Helping ELLs

Synthesis:

Hinchman and Sheridan-Thomas:

This week's text discussed how we can make content-area concepts understandable for English Language Learners and students who are struggling with the language. The text also mentioned another term, EALs, which means that these students are learning English as an additional language. As teachers, we need to focus on a student's progress and academic achievement, rather than only their lack of English knowledge. Hinchman and Sheridan-Thomas discuss several strategies that teachers can use in the classroom to help their students improve their English while also improving their content knowledge:

• deconstructing "juicy sentences" 
• helps students to understand sentence structures 
• text annotations 
• can support text comprehension and gives students an opportunity to think about their thinking while reading 
• discussion in the classroom 
• students can use and hear academic language and can share their thinking and knowledge 
• this classroom talk needs to be focused, planned, and scaffolded for students to receive the most benefit 
• written journaling and assignments 
• students can think about and question content and use academic language to show learning 
• active, rather than passive learning 
• allow students to be an active part of the learning process 

Garcia and Godina:

It can be very difficult for a student to transition into an English-speaking classroom environment. There are many barriers that can keep ELLs from excelling in school. Sometimes these students may have other responsibilities at home or some may not have much help from their parents due to work commitments. This text focuses on how teachers can foster and support ELL learning. Many ELLs need scaffolding and teachers need to implement strategies to support their academic achievement. The article offers suggestions for teachers who are working to meet the needs of their ELL students. Districts and schools should offer teacher and staff development to give tips and strategies that can be geared towards ELLs.

• Teach students to make connections between cognates (for example - delicious in English is delicioso in Spanish) to boost comprehension 
• Integrate students sociocultural knowledge into lessons and assignments 
• Give students opportunities to show knowledge in their native language 
• Continue to foster the development of the native language 
• Design lessons that give students the chance to read, write, speak and listen 
• Writing instruction should allow students to create multiple drafts and revise
• Include the option for student choice with reading and writing 

Responses:

(text to self)

In Hinchman and Sheridan-Thomas text, writing is addressed as an important way for students to demonstrate their knowledge and express their thoughts. This reminded me of this very thing that we do each week - blogging. I have found this blog to be a great way that I can process the information from the text and also learn from others. Responding to reading and reading the writing of others is a great activity that should happen in the classroom.

(text to text)

This week's texts connect directly to another class I am currently taking - Culture, Language, and Literacy. We discuss how a child's native language and cultural background affects them in the classroom and how we as teachers can best assist them. I designed a website with a partner (Brandy Walters) that has strategies for teachers to use in their multicultural classroom.

http://brandywalters.wix.com/how-to-thrive-4-5

(text to world)

I think that these texts were some of the most relevant that we have read this semester to the current situation in many schools today. Schools are continuing to become more diverse, and it is more important than ever to know strategies that we can use to help and support ELLs in our classroom.

Questions:

1.  What are some of the best strategies to motivate ELLs?

2.  How can you get parents of ELLs involved in the classroom and overcome the language barrier?

Helping Struggling Readers

Synthesis:

Hinchman and Sheridan-Thomas:

Chapter 5 discusses the importance of understanding the reading identities of the students in our classroom. Students often get stuck in categories: good readers, average readers, or poor readers. This can affect the way that students are treated in the classroom by teachers and peers, and this reading identity can also affect how students see themselves. "How students understand themselves as readers plays a significant role in their reading development" (Page 85). The goal is for all of our students to have positive reading identities. Positive reading identities will likely motivate students in the classroom and encourage them to participate in discussions. The text offered suggestions for teachers to use in their classroom to help students improve their view of themselves as readers:

• Learn how students identify themselves as readers and how they would like to improve 
• We need to ask students questions or ask them to provide written responses about their reading abilities.
• Create instruction that works to achieve the goals the students have for themselves and the goals we have for them 
• Celebrate and tackle reading struggles head-on in the classroom 
• Students should know that comprehension difficulties are a usual part of reading and nothing to be embarrassed about.
• Have classroom discussions about reading difficulties and how students could work through them 
• Students can put these strategies in practice and share what they learned in a future discussion.

Chapter 15 focuses on how to help students comprehend textbooks. It is no secret that textbooks can provide some difficulties for students when it comes to reading and taking meaning from them. "Adolescents themselves describe textbook reading as "just hard and really boring"" (Page 267). Many students are not motivated by textbook reading because they do not know effective strategies to comprehend the often dense text. They also do not understand a deeper purpose to the reading other than reading for a grade. The text offered strategies for teachers to help these students gain meaning from textbooks:

• Involve students in prereading activities 
• Ask students questions to get them thinking and motivate them to dive into the reading 
• Anticipation guide 
• Problem posing 
• Provide a pop culture bridge 
• Teachers can find a "text twin" such as a newspaper, magazine, or online article that relates to the textbook 
• Invite students to read critically 
• Students think about points of view and possible errors in textbooks 
• Embedded strategy instruction 
• Teachers make teaching reading strategies for understanding texts a part of the normal content instruction 
• Students need to know when to apply strategies and when to use them 
• Explicit strategy instruction 
• Strategies for comprehending vocabulary and text features 
• Teachers guide the use of these strategies and reinforce them often. 

Chapter 18 discusses how we can use differentiated instruction to help our students who struggle. Differentiated instruction means that we as teachers need to vary our instruction depending on the student to help meet their academic needs. This requires specific planning and a clear sense of the learning goals. Strategies were provided for teachers: 

• Multiple Intelligences: 
• Teachers focus on student's strengths and design instruction to best benefit them. Some students may respond best to reading or listening, some with visuals, or some with moving or acting. 
• Universal Design for Learning: 
• Teachers design their lessons around technology and media to meet all students learning styles and needs in one lesson. Students interact with lessons and texts in multiple ways - listening, reading, writing, and viewing. 
• Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol: 
• Teachers use explicit instruction and provide scaffolding to students to help all students understand content. This model is helpful to ELL students who have a limited English proficiency. 

Fisher and Frey:

This article discussed strategies for struggling readers when it comes to writing. The authors took on a journey with a ninth grade class. Throughout the semester, the instruction shifted from teacher-controlled to student-directed. At the beginning, the class took on the Language Experience Approach - students would share their thoughts on a topic, the teacher would write it on the board, and the students would copy the writing in their notebooks and add their own writing. The class also used Interactive Writing. The students take more of the responsibility with this strategy; the students write the words on the board and it is repeated by the class. Writing models was another strategy that was used - using existing writing to help students with new writing. The students gradually moved to independent writing.

Responses:

(text to self)
I wish I had more teachers who worked to make reading more motivating. Especially textbook reading can be very disinteresting in high school. I love the idea of working to make the text interesting and motivating students to want to read and learn.

(text to text)
Chapter 15 discussed explicit strategy instruction. This was discussed heavily when we talked about different types of disciplinary texts.

(text to world)
I think that child "labels" are a big problem in today's schools. We put children into categories in what they can and cannot do. I really enjoyed the section about improving students' reading identities. It makes a big difference to encourage students and not limit them.

Questions:
What technology do you use to differentiate instruction?

Do you ever discuss pop culture in your classroom by using a "pop culture bridge"?

Thanks :)