Learning Unit Week #5

My Experiences: In my role as the Reading Recovery Teacher and Title 1 Reading Teacher I
spend usually an hour a day working with ELL students. I would consider my experience
to be very limited with ELL students. The student that I work with are in kindergarten so
the time that I spend with them is helping them learn letters and sounds and helping them
learn to read. I have found though that creating an environment that is rich in
conversation goes a long way with these students. I have been amazed on how quickly
they are able to take on a new language.
For example two years ago I worked with a kindergartner who spoke no English at home.
He was the youngest child and his mother did everything for him. His classroom teacher
struggled all year trying to help him learn to be independent and be able to do things for
himself. In the classroom he would blurt out words to be silly and draw attention to
himself. We believe he did this because he was not able to comprehending all of the
classroom instruction. Retention was considered but I encourage the classroom teacher to
promote him and ensured her that he would work with me in first grade as a Reading
Recovery student. So last fall I began to work on-on-one with him as a Reading Recovery
Student. He only knew 2 sight words a & I, his name was the only word he could write,
but it was very difficult to read and he was not able to read a level on 1 text. After 20
weeks of lesson he was reading above grade level, was able to write more than 50 words
in ten minutes. The most exciting fact is that this that at the end of the school year he was
reading one grade level ahead. He was able to continue to grow as a reader in the
classroom without the one on one instruction. Within one school year he went from the
lowest student in his grade level to an above average student! Exposure to the written and
spoken English was instrumental in helping this student flourish.

Top Five List of Working with ELLs in Non-Fiction Literacy Instruction:

1. Cultural sensitivity- Teachers must be sensitive to linguistic differences in students and value
to language that is spoken in the home and the cultural differences in order to build relationship
with all of the students in the classroom. This will help the student to feel safe and secure in the
classroom as they are challenged daily to take risks in order to take on new learning. The ABCs
of Cultural Understanding and Communication from the Vacca reading could help with this.

2. Active teaching methods- Teachers need to involve student in all parts of the lesson: reading,
writing, listening, speaking and viewing behaviors. Students that take on an active role in the
lesson will be more engaged. A strategy that would support this type of teaching would be the
Guided reading of informational texts as mentioned in the Hoyt article.

3. Student Partnerships- students need to be given time to work with a partner on a new-
nonfiction text. This time allows them to talk and ask questions about the text. As mentioned in
the Hoyt article partner pairs is a great strategy that increases learner responsibility, provides
problem-solving opportunities while offering a lower level of stress for ELL students while the
English language becomes proficient.

4. Visuals- The more visual information that can be provided to ELL students the easier it is for
them to connect the new information (vocabulary) to prior knowledge and experiences. The
strategy from Hoyt of labeling pictures in books will help students.

5. Teach Vocabulary- From the article by Manyak and Bauer we learned of the importance of
vocabulary for the English Learner and that it is key to weave the rich vocabulary instruction
throughout the entire day. It is critical for ELL students to develop writing and reading
vocabulary that will allow them to be independent in the classroom. Word Splash is a great
strategy that can be used with any subject.

Strategy: The strategy that I can see myself using the most is the Talking Drawing Strategy. This
will be a great strategy to use with the kindergarten and low first grade student that I work with.
It will allow them to feel successful along with taking a risk to share what they know. I like that
it uses visual skills. Several of the students that I work with have short attention spans and find
listening to text being read to them (especially in the fall) to be a difficult challenge. I love that
this strategy will engage them and get them interested in the text quickly. I like the example text
that was used in the power point. I think that I would us it with science and pull out the different
books that I have related to the kindergarten curriculum, similar to the example. I am not sure
that I would need to make any adaptations to the lesson other than I think that I may need to help
the student with their labels, but I would allow them first to record any sounds that they hear and
are able to record by themselves. I also love that it includes sharing, this will help them develop
the orally skills needed to speak in front of others as well as allow them to start bonding with
peers in the small group setting. (This was written prior to my Strat Chat, my experience was
similar to what I expected.)