Rich Language Learning

"Talking with students is critical to what they learn. How we respond and what we say not only helps (or fails to help) their academic learning, it also constructs them as learners in particular ways"(page 131). In Chapter 7 there are many examples and strategies for teacher-student and student-student interactions and ways to promote interactive literacy in the classroom. This chapter also discusses ways to properly communicate with EL learners, and all other students, in a way that is not going to cut them down, but bring them up and make them feel more confident in themselves and their learning.

Teacher-student talk is critical to student success. There are five ways to make sure that teachers are being supportive to their EL learners:

1. Extending teacher-student exchanges- teacher initiates a question, a student responds, the teacher gives positive feedback on he student's response, there needs to be increased opportunities for the student to participate.
2. Giving students time to think- teachers need to give students wait time. The teacher asks a question and allows the students 30 seconds of thinking time before calling on a student to answer. You can also allow students to pair up and discuss their answers before asking a student to share.
3. Approaching and recasting student language- use something that is familiar to students in their every day lives as a base to develop thinking and language. Student language is used as a basis for modeling new language.
4. Encouraging literate talk- give learners opportunities to use the kind of spoken language that is closer to written language and provide them with a chance to rehearse more complete and explicit language by talking with others.
5. Making reasoning explicit- we want to help students learn to think and reason and solve problems and emphasize the need to make thinking visible.

Student-student talk is also important to student success. Group work provides and environment where students who are less confident are more comfortable, interact with other students, take turns, take on more responsibility for understanding the material. There are many strategies to get students more involved in their learning and communicating more with one another. When different groups or pairs of students hold different information, they must share in order to complete tasks and assignments. The following strategies do just that.

• Thinking sheets- provide overall structure and purpose for students to solve problems together, students make their own ideas heard, encourage conversations, students have a chance to engage in meaningful conversation, and provide scaffolding for following activities.
• Jigsaw groups- in groups of 4-5, students research one aspect of a topic, later the class is split up into new groups (1 person from each of the original groups) and each student shares the information that they learned while the others take notes. In the end all students should have the whole picture and be able to complete the assignment. 
• Paired problem solving- two pairs of students solve one of two problems, the pairs cross question each other to solve the problem.
• Find the difference- two pictures that are almost identical, with a few minor differences, students sit back to back and examine and ask each other questions about the others pictures until all the differences are found.
• Picture sequencing- students work in groups, students describe the picture they have in hand and the groups decides on the picture sequence. 
• Picture-sentence matching- students match a sentence to the picture that is the same, with only a description of the picture. 
• Word-picture matching- students match key words to pictures.
• Inquiry and elimination- students take silent turns choosing a picture, their buddy asks yes or no questions in order to guess the picture.       

This book has been so insightful and eye opening to me! I have walked away with many new strategies and tools to use in my class with not just my ELL, but all my students. I think that it is crucial to want our students to be successful, but we need to guide them to success. We need to encourage them to take ownership and charge in their own learning. We want to build our students up and let them know that they can do anything they put their minds to. Learning doesn't need to be boring and rote, it can be fun and interactive, but it all starts with us, the teachers/educators. 

                                 

Scaffolding ELL to Be Successful Writers

Writing is my favorite subject to teach my students. We write every day in my class. I think that is it an important to know that basics of writing, since I teach second grade, and how to be able to explain what they are writing about. I will admit though that I do struggle with teaching my EL learners during the writing block. They struggle to form complete sentences, sound out words, and even put spaces between the words. I have tried many things to make sure that they are successful, from one on one lessons to peer mentoring, but they still seem to struggle. Chapter 6 was about how to scaffold ELL to be successful writers, and it was defiantly helpful to me. I plan to take some of these strategies back into my classroom this year and implement them with my EL learners.

Effective writers have a lot more confidence than less effective writers. They are able to understand the purpose of writing and what they need to do with language for it to be appropriate for the audience. They understand how to organize and structure the writing. They are able to revise, reorganize, and edit their work. They are also aware of the differences between speech and writing and understand that good writing is not just speech written down. Effective writers use models of good writing and know how to do research. They know about the topic they are writing about, and finally their writing is easily understood by the reader.

Writing pieces always fit into a certain genre. A writing genre is defined as the different forms of literacy (poems, plays, novels, etc.). Genres have a particular social purpose and are used to get something done through language, have a particular structure or organization, and have language features typical of a specific genre. Written genres need to be explicitly taught for the student outcomes to be successful. Teachers need to have a solid understanding of effective writing pieces and the particular genres in order to teach and make them explicit to learners.

The Teaching and Learning Cycle is an approach where the teacher focuses on introducing, modeling, and practicing four writing stages for the students. 

Stage 1: Building the Field- This stage is content focused. The target is to build up info about the writing topic. In this stage there is a lot if speaking, listening, and reading and could involve practical activities.

Stage 2: Modeling the Genre- This stage is language focused. The target is for the students to become familiar with the purpose, organization, and language features of the genre. You will need good model texts to illustrate the language and organization of the genre.

Stage 3: Joint Construction- This stage is content and language focused. Stages 1 and 2 come together at this stage. The target is for the teacher and students to write together, constructing a piece of writing in the chosen genre, conversing as they do both the relevance and validity if the info or content and the appropriateness of the language. 

Stage 4: Independent Writing- At this stage, students write their own text in the chosen genre. 

Using the genre framework approach for an assessment can help you give useful feedback to the students that they can act on in the future. There are seven sets of questions that are in the genre framework.

1. General comments: is the overall meaning clear? are the main ideas developed? does the writing reflect the writer's other classroom language?

2. Genre type: what kind of genre is this? is this appropriate for the writer's purpose? has the writer written this text type before?

3. Overall Organization: is the overall structural organization appropriate to the text type? are at stages missing?

4. Cohesion: are the ideas linked with the appropriate connectives? is there appropriate variety of these connectives? are pronouns used correctly? do pronouns have a clear referent?

5. Vocabulary: is the appropriate vocabulary used? is there appropriate semantic variety?

6. Sentence Grammar: is the sentence grammar accurate?
7. Punctuation and Spelling: is the punctuation appropriate? is spelling accurate? if the writer does not yet produce correct spelling, what does he know about spelling?

                                   

Building Bridges to Text

Chapter 5 gave many more  strategies to getting EL learners involved in literacy. "Reading activities should aim to build bridges into the text that the learners are reading, so that they are set up to be successful readers" (page 105). Learners need to interact and actively process text in order to fully comprehend the meaning. Successful content area reading relies on the kinds of reading activities and explicit reading instruction around the text. Reading activities can happen before, during, and after reading the text. Reading activities should help learners comprehend text and at the same time model effective reading strategies. Learners need to be shown multiple strategies to use in reading text and take on a range of reading roles.

There are four approaches to teaching reading:

1. Bottom-Up Approach- this is the traditional way of teaching reading. This approach focuses on the basic skills for decoding written symbols.
2. Top-Down Approach- This is the Whole-Language approach. This is approach is to read for meaning.
3. Interactive Approach- This is a combination of Bottom-Up and Top-Down.
4. Critical and Social Approach- earners critique and question the text. How one interprets the text depends on their viewpoint, interpretation, and background.

You have to think of all these approaches as pieces of a puzzle. You can't just use one while teaching. You have to use all of them at different times and connect them in order to have well rounded and successful learners.

Successful readers also have to take on different roles while reading. There are four roles that the reader takes on:

1. Reader as Code Breaker- reader engages in the "technology" of the written text.
2. Reader as Text Participant- reader connects the text with their own social and cultural knowledge and prior experiences.
3. Reader as Text User- reader knows how to participate in the social activities in which the written text plays a major part.
4. Reader as Text Analyst- reader reads critically.

There are many activities that you can do in the classroom with your students before, during, and after you read a text.

Before Reading Activities are used to support the overall meaning of the text by building useful topic knowledge and to prepare the learners to read the text.

• prediction form a picture, diagram, or other visuals- uses pictures to illustrate something about the text. 
• prediction from key words, title, or first sentence- using 5-6 key words follow the same process as prediction form a picture, or show the students the title or a first sentence and have them brainstorm info and key words they think might be int he text. 
• personal narratives- powerful ways to build engagement with the text, they are relating the text to the real world. 
• semantic web- the sharing of info about what they already know about a topic; this can be a form of informal assessment to see what the students already know about the topic.
• reader questions- introduce the topic and have student write 3-4 questions they think might be answered in the text. 
• sequencing illustrations- give students some of the illustrations and ask them to suggest and explain a possible sequence. 
• skeleton text- shows the overall outline of a text but has key pieces of info missing, the first and last paragraphs stay in tact. 
• previewing text- this is a teacher directed activity that provides students with specific info about what they will read. 

During Reading Activities define the unconscious processes and practices  of fluent readers. 

• scanning for info- readers scan the text to search for key words and ideas.
• pause and predict- learners read to predict what will happen next. 
• margin questions- questions written in the margin of the text that point to the focus of the question within the text.
• scaffolding a detailed reading- provides explicit support on how to read a complex text. 
• identifying paragraph parts- helps learners identify the way info is organized in a paragraph and helps them predict what they will read next.
• reading critically- the reader must think outside the text and look at the text as an object.
• questioning the text- learners need to take a critical approach toward the text by asking different questions to get a better understanding.

After Reading Activities make use of the familiar text to further language development.

• true/false statements- ask students multiple true or false questions about the text, they need to refer to the text to support their answers.
• graphic outlines- students represent the info from the text in a graphic outline such as a timeline, cause and effect chart, compare and contrast bubble, or information summary. 
• summarizing the text- students pull out important ideas from the text.
• cloze activities- some words are deleted from the text and the students fill in the missing words.
• sentence reconstruction- cut up sentences form the text in to individual words and have students reassemble them.
• jumbled words- but up individual words for the text into individual letters and have students reassemble them.
• innovating the text- rewrite the text with different content, such as different characters, setting, or instructions. 
• cartoon or cartoon strips- students turn the text into a comic strip.
• readers theater- students act our the text.

There are so many different strategies and activities that can be used with your students in order to create successful learners and readers. As an educator my main focus is creating an environment that is beneficial and stress free. I want my students to succeed and go far, but in order for them to do so, I have to scaffold and encourage them in all that they do in class. 

                                       

Engaging with Literacy in the Curriculum

Chapters 3 and 4 discuss literacy in the curriculum and engaging students in reading. Many strategies were given. I will share those strategies with you and I hope to hear if you have used them in your classrooms, which ones interest you, and which ones you plan to use.

"Literacy is not something learned once: we continue developing our literacy skills throughout life" (page 56). We are constantly learning through reading. Every time we read a book, newspaper, or even a blog, we are developing our reading skills. With every subject we teach in school or learn in school, we are teaching or learning a new set of vocabulary and terminology. The books says that each subject has it's own packages of knowledge. We know that learning to read and write can be a difficult task for kids. There is a lot to take in and, in all reality, to memorize. For an EL learner, that can be a lot to grasp. This is why it is so important to scaffold and use different strategies.
Here are some tips to make your literacy time more relevant for the students in your classroom, especially the EL learners:

• Go from every day, familiar, and concrete to the subject specific, unfamiliar, and abstract.
• Use concrete examples that are familiar to students and that link to their own real world and out of school experiences.
• Use familiar language to talk about these experiences before moving to move specialized subject language.
• Sequence teaching and learning activities in such a way that you move toward the specialized language of the written texts students will read rather than beginning with the written texts.

There has been research and evidence that says, "explicit teaching of academic language and literacy, modeled and practiced in context, enhances the learning of EL learners" (page 59). We need to give our students multiple opportunities to be successful in the learning environment. Mixing up learning routines with individual, pair, small group, and whole group instruction will allow for your students to have the best learning opportunities.

There are lots of ways to engage your students with reading strategies that can be done individually, in pairs, in small groups, or whole group settings. If you use some of these strategies in your classroom, the students will hopefully be more engaged while learning and engaging in literacy.

Strategies:

• Progressive Brainstorm- students share what they already know about a topic at the beginning of a unit.
• Wallpapering- another way of brainstorming information or ideas.
• Semantic Web/Concept Map- collecting, recording, and organizing information.
• Dictogloss- provides models of academic language, and gives students opportunities to listen, talk, read, write, make notes, reflect on language use, clarify content, and use academic language for themselves.
• Joint Construction- teacher and students jointly write text, the teacher scribes on the board and the students contribute ideas and suggest wording.
• The Last Word- a variation of a normal group discussion based on a text that students have read on a topic with which they are familiar. 
• Thinking Sheets- a structured way of having students make their reasoning explicit while they are engaged in cognitive tasks such as solving a problem, planning how to do something, or working out an explanation.
• Split Dictation- have two versions of a text, each has different omissions. Students are paired and dictate to their partner the parts they have and fill in the parts they don;t have, so collaboratively they complete a whole text.
• Barrier Crossword- the reverse of the usual crossword: the answers are already filled in and the students have to provide the clues. 
• Cloze Exercises- a text with some words deleted. The first and last sentences must remain intact. Words are deleted at regular intervals (example: every 5th word).
• Word Walls- a bank of words displayed on the wall of the classroom.
• Sentence Matching- students match "more spoken" and "more written" meanings.
• Bilingual Dictionaries- encourage bilingual learners who are familiar with key terms in their native language to note new words in English alongside the native tongue or note down English words with a mother tongue definition.

The only one that I have ever used are concept maps and word walls. I want to try a lot of these this coming school year with my second graders. I know that some will probably work better than others, but these are great tools to use during literacy time to get kids thinking about their language and literacy skills. 

Which ones have you used or want to try?

A Little Bit of Strategy: The 7 Intellectual Practices

Gibbons starts off chapter 2 by defining what intellectual quality is. She states "students need to do more than reproduce what they learn. They should analyze and synthesize information and apply it to new context, a process sometimes referred to as construction on knowledge" (page 19). I think that this is so true. I now that a lot of times, educators just spit out information to students and expect them to memorize it. Most students don't learn that way though. Students need to be able to process and break apart information in order to get a good understanding of it. They need to manipulate and use the information given to them to get a grasp on it. We need to slow down and think about our students needs, their learning strengths and weaknesses.

Engaging students in higher order thinking activities, building their understanding through group work and conversations, letting them apply the new context, and taking on new roles that have real world meaning are all ways that we can engage our students in the curriculum. We do not want our students to fall behind because of boredom or because they don't understand the information. We want them to be engaged and by allowing them to work together to problem solve and apply the skills they are able to understand and use the information given to them.

Intellectual practices are the recurrent and regular practices where students are engaged in their learning. There are 7 practices that were described, they are:

1. Students engage with the key ideas and concepts of the discipline in ways that reflect how experts in the  field think and reason.
2. Students transform what they have learned into a different form for use in a new context or for a different audience.
3. Students make links between concrete knowledge and abstract theoretical knowledge.
4. Students engage in substantive conversation.
5. Students make connections between the spoken and written language of the subject ad other discipline-related ways of making meaning.
6. Students take a critical stance toward knowledge and information.
7. Students use metalanguage in the context of learning about other things.

If a teacher can create and implement well rounded lessons, it would be easy to have all 7 practices in one lesson. In a project based classroom, students would be engaged, transform the info, make connections, do critical thinking, and communicate with one another. I think that we need to veer away from curriculum and test based classrooms and move towards project based classrooms. They are more beneficial to the students. In a sense, students are able to take charge in their own learning. and when they are able to do this, then they retain and grasp more information. "Students want to be active learners and that they value thinking and doing for themselves" (page 39).

Rich tasks were also discussed. Rich tasks are problem based, relate to more than one subject, have an end product, has real world relevance, multistage, made in different formats, require lots of information, require making connections, and students need to collaborate and converse with one another.  Rich tasks are related to project based learning strategies. If done correctly, tests and quizzes no longer need to be used. Rich tasks are meant to assess students while they work. Rubrics are still good to use because they give every body an outline of the assignment and their goals for the end outcome.

I already use some of the 7 practices in my classroom. I would like to be better at allowing students to take charge or their own learning. The ones that I use the most are 3, 4, and 5. I need to work on the others and allowing students to be the masters of their own learning. As a teacher, I need to let go of always wanting to be in charge and allow the students to take more of a hands on approach. I want to get away from the curriculum based classroom and be more of a rich learning environment. I do use rubrics in my class. My students always know what I want from them and what their end goal should be. I believe in setting expectations and always giving my students a chance to succeed. They can't succeed if they don't know where to go.

The success of our students is everything! We want them to go far and fulfill their dreams, but part of that starts with us. We need to include them in their own learning and let them take charge. They know more than they let on. If we give them a chance they can really surprise us!

Book Introduction: An Intro into Teaching English Language Learners

The book that I have chosen for this course is English Learners Academic Literacy and Thinking: Learning in the Challenge Zone by Pauline Gibbons, foreword by Jim Cummins. The book so far is very enjoyable. It defines a lot of terms that are important to teaching our students, especially English Language Learners. It also gives many different literacy and critical thinking strategies that are great for any grade level and all types of learners. As teachers, we need to slow down and think more about our students' needs and how we can address their reading skills, abilities, and understandings of the literacy.

As an educator, I know that there are a lot of obstacles that we face within our classrooms every day, and it changes every year. We always have a large, diverse group of students. These students need our undivided attention and guidance. We need to be able to differentiate and teach many different personalities, to most people this seems like a daunting task, but to a teacher, this is reality. We also have regulations, testing, standards, observations, planning, and organizing all on our plate. Our livelihood revolves around these kiddos. A lot of us also have students that may be from other countries and/or speak another language. These children are referred to as English Language Learners (ELL).

In the United States, Canada, Australia, and the U.K. students may come into our classrooms with a limited English proficiency, because English is the main language in these countries. There are many other names that ELL can also be referred to: English as a second language, English as  a new language, non-English speaking background, bilingual, language background other than English, or English as an additional language (page 8). Not all ELL are fluent in another language besides English, they might have just been exposed to another language at some point in their lives by family, friends, or a different cultural background.

Teaching ELL students is really best practices. Children who come from different language backgrounds need a lot of guided practice, visuals, and mentoring. ELL also need sheltered instruction in order to be successful. Sheltered instruction combines language and content instruction in way that is not necessarily easy, but adapted to the students needs. It might even be challenging at times. It integrates the curriculum with language proficiency, content knowledge, and academic skills. Pauline Gibbons states, "Separate or some kind of shelters instruction may also be the best option for more recently arrived EL learners" (page 9). I believe that sheltered instruction is good for all students though. As an early childhood educator I know that my students need well thought out and driven instruction to stay engaged and involved in their learning. Gibbons also talks a lot about scaffolding. Scaffolding is assisting a learner to move towards new skills, enabling them to know how to do something so that they can complete tasks on their own, and supporting the learner today so that they can do assignments and such on their own in the future (page 15).

This is just the beginning of what I have read in a very well written book. I look forward to reading more and telling you all about the different strategies that are discussed. I know that I have already learned so much from this book, and I hope to help you learn something new as well.

Blogging About Blogging

Hello all!

I am new to the blogging world! These next couple weeks are going to be an adventure for me. Before this class I had never read a blog or looked at a blog, but I hope learn a lot from reading other people's blogs. I think the concept of a blog is very new age and contemporary. Even though I am young in age, I tend to be old at heart. Technology and I do not always agree. I am excited for this blogging adventure though. My hope is to continue to read and explore blogs after this class.

While looking at blogs, I wanted to specifically look at blogs that were about elementary education. I teach second grade at an inner city school. I wanted to read blogs that could help me in my profession. I am a fourth year teacher and am still learning a lot. I think that the blogs that I looked at are great for new teachers to read for ideas from others in the same field. They give lots of tips and resources that are beneficial to the teacher and for the students while in the classroom. These were my favorite 5 blogs that I read as I began my blogging journey:

http://blog.cue.org/?gclid=Cj0KEQjwg47KBRDk7LSu4LTD8eEBEiQAO4O6r_3vNYQakFBMRIQ28wRWH3j1dXXOGnQD1QpJG1tWQKEaAhew8P8HAQ

http://readingyear.blogspot.com/

http://4theloveofteaching.blogspot.com/

http://iteach2nd.blogspot.com/

http://maestrabilingue.blogspot.com/

I think that blogs could be great tools not just for educators and teachers to learn from, but also for older students to read and create. Creating or reading blogs in a middle school or high school setting could be really beneficial.  We do live in a world that is run on technology. Kids these days are really in tune with using computers. Blogging could easily be fit into the curriculum in any content area. Projects could be completed in blog form; blogging is a type of literature and is considered a form of writing. I know that blogs and blogging may not be as relevant in the primary grades for the students, but they can still be great for primary educators. I think that in the classroom we need to better utilize technology and blogging is a great way to do this.

The more blogs I look at and read, the more I like the concept. Most of them had pretty much the same, easy to follow layout. All of them were beneficial in their own way. My hope is that I can create a blog that is enjoyable to read and also informational for the reader. I want people to read my blog and learn something from it, just as I have from the blogs I posted above.
Please leave comments and feedback so that I can edit, revise, and change anything that may not fit or be interesting. I look forward to writing this blog for all my readers! :)