Running Records with English Language Learners

All students learn to read in different ways; some students are able to gain the necessary reading skills more quickly than others. When learning to read, English language learners have many of the same difficulties than non-language learners, however, they face an even great difficulty because they are simultaneously translating letter sounds and word meaning based on their background knowledge of their native language. When completing a running record for a student who speaks Hebrew and is learning English (they speak English in the home because they are from the Philippines, but do not learn to read English with intensity because they are in an Israeli school). The student I gave a running record to showed a continued pattern within the miscue analysis. The student was able to read most sight words presented in the text. The student also knew all of the color words read (as there were three color words: red, yellow, blue). The student consistently tried to use the sounds of the words he knew. However, it is evident that the vowel team /ou/ (found) has not been taught yet to the student, as he tried multiple ways to read the word throughout the multiple times the word was presented, which showed an error in his meaning cues because the text was very repetitive. He was not trying to connect meaning to the word, but only to decode them. Teachers of ELLs must, "Teach phonics in context... using literature and content material" (Portland Public Schools, N.D.).  Two sight words in particular that were a struggle each time they came up in the text were loves and another.  One highlight of this running record was the consistency of self corrections. As mentioned before, the student always tried to use learned sounds to figure out words. The child would often cycle through 2-3 sounds until he found the word that made a connection as being correct. This shows stamina on the part of the reader. The next student who was a native Spanish speaker was able to read more fluently than the Hebrew speaker (possibly because he sees Latin letters more often?) This reader had trouble with only two multi-syllabic words. One being a compound word, and the other a combination of roots. This student also read with expression. I think the first reader showed signs of a common reading error in the reading of English vowel pairs. The different sounds of vowels and vowel pairs are very difficult to remember because of the amount of diversity within the sounds and mouth formation.

Reference

Portland Public Schools and Colorín Colorado. (N.D.). Supporting ELLs in the mainstream          classroom: Reading instruction. Accessed through          http://www.readingrockets.org/article/supporting-ells-mainstream-classroom-reading-      instruction

Moving Students from Language Acquisition to Language Learning through Reading and Writing

Students who use English as their second language go through stages of acquiring language. "Language acquisition" is the way students first learn to use language as a means of communication. Students don't learn rules and study language when they are toddlers, however, the way they can pick up on language through everyday life with their families is termed "language acquisition" (Hill, 2013, p.11). Students really learn a language when they learn the rules of grammar, appropriate sentence structure, and how to communicate clearly. This is taught in school. Teachers have the ability to help students move from acquiring a language to learning the language through reading and writing. And this does not mean necessarily diagramming sentences and doing a multiple choice test (Foppoli, N.D.). Because reading and writing are connected by thought processes (who who reads must decipher words and think about what they mean and one who writes must determine which words are appropriate while using the correct meaning). Our lessons in reading should include the natural connections to writing. We can teach students to read like a writer and write like a reader. This means we are pointing out word choice in our read alouds to our students, we are helping them discover the way the author wrote the book, looking more into the craft and style authors use in writing books. In writing, we are constantly asking students to read their writing out loud and asking them the question, "Does this sound right? How can we make it better?". Because students who struggle with writing often, "Show less awareness of what constitutes good writing and how to produce it," Teachers can use text read together to determine how to write. This provides a clear model for students. 

Below is a chart of several elementary writing mentor texts I created previously.

Title	Author	Description	Writing Quality Highlighted
Boot and Shoe	Marla Frazee	Boot and Shoe are best dog-friends. They do everything together until one day, they lose eachother.  This is an adorable story that kids love to read over and over and can be used to teach many reading and writing skills.	Theme: Friendship To show the importance of the characters’ friendship, the author uses repetition in the phrase “together”, and so by repeating the same sentence for each character but changing the name. This can show students how to show friendship through words. If the students is writing with illustrations also, this book is excellent to show the symbolism of illustrations and how they are important for the text. Until the characters lose eachother, the page is almost blank, except for the picture of the dogs together. When they are lost, the illustrations “zoom out” to show what’s going on with the both of them. The author even portrays the characters together, together, together, until they lose eachother . When they are lost, the author separates the dogs by putting them on separate pages.
Where the Wild Things Are	Maurice Sendak	Max is sent to his room to think about his wild behavior. He soon imagines a world where the wild things (like him) live.	Text sequencing and organization This book shows a linear plot line which can help students when writing narratives. Students are able to clearly see a beginning, middle, and end in the story. Teachers can use this to show the importance of proper sequencing in a story.
Tornaodes!	Gail Gibbons	This book is non-fiction. It clearly shows many text features that are often found in nonfiction text. This book also has excellent adjective use to help nonfiction writing draw more interest and visualizing from the reader.	Organization and Features of Nonfiction Writing When students are expected to produce nonfiction writing from research on a topic, students can use this mentor text to teach students how to integrate text features into their writing. Also, this book (along with other Gail Gibbons books) show a clear explanation of facts about a topic. She uses descriptive language and easy to understand sentences for multiple grades and abilities.
Make Way for Ducklings	Robert McCloskey	This is a Caldecott Medal book from another generation. This story has been reproduced in other forms throughout the years. It is still a favorite with kids and the story is very easy to follow.	Alliteration, Repetitive Speech, Onomatopoeia, and Dialogue This book has many characters (all the ducklings) and they all have the same rime in their names. This draws familiarity and also a little bit of fun for the reader. This book also uses simple dialogue and onomatopoeia. It can encourage writes to add those kinds of words to their writing.
The Relatives Came	Cynthia Rylant	Cynthia Rylant, the author of the Henry and Mudge series, brings readers and writes does to a small moment in time where the narrator recalls a special time when the relatives came.	“Slice of Life” Writing Sometimes students want to keep writing, writing, and writing. However, they can easily get onto a different trail that isn’t a part of a story. In writing personal narratives (a story about themselves), this book can be used to help them narrow down their life’s events into little seed stories. Their personal narratives must have a beginning, middle, and end and also have clear events. This book can help with narrowing down all of their thoughts in order to write a small slice of their life for a personal narrative.

References

Access Center. (N.D.) Teaching writing to diverse student populations. ColorinColorado. Accessed through http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/teaching-writing-diverse-student-populations 

Foppoli, J. Language acquisition vs. language learning. ESL Base. Accessed through http://www.eslbase.com/teaching/language-acquisition-vs-language-learning 

Hill, J. D. (2013). Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners, 2nd Edition, 2nd Edition. [BryteWave]. Retrieved from https://shelf.brytewave.com/#/books/114004E4/ 

Helping ELLs Relate to Foreign Ideas Presented in Text

Students are used to being given text to read. We teach students to read and comprehend all genres of text. Think back to high school. Most likely your were required to read one of these classics: Romeo and Juliet, The Iliad, or perhaps The Canterbury Tales. Was it difficult for you to relate to the story? The context of the language and setting might have become a hindrance to comprehension of the text. This scenario is similar when students from diverse backgrounds read certain texts. Their comprehension may see a barrier when they cannot connect to the culture of the characters in the book. Teachers must help students access these texts by increasing their background knowledge about the culture or topic.

The Snowy Day by: Ezra Jack Keats

Excellent Read Aloud with Sound Effects

This book may be difficult to connect to for students from areas with no snow. They cannot perceive what playing in the snow feels like. They have no schema of the crunch beneath your feet, or layering your clothing, or sledding. The vocabulary might be difficult for students because there are words with multiple meanings which particularly pertain to snow--angel, snow suit, snowball, snow man.  Teachers could build student's schema for this book by showing them a quick video about snow. Also, a teacher could be more hand on to bring shaved ice into the classroom to let students feel it, make a snowball, and experience the cold. A small concept students from other cultures might be confused about would be where the book says, "...yelled to his friend across the hall." Students might now realize the family lives in an apartment and the lives close to his friends.

The Book Without Pictures  by: B.J. Novak

This book may be difficult for students to comprehend (and enjoy) because there are no picture clues to help them make meaning. This book could be helpful for students who can have polite conversations about everyday life, but if someone was a newcomer with English, this book would make little sense. Especially since there is a lot of sarcasm and irony in this book, students would not be able to pick up on it due to the lack of pictures to help assist in vocabulary understanding.  Students who are from more modest can quiet cultures may find this book offensive due to the loud sound effects this book is aiming to produce. Teachers may introduce the concept of onomatopoeia and its' literary effect for visualizing.

Reading with A New Lens

Imagine you are in a foreign country, you want to grab a coffee and read the newspaper. You are familiar with a few words that you have overheard, but reading is difficult. Also, the language does snot use the same letters as English. What could you do?

I tried to read the heading and subheading of this Israeli newspaper. I am familiar with basic words in Hebrew conversation, however, reading is difficult for me. I have an understanding of some of the sounds, but words in adult publications remove the vowel markings. I could read the headline by trying to say the sounds that may be right (many words use the same sounds), however, I am not positive I pronounced the words correctly. I recognize one word (yesterday--maHair).

Now, I am scaling it back a little bit. My daughter has a Hebrew picture book of animals. It is a typical toddler board book with a picture and a word on each page. The words contain vowel markings (which I can remember 50% of the time). However, when I look for these words in a Hebrew story about a girl who sees animals, I can make a slight connection between the two books. However, I cannot read it without mot of the words I am speaking being a guess of pronunciation. To make meaning, I had to rely on picture cues and the few words I knew how to say based on my experiences with hearing words.

As teachers, we have to encourage our ELLs to make connections between what they read, see, and hear. When we are learning how to get to a new place, we go once, but then the following time we can remember a landmark or a street name, but not all. This is that same with language learners. If I was in a classroom learning English, I would need, "...aditional work on English phonemes (and letters) that are not present in the students' native tongue" (Irujo,  N.D). I also think it would be important for teachers to use language throughout the day which they will come across in text.

Irujo, S. (N.D.) What does research tell us about teaching reading to English language learners?
Accessed through http://www.adlit.org/article/19757/

Governing Policy for ELLs

The ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) was a bill signed by President Obama in 2015. This legislation was an updated version of the No Child Left Behind Act (signed in 2002 by President George W. Bush). Even NCLB was an updated version of the act signed in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. With all of these revisions, it is hard to keep up with what the educator's roll is. The law aims to ensure students who are in poverty, minorities, or Language learners are receiving excellent instruction. The ESSA " Requires--for the first time--that all students in America be taught to high academic standards that prepare them to succeed in college and careers (U.S. Department of Education, 2017). This sounds lovely, but what does this mean for teachers of ELLs and ELL students practically? This means there will be required reporting for ELL achievement. Naturally preceding this reporting are assessments for English language proficiency and acquisition. Instead f relying only on standardized tests for information on ELLs, a more comprehensive body of evidence may be requested by a school district. Also, the bill addresses the need for additional funding for staff and resources to teach ELLs in a way that exhibits best practice. There is still much to be revised in the bill, as it is fairly "young" in the legislative world. Sweeping changes may not be felt immediately. In my opinion, I think legislation for education has two sides: the intentions and the effects. With previous education legislation, were students left behind? Yes. Did every student achieve as was hoped for? No, in fact in 2015 only 33% of 8th graders were proficient in grade level reading. It seems as if the 66% were left behind. This leads teachers, families, students, and at large society, at a stand-still asking, will there ever be a great turn out with these propositions? We can only hope that one day there will be and we can take our part to teach ELLs and all students so they will achieve success.

References

Lindahl, K. (14 December 2015). The ESSA and ESL teacher education. Accessed through http://blog.tesol.org/the-essa-and-esl-teacher-education/

U.S. Department of Education. (2017). Every Student Succeeds Act. Accessed through https://www.ed.gov/essa

Connecting Oral Language and Reading for ELLs

To learn English is not an easy task. All students must make connections between oral language and the written word. Even toddlers and preschoolers can build this awareness, the awareness that if I am
"reading" I am orally saying the words that are on the page. The squiggles on the page are letters, the letters represent sounds, and when I put the sounds together, it is a word that I can say out loud. For students who are learning English the connection between oral language at school and reading is a very important connection to build. It is said that "ELLs' lack of oral [English] proficiency has often hindered their opportunity to receive cognitively stimulating and content-level appropriate instruction in school" (Gibbons, 2015, p.42). Students can connect their oral language to reading by developing vocabulary through explicit instruction. Fill the room with words and labels to help students make connections. Teachers must remember, "If we accept the premise that external dialogue is a major resource for the development of thinking, and that interaction is also integral to language learning, then it follows that we must consider very seriously the nature of the talk in which learners are engaged in" (Gibbons, 2015, p.51).ELLs can actively participate in engaging talk through use of sentence stems, word banks, and summaries from text read.

Reference
Gibbons, P. (2015). Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning: Teaching second language learners in the mainstream classroom, Second Edition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Accessed through ePub e-text.

Who Are the Students in Your Class?

In school across America, teachers have the responsibility of teaching those who speak another language at home. English language learners are mainly concentrated in urban areas, yet suburban areas are becoming more diverse as well. Teachers must remember that for children who don't speak English, lanugage acquisition is a long process which can take 5-7 years (Breiseth, 2015). These children may be able to start using everyday language sooner than academic language. This is due to the frequency of use. Teachers must also be sensitive to the fact that, "Nearly 60% of ELLs nationwide are from low-income families in which parents have “disproportionately” limited levels of education (Grantmakers in Education)" (Breiseth, 2015). Along with poverty, these students could be refugees. The mental trauma of poverty and being a refugee widely impacts students. These learners cannot be treated as a student who speaks English in the home.
While it is sometimes a challenge, teachers are able to help students from differing linguistic and social backgrounds achieve great academic success with the right scaffolding. Think of the word "scaffold". A scaffold holds up a structure that is not yet ready to stand on its' own.
As teachers, English Language Learners are the same. The may not be able to stand on their own, yet.

I will end with a story to help you consider a refugee's circumstance which I have been involved with this year while In Israel. In Israel, there are refugee policies, as all countries have. However, refugees from Eritrea have a different circumstance. There are many refugees in Israel (legal and illegal) due to the compulsory military service in Eritrea. Many men try to escape Eritrea to avoid an indefinite, often deadly, military service. Israel is not "allowed" to deport Eritreans by law, but if they come illegally (it is VERY difficult to receive a visa to live and work in Israel if you are not of Jewish descent) they send the men to a holding facility/work camp in the Negev desert. This is an attempt to make them want to leave Israel voluntarily. I have a child in the center where I volunteer who is an illegal immigrant from Eritrea. His father was in the facility for one year when the child was only 1 1/2. This child has extreme emotional attachment issues because of this. He has had to overcome a lot, even though he is only three years old now. Often he cannot do activities because he is crying (if another staff is not there or if the activity is after his mother drops him off). The life of a refugee is not easy. These learners need social, linguistic, and emotional support from their teachers in order to succeed in school.

More information about ELLs can be found HERE.

References
Breiseth, L. (2015). What you need to know about ELLs: Fast Facts. Colorin Colorado. Accessed through http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/what-you-need-know-about-ells-fast-facts