Sometimes I feel guilty because I trick my kiddos into thinking we're doing something fun, but it's a worksheet in a different format. Here's a little mini book featuring the gorgeous graphics of Krista Wallden that I use when I introduce verb agreement.
Click here and download the preview for your free mini-book!
Watch this short video if you don't know how to make these books.
K
This happened in the middle of a spelling test:
Me: The word is child.
Student A raises his hand and asks, "Were you a child?"
I reply, "Yes."
Student B shouts out, "A long, long time ago!"
Two longs? Ouch.
Kids always tell it like it is!
K
I'll be the first to admit, I had no idea what I was doing when I began teaching English as a Second Language students. Yes, I'm a highly qualified teacher, with degrees in Elementary Education and Curriculum and Instruction, as well as a Structured English Immersion endorsement from the state of Arizona, but none of that prepared me for taking on a third grade ELL classroom.
At first, I was lost. I was teaching typical third grade content, I knew I was delivering engaging lessons, but the content wasn't sticking with the students and my students weren't showing any progress. It was frustrating and it was difficult. The worst thing that can happen to a teacher is failing their students and that's what I was doing.
I decided that I needed to know more about learning a second language in order to present the content in a way that would allow my students to access it. My first big A-ha! was discovering that most of my students could decode, but didn't have any meaning behind the words they were reading, so I focused my effort on developing vocabulary. I researched vocabulary acquisition and I looked for strategies that would help my students increase their understanding of English.
Some of the things I learned helped me to change how I structured my lessons, how I presented concepts, and how my my students practiced their new vocabulary. Here are a few tips I keep in mind when I am developing lessons:
1. In order to develop a new vocabulary word, ELL students need to practice it anywhere from 16-250 times.
2. It is believed that both languages are stored in separate (language) systems within the brain, but connect in shared semantic (visual) representations.
3. Studies have shown that comprehension activities that embed vocabulary acquisition are often more effective than phonics based vocabulary acquisition.
Based on what I learned, I began to make changes in my classroom.
One of the first things I changed was my word wall. Prior to being an ELL teacher, my word wall consisted of what teachers sometimes call "no excuse" words. High frequency words that I expected my students to spell correctly in their everyday assignments. It was essentially a dictionary on the wall- almost completely useless, but I had put it up because it was a requirement by my principal.
Now, my word wall routines are completely different. I begin with a shared read: sometimes I read a story to my students, sometimes we listen to an audio recording, and sometimes we work in small groups to decode passages at our instructional level. Beginning with the words in context gives my students a place to begin making connections to the words. Also, I choose words that have a relationship to each other- synonyms, antonyms, or adjectives that can be used to describe specific nouns, etc.
Once we've discussed the target words in context, we place illustrated cards on the word wall. Using illustrated cards helps us to tap into those shared semantic memories. When I put the word duck on my word wall with an illustration, I'm hoping that the illustration connects to the word for duck in my students' home languages and their brain creates a connection between the two words. In addition, my students and I develop kinesthetic symbols for the words, adding a movement gives their brains one more piece to hook into and allows my students a simple way to coach their peers during vocabulary activities.
After placing the words on the word wall my students move on to one of their favorite activities- vocabulary illustration sheets. These are simply empty tables that contain the definition for the word. My students write the target word on the line and draw an illustration to develop meaning. Sometimes they illustrate events in the story and sometimes them draw their own understanding of the word. My students love to do gallery walks and look at how their peers illustrate the words.
Thanks for hanging out long enough to read this extremely long post. I hope you found some information that has been useful to you.
K
I began this blog as a way to share my thoughts as an experienced teacher that's been thrown into an entirely new world. I've spent the majority of my 18 years in second or third grade, focusing on increasing reading fluency, stamina, and comprehension. Until 3 years ago...
On the last day of school, my principal called me up to her office to tell me that I would be teaching the Structured English Immersion class the following year. In Arizona, highly qualified teachers were previously required to have an SEI endorsement, which I do, so I should be able to handle this, right?
Wrong!
I made an assumption that it would be the same as teaching third grade, I'd just have to add more visual aids, give more think time, throw out a few sentence frames... some minor tweaks, but basically the same curriculum.
I know you're laughing at me right now, I'm laughing at me too.
I quickly discovered that my students needed so much more. And I was overwhelmed, like a first year teacher who doesn't even know the things she doesn't know- O-VER-WHELMED.
To begin with, I had students reading at every level from prekindergarten to beginning fourth grade. Actually, I shouldn't say reading, I should say decoding.
In the past, once a student had unlocked the key to decoding words, building vocabulary and comprehension was the next step. I wouldn't have called them easy steps, but my English speaking students often had loads of background knowledge to draw upon.
With my ELL students, I learned that their decoding skills were great, in fact many of my monolingual students could read 60-90 words per minute, but that meant zero for comprehension. My students read English the same way I read Spanish. I can decode, but there's no meaning behind the words.
I realized that building vocabulary was the most vital step to allowing my students to comprehend what they were decoding, and so I began my journey as an SEI teacher with my first challenge, mastering the teaching of new vocabulary.
In my next post, I'll share some of the research and strategies I've used to increase vocabulary acquisition with my ELLs.
K
I want for my birthday an ice cream cake.
Don't you just love beginning writers?
K
I attended a training for our new reading program yesterday. There was actually a lot of good information, but I never leave a training feeling good- do you know what I mean?
I teach third grade, but my students are ELLs. Many (most) of my students can not decode at a level that allows them to read third grade level text with any semblance of fluency. Most of the students that can do not have enough English vocabulary to comprehend third grade texts.
My instinct is to spend more time on phonics with the kids who struggle to decode and more time building vocabulary for the others, but my district says I should be exposing them to third grade text and standards.
We do have a 90 minute intervention program where they learn at their independent level, although I'm dubious about the accuracy of their placements.
The solution I was offered today was to do more teacher read alouds and less student reading or to listen to the audio files of the text instead of asking the students to read them.
BUT at the end of the week, my kids are still supposed to take the third grade weekly assessment- how will that work? If they can't read the text, how will they be able to pass the assessment?
I know that listening to the text at least exposes them to more complex language and ideas and offers an opportunity for building vocabulary and background knowledge, but what is the purpose of giving the assessment? Doesn't that seem like a waste of instructional time?
At the end of the day, I want to know I did what was best for my students, but sometimes I'm not quite sure what that is.
Any thoughts?
K
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