Blog 7- ELL Running Record

I performed a running record for two students who are English Language Learners. One is a Spanish speaking and the other is from Nepal and speaks Nepalese. Both are in the 7^th grade. I used the Burns Roe Informal Reading Inventory and ended up using grade level 5 for the Spanish speaking student, and grade 1 for the student from Sudan based off of how long they have been in the country and their level of English proficiency.

The first student, whose primary language is Spanish, has been in the states since birth, but Spanish is the primary language spoken at home.  She did a good job on her passage and read 125 out of 131 words. She missed words that were in the higher level vocabulary range: demolished, wrecked, radiators. Two of the other words she missed were sigh words: to and our.

For the word demolished, she tried to sound out the beginning of the word, looked at me and then skipped the word. I would say that meaning interfered with her being able to understand the word. If she looked around at the context clues, she could have inferred what the word was based off of her background knowledge and the beginning sound.

Wrecked was pronounced /wreck-ed/. She made the word two syllables. This shows that the student is unfamiliar with the sounds that –ed makes. She needs to be taught all the sounds of –ed and when each sound takes place.

As far as the sight, I believe that she was going too fast and just overlooked the words and said them incorrectly. She said the words correct when she saw them in other parts of the passage.

The other student from Nepal has been in the states for less than one year. The  family are refugees from Nepal, and her parents died shortly after coming here. Currently she is in foster care, and has not consistently gone to school based on the fact that she has been transitioning from one home to another.

I gave this student the first grade passage and immediately it became clear that she had no idea what was being presented to her. It appears she has had very little instruction on reading English. This student only knew the words I and the. She had no other knowledge of the words.  I didn’t even make this students continue reading because the look that appeared on her face explained how she felt. After this testing I went and spoke to the ELL teacher at our school.  The teacher is only at school in the mornings for 50 minutes and then leaves to go to other schools. I asked if this student was receiving any phonics or phonemic awareness and she informed me no because of all the different levels of ELL students that are in the class. I hate to think that this student is not receiving the type of services that she needs. She needs to have direct systematic instruction in phonics and PA.  It is such a shame.

Blog 6 Learning vs. Acquisition

Learning (L) vs. Acquisition (A)	Activity – Students	Explanation
L	Look up words in dictionary to write definitions	Teachers want students to have an understanding of unknown words before reading a text. Sometimes this consists of giving words and finding the definitions in a dictionary (28)
A	Make a Venn diagram to compare two stories	The goal of this is to help students develop higher levels of reading proficiency (28)
L	Practice sounding out words	Student in the learning view apply their phonics skills to sound out new words.
L	Read in round-robin fashion	“Another practice consistent with a word recognition view is to have to have students read aloud on a regular basis…” (28)
L	Correct peers when they make a mistake during reading	During the round-robin reading, teachers and students correct peers or provide peers with unknown words (28)
L	Identify words on a big book page that start with the same sound	Students use their phonics knowledge to find words with the same sounds (25)
L	Group cards with classmates’ names by criterion on such as first or last latter	This goes along with the alphabetic principle that students would need to know in the learning view.
A	Write rhyming poetry and then discuss different spellings for the same sound	Teachers help students discover the different spelling patterns.
L	Ask the teacher how to spell any work you don’t know	If the teacher gives the student the spelling, it is the belief that it helps the student learn that word.
A	Read a language experience story they have created with the teacher	Teachers help create an authentic writing experience for children and then they help them express themselves (29)
A	Work in pairs to arrange words from a familiar chant into sentences	Giving students familiar words lets them practice developing the skills needed to create a message (29).
L	Divide words into syllables	Students learn to break words into their parts to identify them. They also follow phonics rules (25)
L	On a worksheet, draw a line from each word to the picture that starts with the same sound	Students use their phonics knowledge to find words with the same sounds (25)
L	Make alphabet books on different topics	Teachers want to students to practice skills with repeated exercises (34)

Learning (L) vs. Acquisition (A)	Teachers	Explanation
L	Preteaches vocabulary	Teachers want students to have an understanding of unknown words before reading a text.
A	Does a shared reading with a big book	Teachers from this view read with and to students (31).
L	Makes sure that students read only books that fit their level	Since teachers are teaching how to sound out and recode words, students must read books at their level, otherwise they would not be able identify words (24).
L	Have students segment words in  to phonemes	When students can apply phonics rules, they will in turn be able to pronounce the word and then add it to their vocabulary (27).
A	Writes words that students dictate for a story and has students help with spelling of words	This view argues that when students write something that is for others to read, they want to write something that follows conventions.
A/L	Asks students to look around the rooms and find words starting with a certain letter	Teachers from both views teach spelling to an extent. For the acquisition view, students get to choose words that they know from their background knowledge that match the same sound, and for the learning view students will apply their phonics skills to help decide on words.
L	Uses decodable text	Since teachers are teaching how to sound out and recode words, they need books that they can decode.
A	Sets aside time for SSR each day	Students need to read silently in order to reach the level of metacognition.
L/A	Teaches Latin and Green roots	The learning view explicitly teaches these, while the acquisition view sees it as a part of a system to help them understand words.
A	Has students meet in literature circles	In the acquisition group, teachers like to have students work in collaborative groups.
L	Conducts phonics drills	“Students do drills and exercises to practice language” (33)
A	Chooses predictable texts	To help make language comprehensible, teachers use books with predictable patterns (34)
A	Teaches students different comprehension strategies	To help make language comprehensible, the teacher might teach students techniques such as using “gestures, pictures, and real things or reading a book with a predictable pattern and clear pictures of key words” (34).
A	Does a picture walk of a new book	Teachers want students to be able to communicate even if they have not yet acquired the words/linguistic resources to do so (34)
L	Used a variety of worksheets to teach different skills	Teachers in this group want students to have practice with language with multiple exercises to reinforce the learning (34)

Blog Entry #5 - 2 Books to teach to ELL

Two beautiful books are listed below. For each book I outlined some possible problem areas/concerns that English Language Learners may happen upon. There are also some recommendations to help the students access the text.

The Magically Mysterious Adventures of Noelle the Bulldog

By: Gloria Estefan

1. Figurative language- "...came bounding together like a well-oiled machine."
• To teach this a teacher can talk about what a well-oiled machine is, show pictures of one and talk about how something can move like a machine even if it is not one.
2. Vocabulary words- distinguishing, beamed, mysterious, disappointed, joyous, delight, bounding.  
• Teachers should pre-teach vocabulary- this should include student drawing pictures, naming similes/antonyms, using the word in a sentence and adding the word to a vocabulary bank.
3. Complex sentence structure-"She wasn't that pretty, quite far from the best, with her brown brindle body and white-spotted chest."
• break the sentence into natural chunks for the student. Make sure they understand the meaning of punctuation.
4. Transition words- Then , but , since.
• When teaching transition word, the teacher should give the students sentences from the book that has these words on them. The student can then move and manipulate the sentence to move them where they belong and sequence them correctly.

The Hello, Goodbye Window

By: Norton Juster and Chris Raschka

1. Background Knowledge- Grandparents are called Nanna and Poppy. 
• To help students gain background knowledge, teachers can facilitate a KWL chart. Teachers can also link information with the students background knowledge from their own knowledge.
2. Story basis/fig language- The window looks like regular window, but it is not (It really is).
• This again links with building the students background knowledge. The teacher can create a window for the students and then they can act out what the little girl is doing. They can talk about imagination and how it plays a role into what this little girl is doing.
3. Vocabulary-harmonica, reflections.
• The teacher can actually bring in these items. She can being in the musical instrument and then she can bring in a mirror and talk about the words. Students can touch and listen to the harmonica and then look at themselves in the mirror and see their reflection.
4. Figurative language-"It works just like a mirror except it's not in the bathroom, and it looks like we're outside looking in." 
• The teacher can show he mirror she brought in and talk about the reflection that is seen in it and then she can take the students to look in a window and again talk about the reflection in it. Students can then compare the two and notice their similarities between them.

Douglas, E. (n.d.). Making reading passages comprehensible for English language learners. Making reading passages comprehensible for English language learners. Retrieved January 15, 2014, from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/811

Blog Entry #4 Decoding Unfamilar Texts

Putting myself in someone else's shoes was the objective today. French is a language that I am not familiar with so I began by searching online for text that was at the proficient level. After reading looking at this text the only thing that I could somewhat understand was that there was conversation going on, in which people were asking questions. I have no idea what the questions were about or who was even asking them. Truthfully just looking at the text and seeing that it was something that I could no read, I felt discouraged and gave up easily. Since this text was online I was able to transfer it into Bing translator. This is what the first paragraph translated into.

"Une femme s'agite dans l'artère infréquentée. Elle pénètre  dans sa voiture et s'en extirpe à plusieurs reprises.  Le surprenant agissement se met en place petit à petit. Lorsque la porte se referme bruyamment, un clebs se manifeste , s' ébat puis décampe. Inquiétés par le barouf, des groupes de volatiles s'éparpillent sur les toitures."

"A woman jiggles in the infrequentee artery. She gets into his car and was pulled on several occasions. The surprising action takes place gradually. When the door closes loudly, a cleb manifests, to frolic and peevish. Worried by the barouf, groups of birds scatter on the roofs."

This is definitely not a perfect translation, but at least I was able to make some sense of the text.

http://e-stories.org/read-stories.php?&sto=6085


The text that I was finally able to understand was Boucles d' or et les Trois Ouors (Goldie Locks and the Three Bears). THe only reason I was able to understand the text was because I was familaur with the story and the source provide some pictures to go along with it. Otherwise I would say that I probably would not have figured out what the text said. This website also provides that translation and it will read the text to you. LOVE that!

Here is the website:
http://www.thefrenchexperiment.com/stories/goldilocks/

Below is an exert from the website.

Il était une fois trois ours: un papa ours, une maman ours et un bébé ours. Ils habitaient tous ensemble dans une maison jaune au milieu d'une grande forêt. 

translation ▼

Once upon a time there were three bears: A father bear, a mother bear and a little bear. They lived all together in a yellow house in the middle of a big forest.

As a teacher I think it is often easy to forget how hard it is to learn and understand a new language. Teachers need to pre-teach vocabulary, build background knowledge and possibly provide some of the content(Vocab/key words) in the students native language to help them transfer and make connections to the text they are going to read. 

Strategies

translator
looking for cognates
pictures
oral presentation
looking at punctuation

Blog 3- Oral Language and the Reading Process

Oral language and reading go hand in hand. As soon as a child is born, they are exposed to oral language. This oral language can come in many different forms, and sometimes it may not come at all. From the time the child is born to at least age three, they need to have caregivers that talk to them, use higher level vocabulary, complex sentences, love them, play with them, respond to their needs, use rhymes and read books, in order for them to acquire the necessary oral language skills (Morrow, 2012) These children that receive this are at a huge advantage since oral language development is one of the building blocks to literacy.

When children are exposed to oral language, by being read aloud to, talked to or interacted with, they develop a knowledge of concepts about print, vocabulary and exposure to ideas not necessarily found in their circle (Morrow, 2012). This information transfers over to when they are in school and reading books. If a student’s oral language is developed, and then when they sound out words on a page, they will use their knowledge of oral language to make a connection to that word and its meaning. “Once students decode printed words, they recognize them as words from their oral language” (Freeman, Freeman, 2004). Children will also be able to make meaning of text because of their background knowledge.

Oral language is essential to the development of reading skills. Children who do not develop the appropriate oral language skill, generally enter school far behind their peers and will continue to fall farther and farther behind.

Freeman, D. E., & Freeman, Y. S. (2004).Essential linguistics: what you need to know to teach reading, ESL, spelling, phonics, and grammar. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Morrow, L. M. (2012). Literacy development in the early years: helping children read and write (7th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Blog 2: Learning View- My Experience

Reflecting back on my writing experiences I would say that it most likely corresponds to the Learning View: Traditional Writing Classroom. Throughout my education, especially in elementary school, I can remember writing instruction being very explicit. Sentences were broken down, structures were formed, and paragraphs and stories were gradually built upon. It was not an atmosphere where opportunities were provided to experiment with different forms of writing, instead it was very structured and set.

Looking back on the way I was taught to write is very similar to how I teach my students to write now. I am a special education teacher, and I have found that direct systematic instruction with feedback to very beneficial to my students. I also think that having a balance with the acquisition view to be beneficial. By combining both of the views it allows students to be creative while still receiving the explicit instruction. 

Freeman, D. E., & Freeman, Y. S. (2004).Essential linguistics: what you need to know to teach reading, ESL, spelling, phonics, and grammar. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Entry #1: Discuss with another teacher, his/her philosophies about teaching literacy.

The teacher I spoke with teaches 7^th grade ELA. We co-teach an inclusion class and this is her 13^th year of teaching. Rather than giving me some detailed speech, she was very straight forward about her approach to teaching literacy.

• Follow CAP
• Collaborative work
• Skills practice with no penalty (non-graded notebook)
• Focus on process-especially for writing
• One on one conferring for struggling kids
• Accessible high interest mentor/instructional texts at instructional level
• Have fun!

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