELL learners?

• ELL learners come from a variety of backgrounds– Spanish speakers

represent the largest number of ELL learners nation wide.

– Some are 1st generation, some are 2nd generation, and some are 3rd generation.

– They can be from a foreign country and they can be born in the U.S.

• They may or may not have an educational background.

• They may or may not be literate in their native language.

• They may or may not be able to write in their native language

English/ Second Language Reading is Complex

(Genesee, TESOL 2008)

Phonological processing abilities in

English Print Related abilities/

experiences in

EnglishBackground

Knowledge in English

Oral language abilities in

English

LITERACY IN NATIVE

LANGUAGE

What Can Teachers Do?

• Have a deep Understanding of English?– What does this mean?

• Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, & Pragmatics

• Understand First and Second Language Acquisition– First Language Stages– Second Language Stages

• Language is a moving Target (Levine, 2008)

• Social English– 1-3 years

• Academic English– 5-7 years

• Teaching any Subject requires teaching the language, vocabulary, and organizational structures

What Can Teachers Do?• Informed:

– Ask questions!!• Has the student gone

to school in his/ her home country?

• Is the student literate in his/ her native language?

• What is your student’s English proficiency?

• What does the proficiency test examine?

• Understand and utilize your ELL learner’s proficiency level to guide your instruction.– What is proficiency? “The

degree of skill with which a person can read, write, speak, or understand a language.” (Richards & Schmidt, 2002)

– How do you know your student’s proficiency level?

• ASK the English language learner teacher/ tutor

• Understand the Proficiency Assessment Used

• CAN DO Descriptors

What Can Teachers Do?

• Limited English Proficiency affects learning & assessment

• Not familiar to them culturally and linguistically

• Reading is a cognitive and socially constructed pursuit

• Incorporate students’ cultures– Multicultural Literature– Multicultural Video

• Compare English to the Student’s native language– Oral– Written

• Communicate clearly– Does not mean talking

loudly to student!!– Clear goals &

expectations

• Collaborative:– Work with the ELL

provider– Talk with the

parents!!!!!!!

Cultural Influences• Culture produces and develops background knowledge, words,

sentences, and text structures

• Spanish speaking students are accustomed to a phonetically stable alphabetic spelling in which each letter represents a sound

• English readers use less consistent letter and word cues to determine the meaning and the grammatical function of a word.

• The Chinese character system has no link between speech sounds and the written symbol.

• Reading directionality also varies among languages.– Languages such as English and Russian are read left to right, top

to bottom, while Arabic is read right to left.

• Making inferences, where students challenge or reinterpret text, is a critical reading comprehension skill for American readers, but is considered inappropriate and even disrespectful, in other cultures.

Oral Language• Classroom Talk is IMPORTANT!

– Multiple opportunities to talk with peers and teachers

• Primary source of information and language about the topics being discussed

• Learners internalize and use to express their own meanings.– adaptations may include speaking slowly, using short

sentences, paraphrasing the same message several different ways, and explaining word meanings.

– use gestures, pictures, and props to make meaning more clear.

• Teachers need to model how adults converse about books.

• Literacy requires large blocks of time for reading, but it also must provide for discussion, conversations, reflection, and revision (Allington & Cunningham, 2002).

Word Level• Word Study Activities Help

ESL students understand and use Academic Language– Content Specific

• Plasma, Square, – Other Vocabulary

• Directions, fill-in the blank,

• Factor, compare, similar• Words that have

multiple meanings such as wave

– Wave of immigrants vs. Ocean wave

Examples• Vocabulary

• Closed–Captioning Television– offers a novel experience for

students to interact with the spoken and printed word simultaneously.

• TPR helps the least proficient ELL students actively and physically understand vocabulary and concepts. – The idea is for the teacher to

choose words or concepts that are easily demonstrated physically such as commands, movement directions, prepositions, and body parts.

Whole Text• Paired Reading

– pairing a skilled reader with a less-skilled reader. – The skilled reader demonstrates appropriate reading rate, inflection,

and pausing for the less-skilled reader– The skilled reader in each pair reads the connected text first. Then the

less-skilled reader reads the same text– The less-skilled reader has a role model of fluent reading, as well as

repeated exposure to text

• Writing to Read: Gaining Knowledge from Texts– Helps meaning construction and comprehension– Formal writing such as personal narrative, comparison/contrast, and

expository compositions assist ELL students make deeper connections to their reading

• Allows students to analyze and synthesize texts– Think of your experience as an immigrant. Describe a special experience you

have had as an immigrant? Why was it special? What did that experience teach you about the immigrant experience in the U.S? Relate your experience to the section we read on immigration to the U.S.

CARS Content Area Reading Strategies

• Content Texts are Expository– What does this mean?

• Specific actions readers take to make meaning from text.– Reading is like a conversation between author and

reader. – Authors make decisions about how to effectively

communicate through a piece of writing. – Readers use specific strategies to help them

understand what authors are trying to communicate. • Before, During, and After Reading

– What are they?– Higher order Thinking Skills/ Questions

• Reading Strategy

Examples

• Dual Language Books

• Spelling City

• Sight Word Activities

• WordSift

• ESL Class Introduction

Why?National Statistics

• ELL students comprise the fastest growing K-12 population in the U.S. (Reeves, 2002; Karabanerick & Clemens-Noda, 2004)

• 10.3 % of K-12 population (Batalova, Fix, & Murray, 2006)

• 44% of 4th grade ELLs scored “below basic” in Math & 70% scored “below basic” in Reading (NCES, 2007)– 69% of 8th grade ELLs scored “below basic” in Math– 70% of 8th grade ELLs scored “below basic” in

Reading

Mississippi ELL stats

• ELL Population Approximately 1% of total student population– 75% free-reduced lunch– 6% special education– Number of years student has been an ELL

Less than 1 11.2% 1 year 18.3% 2 years 19.3% 3 or more years 29.2% Monitored 22.1%

• (Kasse, AMTESOL, 2008)

MississippiReading Achievement on the MCT (2005)

(Percent of Students Scoring Proficient or Advanced)

83

26

90

52

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Grade 4 Grade 8

LEPAll

(Kasse, AMTESOL 2008)

Conclusion• Remember to think of

the LANGUAGE first.

• words not only have direct and literal dictionary meanings, but also have affective meanings and connotative meanings

• Crawl, Walk, Run– Explain & Demonstrate– Practice– Perform

• Improvement in reading skills depends mostly on what students do with what they read; how they engage the text

Spasiba

THANK YOU!!!GRACIAS

XIE XIE

Doh-mo - ardei ga-toe

Kamsa hamnida

Resources• Colorin Colorado www.colorincolorado.com

• Mary Lou McCloskey www.mlmcc.com

• Chen & Mora-Flores, (2006). Balanced Literacy for English Language Learners, K-2.

• Bear, Helman, Templeton, Invernizzi, & Johnston, (2007). Words Their Way with English Language Learners: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction

Resources

• Smallwood & Haynes (2008). Singable books: sing and read your way to English proficiency. Center for Applied Linguistics

• Freeman & Freeman (2004). Essential Linguistics: What you need to know to teach reading, ESL, spelling, phonics, grammar.

• Balanced Reading http://www.balancedreading.com/secondlang.html

• Dual Language Books http://thornwood.peelschools.org/Dual/index.htm

Resources• Helman, L. & Burns, M. (2008). What does oral

language have to do with it? Helping young English language learners acquire a sight word vocabulary. Reading Teacher, 62(1), pp.14-19.

• Fry’s Word List: http://w4.nkcsd.k12.mo.us/~kcofer/fry_words_pg.htm

• Elementary Literacy http://knowledgeloom.org/practice_basedoc.jsp?t=1&bpid=1427&aspect=3&location=2&parentid=1426&bpinterid=1426&spotlightid=1393&testflag=yes#1

Resources

• Allington, R.L., & Cunningham, P. (2002). Schools that work (2nd ed.). New York: Longman.

• Mora, J.K. (1999) Using Multicultural Literature to Teach Reading Processes http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/MulticulturalLit/

• Hispanic American Images http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/professional-development/childlit/ChildrenLit/hispanic.html

Resources• Asian American Images

http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/professional-development/childlit/ChildrenLit/asian.html

• Word Sift: http://www.wordsift.com/

• Kasper, L.F. (1996). Writing to read: Enhancing ESL students’ reading proficiency through written response to text. TETYC

• Kinsella, K. (2006). Academic Vocabulary information.

Resources• Karabenick, S.A. & Clemens-Noda, P.A. (2004). Professional

development implications of teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward English language learners. Bilingual Research Journal, 28 (1), 55-75. Retrieved October 15, 2005, from http://brj.asu.edu/content/vol28_no1/art4.pdf

• Batalova, J., Fix, M., & Murray, J. (2007). Measures of change: The democracy and literacy of adolescent English learners -A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC:

Migration Policy Institute.

• Reeves, J. (2001). Secondary teachers’ attitudes and perceptions of inclusion of ESL students in mainstream classes. Doctoral dissertation. Dissertation International Abstracts, (UMI No. 3062322)

Resources

• Law and Eckes, (1995). Assessment and ESL: A Handbook for K-12 Teachers.

• Using Paired Reading To Help ESL Students Become Fluent And Accurate Readers Reading Improvement, Summer, 2001 by Daqi Li, Sandra Nes

• Capps, R., Fix, M., Murray, J., Ost, J., Passel, J. & Herwantoro, S. (2005). The new demography of America’s Schools: Immigration and the No Child Left Behind. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute