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For this activity, students are divided into groups of four. The teacher starts by giving the class a sentence to start their story.  The first student writes the sentence starter, and then when the teacher yells "FREEZE" the student passes the paper to the person next to them. That students can add a new sentence to keep the story going. The process continues until a story is written. The students can then share their story to the class.

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Group writing activities for English learners are few and far between. Choose your own adventure is one of them, and adding to that is Freeze. Students have to work collaboratively in order to create a story in a certain amount of time. Keep on reading for all the details you need to know about Freeze, a fun ESL writing activity.

Freeze ESL Group Writing Activity

Skills: Writing/reading/listening
Time: 5-20 minutes
Level: Intermediate-advanced
Materials Required: Nothing

This is a group writing activity that you can have a lot of fun with. The way it works is that you think of a story starter. For example, "Tom decided to _____." Students have to start the story off, and after 30 seconds or a minute, you can say, "Freeze."

Then, students pass their paper one to the right/behind/etc., depending on how the classroom is arranged. That student has to read the story and then continue it. You can repeat the freeze and pass as many times as you like, but I usually give a warning when it's the last round so students can finish up the story.

Circulate around the class and make sure that each story is staying on track well. Make some small error corrections if necessary to clarify the meaning. For kids of a certain age and maturity level, check to see that nothing vulgar is being added!

Read the stories out loud to the class and see which one the students like best. As I'm reading, I generally make grammatical corrections on the fly in order to make it easier to understand.

Procedure for Freeze:

1. Write a story starter on the board. For example, "Amy had a terrible day! She _____."

2. Each student has to continue the story for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Then say, "Freeze!"

3. Students pass their papers in an organized fashion and continue the story. Repeat as many times as you like, but warn students when it's the last round so they can finish it off.

4. The teacher can loosely monitor the stories, only correcting errors if the meaning is impeded.

5. Read the stories out loud with the class and discuss things grammar or vocabulary errors, as well as discourse skills.

Did you like Freeze, a Group ESL Writing Activity?

Yes? Thought so. Then you're going to love this book that you can easily find on Amazon: ESL Writing Activities, Games, and Teaching Tips. The key to even better English writing classes is a wide variety of interactive and engaging activities, including Freeze.

You can find the book in both digital and print formats. Consider keeping a copy on the bookshelf in your office to use as a handy reference when doing lesson plans. Or, take the e-version with you to your favourite coffee shop for some serious lesson planning on the go.

Whatever the case, get ready for some ESL teaching awesome in your life. It really is that easy! Pick up a copy today:

What are some more Fun ESL Group Writing Activities?

There are numerous fun group writing activities that can engage ESL (English as a Second Language) learners and enhance their writing skills. Here are a few examples:

Collaborative Story Writing

Divide the class into small groups and provide each group with a starting sentence or a picture. Each student takes turns adding a sentence or a paragraph to continue the story. They can pass their writing to the next student after each turn, building on what others have written. In the end, the groups can read their completed stories aloud.

Round Robin Writing

Similar to collaborative story writing, this activity involves passing a piece of paper around the group. Each student writes one sentence or a paragraph, then folds the paper to conceal their writing and passes it to the next student. This process continues until each student has contributed several times. The final result is a surprising story that can be read aloud and shared.

Newspaper Article Creation

Assign each group the task of creating a newspaper article. Provide them with different headlines or news topics, and ask them to write an article with a headline, introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Encourage creativity and authentic language use. They can present their articles to the class or create a classroom newspaper.

Picture Prompt Writing

Show a visually stimulating picture to the class or give each group a different picture. Instruct the groups to collaboratively write a story, description, or dialogue based on the image. This activity encourages creativity and helps students practice descriptive language and storytelling.

Debate and Persuasive Writing

Divide the class into teams and assign them different debate topics or controversial issues. Each team prepares arguments and writes persuasive speeches to present to the class. They can take turns presenting their arguments and engaging in a class debate. This activity promotes critical thinking, research skills, and persuasive writing.

Vocabulary Story Relay

Provide each group with a list of vocabulary words or idioms. Each student takes turns writing a sentence or a short paragraph using one of the given words. The group aims to create a coherent and entertaining story using all the vocabulary words. They can then share and compare their stories with other groups.

Freeze Writing Activity: Join the Convo

Did you like Freeze? Or, do you have another group writing activity for TEFL classes that you'd like to recommend to us? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. We'd love to hear from you.

Also, be sure to give this article a share on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. It'll help other busy English teachers, like yourself find this useful resource.

Last update on 2022-07-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

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Freeze Group Writing Activity for English Learners | ESL Activities

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Check out Freeze, a fun group writing activity for English learners. Students work together to create a short story in English.

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Tool in MS Word. Can also be used in Google Doc as an extention

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How to use the Immersive Reader - making reading more accessible

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https://info.flipgrid.com/
I would have my students utilize the video recording website FlipGrid. This activity also helps the students reading domain and listening because they first will read a book, then for speaking record their video giving a mini book review, next they will listen to their peers videos. In a past field experience I have seen FlipGrid used as a way to get students comfortable explaining their work in a less stressful setting.

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8 Ways to Scaffold Writing for English Learners

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8 Ways to Scaffold Writing for English Learners

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This is more of an online resource for teachers to get ideas on simple ways to incorporate scaffolding into their writing lessons. -Devan Johnson

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by Valentina Gonzalez

Scaffolds are temporary supports meant to be released when no longer needed. Think of buildings that are under construction. When the building is in the early phases, more scaffolding is necessary to sustain the structure. As the building progresses, less scaffolding is needed. Finally, before the construction is complete, the scaffolding is removed.

Scaffolding our instruction for students, English learners or not, is similar in theory. Assessing when and where the scaffolds are needed, and removing them at the right time is critical. Keeping a scaffold for too long can create a crutch for some, and students may become dependent on scaffolds that remain too long. The goal of a scaffold is to support students toward future independence.

These 8 writing scaffolds can be implemented in any grade level or content area:

1. Sentence Frames

Sentence frames are highly structured. They are basically sentences with fill in the blanks that support students at earlier stages of language proficiency. Here are a few examples of frames:

The ___has ___sides.

The ____revolted against the___.

A ___is larger/smaller than a ____.

2. Sentence Stems

Sometimes sentence stems and sentence frames are used interchangeably. However there a difference between the two. As shown above, a frame provides a tight grammatical structure. A stem, on the other hand, is as the name indicates, just the "stem" or base of a sentence and not a whole sentence. Students must continue the thought. Sentence stems give students just enough structure to begin more elaborate writing. Here are some examples of sentence stems:

Based on the experiment, I can conclude that...

In the beginning I thought..., but now I think...

One way that ___and ___are alike is that....

On the other hand, they are different because...

3. Mentor Texts

Mentor texts are also known as exemplars. They are models of high-quality writing for students. While adult-authored books or articles are often a main source of mentor texts, it is also effective to use high-quality student-authored examples. One teacher I know would save the original student samples of writing to use as exemplars. Another made digital copies. (Either way, always be careful to remove any identifiable information such as names.) Mentor texts set students up for success because they show students what the target is, which makes it much easier to achieve. Sometimes using student-created exemplars makes the target seem more attainable for students.

4. Interactive Word Walls

Interactive Word Walls (IWWs) are large, thematic or unit-based graphic organizers filled with rich vocabulary and visually supported with graphics and real objects. IWWs are often co-created with students rather than premade by the teacher. They can be used as scaffolds for writing in all content areas because students can easily take the language from the unit-based word wall and use it in their writing.

5. Model Writing

Model writing is similar to the Read-Aloud; in fact, some call it Write-Aloud. When we write in front of students in real time, we have the opportunity to "think aloud" and model what effective writers do mentally. This helps to make the writing process visible for students. Students see how an idea moves from the abstract to a concrete piece of writing. Modeling writing in all content areas helps students develop the language of the domain. For example, when we model how to write a lab report, we can share with students the language structures and academic vocabulary that scientists use. This modeling process supports students as they go off to write on their own.

6. Quick Writes

Not every piece of writing students do has to be lengthy. In fact, quick, daily writing is an effective way for English learners to practice writing in a low-stress setting. Long essays and pages of writing can be intimidating for students who are learning the structures of the English language. What's the saying? "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." Breaking a task into small chunks (or "chunking" the task) makes it seem doable. A Quick Write is a short writing task-usually about 3-10 minutes. Author and teacher, Larry Ferlazzo writes about the power Quick Writes, or Micro-writing, holds for ELs here in an article for ASCD. He shows how this type of writing can improve English learners' confidence and language proficiency.

7. Language Experience Approach

The Language Experience Approach has been around for a long time. It is a method of shared writing in which students and the teacher write together after a shared experience. This is actually one of my favorite techniques because it builds community, models writing, and increases student participation and engagement. Students listen, speak, read, and write.

Begin by sharing an experience (like a field trip, science experiment, movie, book, etc). Next, have students talk about the experience with partners or a group, and come up with sentences to share with the teacher. Then lead the class in creating a text about the experience on chart paper (or under a document camera) as students share their sentences with you. After you write each sentence, have the class read it aloud chorally. (This provides tons of reading practice for fluency.) When the shared writing is complete, the class rereads the whole piece. Finally, lead the class in discussing organization, revision, and editing. Students can suggest adding and deleting sentences and decide to change words or punctuation. To see an example of what this can look like, check out Carol Salva's use of LEA here!

8. Mentor Sentences

Think of a mentor in your life. Who did you imagine? Someone you look up to? Someone you try to emulate? Mentor sentences are sentences students try to emulate. Jeff Anderson, author of Mechanically Inclined and Patterns of Power writes about the effectiveness of mentor sentences. The sentences that we choose can come from Read Alouds or we can make up our own sentences using information relevant to our students and our class.

For instance, suppose we had a visit from the fire department and the kids couldn't talk about anything else. So my mentor sentence may have been, " While waiting anxiously to hear all about the apparatus, a crowd of kids huddled around the fire truck ." First I read it aloud, and then we read it chorally. I then invited students to discuss the sentence with their partner or in groups. What did they notice? What did they observe about the sentence? I called on a few students randomly. Some noticed that there was a comma. One student said that the sentence was in the past tense, and we asked how he knew. He said, "Because the word 'huddled' ended with an -ed." Another student said that it looked like two sentences stuck together. We talked more about that and discovered that the first part of the sentence wasn't a complete sentence but a phrase. Finally, the students wrote their own sentences modeled after the mentor sentence. Some students used this frame:

While waiting ______to hear all about the_____, a crowd of ___huddled around the ____.

One student wrote: While waiting eagerly to grab all the kibble, a crowd of dogs huddled around the food bowl. To add to it, he drew a group of dogs around an empty food bowl.

If you have students who struggle with writing, try some of these scaffolds to support them along the way to independence and success!

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8 Ways to Scaffold Writing for English Learners

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by Valentina Gonzalez Scaffolds are temporary supports meant to be released when no longer needed. Think of buildings that are under construction. When the building is in the early phases, more scaffolding is necessary to sustain the structure. As the building progresses, less scaffolding is needed.

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a small group in the center is circled by the rest of the class; the group in the middle, or fishbowl, engages in an activity, modeling how it’s done for the larger group.

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Skip to main content

What?

Fishbowl is a strategy for organizing medium- to large-group discussions. Students are separated into an inner and outer circle. In the inner circle, or fishbowl, students have a discussion; students in the outer circle listen to the discussion and take notes.

After reading

Fishbowl is an engaging and student-centered strategy that builds comprehension of complex texts while developing group discussion skills. In the inner circle-or "fishbowl"-students practice responding to multiple viewpoints. Observations from students in the outer circle provide insight into what makes for effective small-group discussions. Research supports the use of fishbowls as a particularly effective way to engage students with a range of abilities and in multiple settings.

1. Choose a central text. The text can be read independently before class or with the class in the Close and Critical Reading phase.

2. Begin by selecting four or five students to join the fishbowl group. Only students in the fishbowl are allowed to talk.

3. Instruct the outer circle to remain quiet, observe and take notes on the content and process of the inner circle's discussion.

4. The first few times, play the role of the facilitator yourself. Once the process is familiar, select a student facilitator. The facilitator does not participate in the discussion, but poses questions along the way to prompt deeper discussion and to make sure everyone inside the fishbowl has a chance to talk.

5. Identify the focus of the discussion and provide text-dependent questions for students to answer during the fishbowl discussion.

6. Allow the conversation to progress where students take it. Rotate students in and out of the fishbowl throughout the course of the discussion. Set up a procedure ahead of time so students know to expect this rotation. Allow the fishbowl discussion to continue for at least 15-20 minutes.

7. After all students have rotated through the fishbowl, divide the class into small groups and invite students to debrief. Students can use their observations from the outer circle to highlight strengths of the discussion and make suggestions for ways to engage each other more meaningfully. These discussion starters can facilitate the conversations:

What did you observe during the discussion of the text?

What is one thing you heard that you agree with?

What is one thing you heard that you disagree with?

How did you feel while on the outside of the fishbowl?

How did you feel while on the inside of the fishbowl?

8. Wrap up the process with a full class discussion about the discussion. Pose a final question and give everyone an opportunity to respond by turning and talking with a partner or doing a quick write: What is one thing you have learned from the fishbowl process about discussing texts?

English language learners

Fishbowl is appropriate for intermediate English language learners (level three or above). The strategy engages students in a low-stakes activity with high verbal communication structure. English language learners may need extended practice identifying the characteristics of meaningful text discussions. Adding these specific questions to the guiding questions will help scaffold their experience:

Observer question: What helped you understand the information that was being shared (non-verbals, contexts clues, etc.)?

Fishbowl questions: How did you feel knowing that peers were listening intently to what you were saying? What do you wish you could have said more clearly/what point do you wish you could have made?

Connection to anti-bias education

Fishbowl can be used to explore the ideas of membership, identity, belonging and shared experiences. The structure lends itself well to discussions of complex texts and to challenging topics of cross-cultural significance. By providing all students both a speaking and listening role and a stake in the discussion, fishbowl can help build an inclusive and supportive learning environment. The observation aspect of the activity allows students to identify appropriate ways to participate in discussions. If used on a consistent basis, fishbowl discussions can establish boundaries and norms critical to anti-bias communication.

Sample fishbowl guiding questions:
To the observers:
Was it difficult to not respond to the fishbowl students' comments? Why or why not? If so, what kinds of comments did you want to respond to?

Did you hear anything from the fishbowl that surprised you?

What helped you understand the information that was being shared (non-verbal indicators, contexts clues, etc.)?

To the fishbowl students:

How did it feel to share your feelings about the text knowing that your peers were listening closely?

Do you usually have opportunities to share your perspectives on _______?

What do you wish you could have said more clearly/what point do you wish you could have made?

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Fishbowl is a strategy for organizing medium- to large-group discussions. Students are separated into an inner and outer circle. In the inner circle, or fishbowl, students have a discussion; students in the outer circle listen to the discussion and take notes.

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https://www.middleweb.com/37209/interactive-word-walls-enliven-vocab-learning/

Students create connections between words ona bulletin board, create a visual of the connections made and how they can apply to the content.

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ABCYa is a site with learning games for grades Pre-K through 6th. For Kindergarten, there are many games that focus on the alphabet and sight words.

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ABCya! * Kindergarten Learning Games, Ages 5 - 6

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Kids LOVE our free online games! Race cars, meet cuddly penguins, and explore while practicing counting, sight words, and more kindergarten skills. Play now!

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All learners need time to process new ideas and information. And EL students usually need more time to process since they think in their first language.

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23 Strategies for Scaffolding ESL listening and viewing in the Classroom

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23 Strategies for Scaffolding ESL listening and viewing in the Classroom

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https://lexised.com/23-strategies-to-scaffold-esl-students-listening-and-viewing/

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This technique is best used when the students are learning something with a lot of content. Groups of students are assigned different parts of the lesson to discuss with each other. After discussing, the students go into another group with students from the other groups to listen to what they learned. This helps them to complete the final project as a group.

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OVERVIEW

The jigsaw classroom is a research-based cooperative learning technique invented and developed in the early 1970s by Elliot Aronson and his students at the University of Texas and the University of California. Since 1971, thousands of classrooms have used jigsaw with great success.

The jigsaw classroom has a four-decade track record of successfully reducing racial conflict and increasing positive educational outcomes such as improved test performance, reduced absenteeism, and greater liking for school.

Just as in a jigsaw puzzle, each piece - each student's part - is essential for the completion and full understanding of the final product.

If each student's part is essential, then each student is essential; and that is precisely what makes this strategy so effective.

JIGSAW IN 10 EASY STEPS

The jigsaw classroom is very simple to use. If you're a teacher, just follow these steps:

STEP SEVEN

Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups.

STEP EIGHT

Ask each student to present her or his segment to the group.

Encourage others in the group to ask questions for clarification.

STEP NINE

Float from group to group, observing the process.

If any group is having trouble (e.g., a member is dominating or disruptive), make an appropriate intervention. Eventually, it's best for the group leader to handle this task. Leaders can be trained by whispering an instruction on how to intervene, until the leader gets the hang of it.

STEP TEN

At the end of the session, give a quiz on the material.

Students quickly come to realize that these sessions are not just fun and games but really count.

ABOUT ELLIOT ARONSON

Elliot Aronson is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He has long-standing research interests in social influence and attitude change, cognitive dissonance, research methodology, and interpersonal attraction. Professor Aronson's experiments are aimed both at testing theory and at improving the human condition by influencing people to change dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors.

Professor Aronson received his B.A. from Brandeis University in 1954, his M.A. from Wesleyan University in 1956, and his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University in 1959. He has taught at Harvard University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Texas, and the University of California. In 1999, he won the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, making him the only psychologist to have won APA's highest awards in all three major academic categories: distinguished writing (1973), distinguished teaching (1980), and distinguished research (1999).

MORE ABOUT
ELLIOT ARONSON

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The jigsaw technique is a cooperative learning approach that reduces racial conflict among school children, promotes better learning, improves student motivation, and increases enjoyment of the learning experience.

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Students choose a theme to write about and it gives tips to help students write in the correct genre.
https://www.funenglishgames.com/writinggames/story.html

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How to scaffold texts for struggling readers in Actively learning

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How to scaffold texts for struggling readers in Actively learning

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By now, you've probably heard quite a bit about the importance of scaffolding instruction. Creating supports for student learning is essential for improving students' reading comprehension and content knowledge. Scaffolding enables students to read more challenging texts and engage with them more deeply than they could without the teacher's assistance.

But now that you're sold on the importance of scaffolding, how do you actually create instruction that will be most helpful to students, particularly those who struggle with reading?

We've dug into the research on reading comprehension and scaffolding to bring you the following guide. It includes differentiation for struggling students and targets the areas that students need the most help with.

Pre-reading prep: Setting the scene for the text

One of the major challenges for struggling readers is lack of content knowledge. Students who do not read broadly often lack the background information to situate new ideas and comprehend the unstated knowledge that the author presumes his or her reader already knows. Giving students a wider framework in which to situate the text will help to fill in some of these knowledge gaps.

Consider the essential information that the reader should know before digging into the text. What is the historical context? Who is the author? What ideas is he or she reacting to? The information you provide will vary depending on the text, but it should help situate the reading and hopefully pique the students' interest in the material.

In setting the scene, you may also provide students with an explanation of major terms that come up repeatedly in the reading. Although you certainly do not have to define every challenging word in the text (because students can always look it up in a dictionary), discussing the meaning of "tyranny" in The Declaration of Independence or "guerilla warfare" in the context of the Vietnam War will help students comprehend these terms and connect to the larger themes of the text.

Students who do not read broadly often lack the background information to situate new ideas and comprehend the unstated knowledge that the author presumes his or her reader already knows.

Finally, be sure to set the focus for student reading. What exactly should students take away from this reading assignment? Should they focus on assessing the point of view of the writer? Is the purpose of this reading to evaluate the strength of the main argument? Struggling students in particular benefit from understanding the purpose of an assignment prior to reading.

Encourage reading strategies by assigning tasks to students

There are several reading strategies that promote deeper engagement and comprehension, including questioning, monitoring comprehension, summarizing, making predictions, and thinking aloud. Though some of these strategies come naturally to expert readers, they are often neglected by students who struggle with reading. Teaching these strategies is also tricky, because students may quickly forget to employ them and revert back to old habits of surface-level reading.

The beginning of every Actively Learn assignment includes a space for teachers to write instructions for students. It's tempting to leave this space blank, especially given that you will likely embed questions in the assignment and thus make it clear what students are expected to do.

However, it's beneficial for all students to encourage deeper engagement by assigning tasks that incorporate proven reading strategies. Instruct all students to ask a question and share it with their peers. Ask them to do the same for their most insightful note. Tell students that they must answer one of their classmates' questions or respond to a shared note. Remind students to look up unfamiliar words or use the "I don't understand" flag, and tell them that anyone who does not do so is confidently asserting that they know every word and have fully comprehended every concept in the text. If any students do show that level of confidence, feel free to ask them follow-up questions the next day to determine whether their self-assurance is valid or misguided.

Remind students to look up unfamiliar words or use the "I don't understand" flag, and tell them that anyone who does not do so is confidently asserting that they know every word and have fully comprehended every concept in the text.

By assigning these tasks to your students, you are promoting the reading strategies that students should use whenever they encounter an academic text. It is especially important that struggling students get in the habit of asking questions, assessing their own understanding, and thinking actively as they read.

Use your notes to model, explain, and connect

The teacher's notes are crucial for helping struggling students focus attention, overcome deficits in content knowledge, and understand how to think while reading. We encourage teachers to create two tiers of notes: one set that is helpful for all students in the class, and another supplemental set of "extra help notes" that will only be visible to students who are designated as needing additional support. This ensures that struggling students get the support they need while those who do not are challenged to read without the extra help.

One of the primary uses of notes is to model and prime the sort of thinking that you want your students to engage in as they read. The comments you make will depend on the text and your instructional goals. If you want students to analyze the structure of the text, you might signal when an author shifts to a flashback or addresses a conflicting point of view. If you want students to pay attention to the tone of a story, you might highlight a few details about the setting and reflect on their connotation. Students will gain visibility into how you process the text and what things an expert reader notices as he or she reads. The point of this sort of "think aloud" modeling is that many students don't know what they should be doing as they read. Seeing your thinking on the page demonstrates what active reading actually looks like.

Model and prime the sort of thinking that you want your students to engage in as they read.

Another important function of notes is to explain concepts that may be outside the student's content knowledge. You can clarify the meaning of an allusion or illustrate an unknown term. If an author is playing on a double meaning of a word, let students know. If you think that the author is making an inference that your students will miss, help them make sense of the implied meaning hidden between the lines. Make your explanations as concise as possible so that students do not lose track of the text. Visual aids can be particularly helpful here: if a character is traveling from one British town to the next, include a map that helps students understand the distance. If an unusual animal or article of clothing is mentioned, find an image that helps students visualize it.

Explanatory material can also help students figure out what's important in a text. Because struggling readers have trouble distinguishing extraneous information from key points, signaling the main ideas can be extremely helpful to their comprehension.

Finally, use notes as a means of activating prior knowledge. Point out connections between the text at hand and something else they've studied in your class. Draw analogies between new concepts and ideas that are already familiar to them (i.e. "Think of this orbit system as a tether ball going around a pole.") This helps students construct schema to anchor new knowledge and may even refresh their memory of things they've already studied.

Use questions to chunk, monitor comprehension, and encourage deeper thinking

The questions you embed in the text essentially serve three purposes: chunking the text, monitoring comprehension, and encouraging deeper thinking. These are especially important functions when scaffolding for struggling readers.

Chunking breaks down a large, complex text into more manageable pieces. In Actively Learn, questions stop students in their reading progress and allow them an opportunity to process what they've read. A lengthy text that at first seemed overwhelming can become much approachable if it's digested in smaller bits.

In terms of instructional design, teachers should think carefully about the quantity of questions to include in the text and where to place them. Stopping a student every fifteen seconds to ask a question will make it difficult for him or her to maintain the flow of the narrative. Placing questions in seemingly random places mid-sentence will also make chunking less effective. Ideally, questions will be placed after a significant scene has occurred or a new idea has been introduced. The question will draw the student's attention to the importance of what he or she has just read and allow a moment of reflection before continuing to the rest of the text.

Monitoring comprehension is another important function of questions. Students often assume that questions are like punishments imposed by their teacher, but monitoring comprehension is a skill that is essential to reading fluency (Rand Study Group, 2002). Fluent readers assess their own understanding as they read by asking themselves questions. They make sure they are comprehending what they read, and resort to repair strategies (such as re-reading or looking up terms) when they notice they are off track. Struggling readers, on the other hand, often neglect to employ this strategy and may get to the end of the text before realizing that they have not understood what they've read. The simple act of stopping the student to check in on what he or she has read can have a tremendous impact on comprehension, because it gives the student an opportunity to self-monitor and employ repair strategies if needed.

Think carefully about the quantity of questions to include in the text and where to place them.

Finally, questions provide an opportunity to activate deeper thinking. They can encourage students to make connections to their previous reading or class discussion, evaluate arguments, or apply the concepts they read about to other scenarios. Higher depth of knowledge questions are not only for expert readers-students of all reading abilities want to engage in complex reasoning and find greater motivation for reading when they do so. For questions that are harder to tackle, you can differentiate instruction by providing extra help notes in the question to give students hints or answer prompts.

Provide encouraging, constructive feedback

One of the biggest roadblocks that struggling students face when trying to improve their reading comprehension is an inability to get help and feedback while they read. When reading on paper, it's difficult for teachers to get visibility into the student's thought process and study habits as he or she reads. This makes student reading a black box: teachers are not aware of what students are doing as they read, and students cannot get help with their reading. Students who have trouble with reading comprehension begin to see reading as a fruitless endeavor because they are unsure what exactly the problem is or how to improve.

Digital reading provides an opportunity for teachers to gain insight into student thinking and reading habits and to make the appropriate interventions, whether it be suggesting to a student that he or she spend more time on an assignment or targeting specific skills that he or she is struggling with. The teacher's involvement in responding to student questions and giving feedback on performance is crucial to improving reading comprehension.

Remember that many struggling students lack confidence in their reading abilities. Motivating them to read entails building their self-concept as readers and encouraging them to persist in the task. The feedback you provide should be genuine (rather than false praise, which students can keenly detect and disregard), but it should be presented in an encouraging and hopeful way.

Conclusion

Scaffolding is an ongoing process that evolves for each student in your class. Over the course of the year, you will gain a better idea of what students need help with, and which students require the most support. You may choose to focus on certain strategies and deemphasize others. Some of your struggling students may get to the point where they no longer need the extra help notes, while other students may suddenly require the additional support as the rigor of their work increases.

Continue to rely on data to understand your students' needs and assess progress based on student notes and answers to questions. The teacher ultimately has the best insight into student learning and is the most qualified person to adjust scaffolding to suit his or her class.

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How to Scaffold Texts for Struggling Readers in Actively Learn

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By now, you've probably heard quite a bit about the importance of scaffolding instruction. Creating supports for student learning is essential for improving students' reading comprehension and content knowledge. Scaffolding enables students to read more challenging texts and engage with them more deeply than they could without the teacher's assistance.

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Teacher poses a question/problem to the class. The students are asked to think individually about the answer. Next, they are paired with a partner to discuss the answer. Each pair is asked to share their responses.

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A great way to scaffold writing is by providing students with sentence stems. This means that you provide the student with the beginning of the sentence and they fill in the rest. Examples are "I think that the effect of this was ____" or " I noticed that ___". Providing students with these helps to guide their sentence and provides some framework for what they should be writing about.

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We are 14 days into school (woohoo) and I wanted to share some of the ways I'm supporting my very-beginning writers. One of the best parts of 1st grade is seeing the amazing growth students make in 9 short months. They enter writing single sentences (sometimes single words) and leave writing cohesive paragraphs - it's amazing! BUT, students need daily, explicit writing instruction for this to happen with chances to write every.single.day. Here is how scaffolding beginning writers can be done!

Teaching 1st grade last year, I never knew I needed to teach students to write in a journal. So, I handed out writing journals and we jumped in. FRIENDS - I paid dearly for my mistake ALL year long and writings journals were a hot mess. Letters everywhere, mish-mashed pages of writing, tons of illustrations for missing writings - ALL.MY.FAULT.

Questions You Will Get When Scaffolding Beginning Writers

How Do I Write in a Journal?

Open to the closest empty page

Date in the upper right-hand corner

Picture on the bottom or top (please decide before writing)

Your letters should fit on two lines. Lowercase letters fit below the first line.

Leave a 1-line space between your writing

As you'll see throughout this post, our journals are not perfect...BUT they are lightyears ahead of where I was last year. Plus, I am *super* proud of my friends. They have worked SO hard on writing and I already have some fabulous writers (thanks Kinder teachers!!).

How Do I Spell???

On Day 3, our mini-lesson is all about the chorus on "I don't know how to spell. How do you spell? What letter comes next?" Give into these demands and your writing conferences turn into a Spelling Bee instead of a conversation.

In front of the whole class I model writing a narrative by stretching out words. Then, I underline words I am unsure of. I teach my students that an underline means - "Hey Ms. W. I tried really hard to stretch out this word, but I still don't think it's right." If it is a sight word, a sound is obviously missing, or a phonics pattern we're learning, I'll ask students about it. If not, I leave it for now. Underlining is a sanity saver!

One of the most daunting parts of writing is the forgotten word. I love when students read their writing to me, only to realize they left out the word "Phil". From the very beginning, I teach my students to insert 'carrots' (this little friend added some arrow pizzaz) to indicate words need to be added. For long sentences or details that are added, I teach students to use an astrik and add it at the bottom of their paper. It keeps us from panicking and it reminds students they should be rereading their work.
So, as teachers, we are told over and over that our math instruction needs to move from Concrete to Representational to Abstract. And we do this because it provides 'real' experiences of students and a context for real. Guess what? It works and it's amazing! WRITING IS NO DIFFERENT. Students must have hands-on, real-experiences. Writing cannot remain this painful task of pencil-to-paper work, I'm-writing-because-my-teacher-told-me-to-write.
How Do I Make Writing 'Real'?

During the 2nd week, I put my scientists to work to explore and learn about our three class plants - Plantuska (bamboo), Phil (a vine), and Rocket (a hydrangea). Students worked in partners with a magnifying glass to make observations about our plants. After spending 15-20 minutes making observations and talking about them, we went back to our seats and wrote about one of the plants we observed. I turned on Yo-Yo Ma and it was AMAZING. I love seeing my friends in their element. Plus, they were plant experts (duh - 15 minutes does that for you!) and knew exactly what they wanted to share.

Real-world experiences matter when writing. They provide students with the confidence to write, the context for why we are writing, and a scaffold for how to start.

How Do I Use a Sentence Stem?

In the first few weeks, I do use a lot of sentence stems. While students are always welcome to stray from this support, for many it gives them a way to structure their ideas. As I begin launching Writer's Workshop on Monday (woohoo), I'll begin to remove these stems. They will reappear as we start writing paragraphs and open responses. This is a perfect way of scaffolding beginning writers.

How Do I Assess My Writing?

With writing journals, I do struggle with a way to evaluate and encourage students to add more details. This week one of our mini-lessons was all about adding details to our illustrations and writings. I had 4 pre-written/pre-illustrated versions of the same story. Students helped me to rate the writings (1-4 stars). We talked about what questions we had as we read the stories, what was missing from the illustrations, and which story we would rather read. Then, we went back to our seats and looked at some of our old writings from the first 2 weeks of school. Additionally, We went back, adding details to our writings and our illustrations to make their 3 and 4 star works of art! It was a simple mini-lesson, that we'll reference often. (You can snag these sentences and writing paper for here free or snag it as a part of my Beginning of the Year writing bundle here.)

How Do I Share My Writing?

In these beginning weeks of writing, I also explicitly teach my students how to share their writing and give feedback to their friends. We save the last 7-8 minutes of our writing block for sharing. This is the biggest motivator for my kids; they LOVE sharing their writing. Typically 4-5 students share each afternoon, so every child has the opportunity to share each week. This is so much easier to do once you have a positive relationship with students.

Our sharing routine looks like this -

1. Encouragement/Building Community Teacher: "I choose __________." (in a sing-song voice) Students: "Let's go __________!" (in a sing-song voice that matches mine)

2. Sharing the Work: The student puts his/her work under the document camera so it projects on the screen, and wears the microphone to share.

3. Specific Feedback: Then, the friend who just read his/her work chooses 2 friends from the class to give a specific compliment ("I love how you told me ___________." "You did a great job of _______________." "I really liked how you _________________."

4. Class Cheer: The presenter may then choose a class cheer to receive. We use Kagan Cheers and love them. Our favorites? Trucker, roller coaster, seal of approval. 🙂

Friends, I am so excited to see how my 1st graders grow this year. I feel like we've devoted a *ton* of time to writing this year, but it is already paying off. Plus, these initial scaffolds will allow for Writer's Workshop to launch easily this week!

What are your go-to ways to scaffold beginning writers? I'd love to hear what works for your classroom! If you're interested in the resources and mini-lessons for the ideas above, you can snag them here.

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Scaffolding Beginning Writers - The Brown Bag Teacher

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We are 14 days into school (woohoo) and I wanted to share some of the ways I'm supporting my very-beginning writers. One of the best parts of 1st grade is seeing the amazing growth students make in 9 short months. They enter writing single sentences (sometimes single words) and leave writing cohesive paragraphs - it's amazing!

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An early phonological awareness activity; teacher uses "snail talk" to sound out word and students attempt to guess the word. Builds on reading domain, as well as listening and speaking. Good activity for early readers and ELs.

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Blending and segmenting games and activities can help students to develop phonemic awareness — the ability to hear the individual sounds in spoken words. Begin with segmenting and blending syllables, and then move to working with individual sounds (phonemes). Learning to blend and segment sounds is key to learning to read.

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Allows students to act like the teacher and guide discussions. This a small group activity and each student is assigned a role: summarizer, questioner, clarifier, and predictor.

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Students Take Charge: Reciprocal Teaching

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Scaffolding texts for struggling readers

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Scaffolding texts for struggling readers

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https://www.activelylearn.com/post/how-to-scaffold-texts-for-struggling-readers-in-actively-learn

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Encourages collaboration after reading or learning in order to hear other perspectives and what a student gets out of the reading or lesson.

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Teachers model reading out load and asking questions reflecting on the past sentence and predicting the future sentences. Then students in groups or pairs do the same activity. You can start them with a question set. This helps them develop to critical thinking when reading.

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Great Idea: Barrier Games Play What are barrier games? Barrier games are a specific form of an information gap activity. Information gap activities are communicative activities for two or more learners, where Learner A has information that Learner B needs, and vice versa. In a barrier game Learner A…

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This strategy can be useful for reading and listening as well! I would implement it in small groups that pick a book to read aloud in an area of their choosing (at desks, on the ground, or even outside if possible) as the teacher moves throughout the room listening and helping when necessary. This can improve pronunciation, diction, and public speaking in a less stressful setting.

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Scaffolding Techniques for English Language Learners: Part 1

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When supporting English Language Learners during instruction we must consider that the instruction is two-fold. Teachers are supporting content and language acquisition simultaneously. This is not an easy task! Scaffolding has been praised for its ability to engage most learners. When the learning is scaffolded students are constantly building on prior knowledge and forming associations [...]

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Each student gets a card with a conversation starter and they get a couple minutes to think of an answer to the question and write it down. Once the time is up, students pair up with a partner and have a conversation based on what each of the cards says. This is great for not only speaking, but listening and writing as well.

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This scaffolding strategy allows for ELs to focus their listening on key words and phrases of the content rather than trying to parse together an entire lecture. The teacher provides a fill-in-the-blank notes template for the lecture and has the students fill in their notes based on words that are emphasized. This allows ELs to focus on the important concepts rather than trying to remember everything the teacher said.

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Sentence frames are a good way of teaching children in the early stages of language proficiency. This technique is highly structured.  The teacher would give the student sentences with blank spots. Students would be able to fill in the blank spots with whatever they like as long as the sentence will make sense.
For example:
The __ went to __  __.
A __ has __ sides.
A __ is larger/smaller than a __.
YOUTUBE VIDEO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3rXwstobh8
Source: https://seidlitzblog.org/2019/04/10/8-ways-to-scaffold-writing-for-english-learners/

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One way to scaffold students, especially ELLs is to provide visuals when introducing new topics or vocabulary words. One example of this might be when introducing new vocabulary words, provide a list of them in the room with corresponding pictures. Another great way to do this is by labeling objects in the classroom in both English and the student's home language.

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The teacher divides the class in two even groups and has the first group form a circle where students are all facing outwards. The second group then forms a circle around the first one, and makes sure each student is standing across from a student from the first circle. Each pair is given a few minutes to talk, ask questions, and discuss, and then the outer circle all take a step to the left and chat with a new classmate. I like this idea because students get to talk with many classmates, but only for a few minutes each. This could be a great way to brainstorm ideas for a project or talk about a reading since students would learn lots of different perspectives from each other.
Source:
https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/increase-student-interaction-think-pair-shares-and-circle-chats

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"Think Alouds" are directed by a series of questions that students have to answer while they are in the process of reading. This is a great way for teachers to intertwine their reading and speaking scaffolding strategies. The teachers first model the Think Aloud process and then talk about the habits of a good reader (reading ahead to clarify, seeing context clues...etc.). The teacher should give the students questions such as "Do I understand what I have just read?", "What new information did I learn?" in order to guide their learning and help support ELL students in not only understanding the content that is in front of them but also gaining vocabulary that helps them ask questions about their readings and a space for them to vocalize these questions.

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Background

Think Alouds help students learn to monitor their thinking as they read an assigned passage. Students are directed by a series of questions which they think about and answer aloud while reading. This process reveals how much they understand a text. As students become more adept at this technique they learn to generate their own questions to guide comprehension.

Benefits

Think Alouds are practical and relatively easy for teachers to use within the classroom. Teachers are able to model the Think Aloud technique and discuss how good readers often re-read a sentence, read ahead to clarify, and/or look for context clues to make sense of what they read. Think alouds slow down the reading process and allow students to monitor their understanding of a text.

Create and use the strategy

Begin by modeling this strategy. Model your thinking as you read. Do this at points in the text that may be confusing for students (new vocabulary, unusual sentence construction). Then introduce the assigned text and discuss the purpose of the Think Aloud strategy. Then develop the set of questions to support thinking aloud (see examples below).

1. What do I know about this topic?

2. What do I think I will learn about this topic?

3. Do I understand what I just read?

4. Do I have a clear picture in my head about this information?

5. What more can I do to understand this?

6. What were the most important points in this reading?

7. What new information did I learn?

8. How does it fit in with what I already know?

Teachers should next (1) give students opportunities to practice the technique, either in pairs, small groups or individually; and (2) offer structured feedback to students.

Initially, the teacher reads the selected passage aloud as the students read the same text silently. At certain points the teacher stops and "thinks aloud" answers to some of the pre-selected questions. Teachers should demonstrate how good readers monitor their understanding by rereading a sentence, reading ahead to clarify, and/or looking for context clues. Students then learn to offer answers to the questions as the teacher leads the Think Aloud strategy. As students become familiar with the Think Aloud process, they may work individually or in small groups. Teachers may choose to have students write down responses to the Think Aloud strategy which provides a record of learning.

Further reading

Davey, B. (1983). Think-aloud: Modeling the cognitive processes of reading comprehension. Journal of Reading, 27(1), 44-47.

Olshavsky, J. E. (1977). Reading as problem-solving: An Investigation of Strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 12(4), 654-674.

Wilhelm, J. D. (2001). Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies. New York: Scholastic Inc.

Wilhelm, J. D. (2008). National Writing Project. Navigating Meaning: Using Think-Alouds to Help Readers Monitor Comprehension. Retrieved 2008, March 5, from http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/495

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Think Alouds help students learn to monitor their thinking as they read an assigned passage. Students are directed by a series of questions which they think about and answer aloud while reading. This process reveals how much they understand a text. As students become more adept at this technique they learn to generate their own questions to guide comprehension.

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Chloe Mazurek- Silly Sentence Maker Game

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Chloe Mazurek- Silly Sentence Maker Game

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Sentence making games are a good way for students to understand the format of writing a sentence. This activity in particular includes baggies filled with subjects, objects, verbs, and adverbs that students will draw from to create a sentence in the correct order. The students can expand on this activity by drawing pictures and writing a complete sentence or story to go along with the slips of paper they choose. This is also something that students engage with where they can be goofy and create a silly story, and they might not even realize that they are learning!

Source:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/7881368081351218/

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Graphic organizer, pictures, and charts are all good scaffolding tools to use in the classroom. They help students to better organize information, represent ideas, and comprehend things like sequence and cause/effect. Visual aids help guide thinking by stimulating a thought process. Many students benefit from them with a difficult reading.

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What's the opposite of scaffolding a lesson? It would be saying to students something like, "Read this nine-page science article, write a detailed essay on the topic it explores, and turn it in by Wednesday." Yikes - no safety net, no parachute, no scaffolding - just left blowing in the wind.

Let's start by agreeing that scaffolding a lesson and differentiating instruction are two different things. Scaffolding is breaking up the learning into chunks and then providing a tool, or structure, with each chunk. When scaffolding reading, for example, you might preview the text and discuss key vocabulary, or chunk the text and read and discuss as you go. With differentiation, you may give a child an entirely different piece of text to read, you might shorten the text or alter it, and you may modify the writing assignment that follows.

Simply put, scaffolding is what you do first with kids, then for those students who are still struggling, you may need to differentiate by modifying an assignment and/or making accommodations for a student (for example, choose the more accessible text and/or assign an alternative project).

Scaffolding and differentiation do have something in common though. In order to meet students where they are and appropriately scaffold a lesson, or differentiate instruction, you have to know the individual and collective zone of proximal development (ZPD) of your learners. (As education researcher Eileen Raymond states, "The ZPD is the distance between what children can do by themselves and the next learning that they can be helped to achieve with competent assistance.")

In the Classroom

So let's get to some scaffolding strategies you may or may not have tried yet, or perhaps you've not used them in some time and just need a gentle reminder on how awesome and helpful they can be when it comes to student learning:
#1. Show and Tell
How many of us say that we learn best by seeing something rather than hearing about it? Modeling for students is a cornerstone of scaffolding in my experience. Have you ever interrupted someone with "just show me!" while they were in the middle of explaining to you how to do something? Every chance you have, show or demonstrate to students exactly what they are expected to do.

- Try the fish bowl activity, where a small group in the center are circled by the class as the group in the middle, or fishbowl, engage in an activity, modeling how it's done for the larger group.

- Always show students the outcome or product before they do it. If a teacher assigns a persuasive essay or inquiry-based science project, a model should be presented side-by-side with a criteria chart or rubric. You can guide students through each step of the process, model in-hand of the finished product.

- Use think alouds, which will allow you to model your thought process as you: read a text, solve a problem, or design a project. Remember that children's cognitive abilities are still in development so opportunities for them to see developed, critical thinking are essential.
#2. Tap into Prior Knowledge
Ask students to share their own experiences, hunches, and ideas about the content or concept of study and have them relate and connect it to their own lives. Sometimes you may have to offer hints and suggestions, leading them to the connections a bit, but once they get there, they will grasp it as their own.

Launching the learning in your classroom from the prior knowledge of your students, and using this as a framework for future lessons is not only a scaffolding technique, many would agree it's just plain good teaching.
#3. Give Time to Talk
All learners need time to process new ideas and information. They also need time to verbally make sense of and articulate their learning with the community of learners who are also engaged in the same experience and journey. As we all know, structured discussions really work best with children regardless of their level of maturation. If you aren't weaving in think-pair-share, turn-and-talk, triad teams or some other structured talking time throughout the lesson, you should begin including this crucial strategy on a regular basis.
#4. Pre-Teach Vocabulary
Sometimes referred to as frontloading vocabulary, this is a strategy that we teachers don't use enough. Many of us, myself included, are guilty of sending students all alone down the bumpy, muddy path known as Challenging Text - a road booby-trapped with difficult vocabulary. We send them ill-prepared and then we are often shocked when they: a) lose interest b) create a ruckus c) fall asleep.

Pre-teaching vocabulary doesn't mean pulling a dozen words from the chapter and having kids look up definitions and write them out (we all know how this will go. Again, see above a, b, and c). Instead, introduce the words to kids in photos, and in context to things they know and are interested in. Use analogies, metaphors and invite students to create a symbol or drawing for each word and give time for discussion of the words (small and whole groups). Not until they've done all this should the dictionaries come out. And the dictionaries will be used only to compare with those definitions they've already discovered on their own.

With the dozen or so words "frontloaded," students are ready, you as their guide, to tackle that challenging text.
#5. Use Visual Aids
Graphic organizers, pictures, and charts can all serve as scaffolding tools. Graphic organizers are very specific in that they help kids visually represent their ideas, organize information, and grasp concepts such as sequencing and cause and effect.

A shouldn't be The Product, but rather it's a scaffolding tool that helps guide and shape the student's thinking so that they can apply it. Some students can dive right into the discussion, or writing an essay, or synthesizing several different hypotheses without using a graphic organizer of some sort, but many of our students benefit from using them with a difficult reading or challenging new information. Think of graphic organizers as training wheels; they are temporary and meant to be removed.
#6. Pause, Ask Questions, Pause, Review
This is a wonderful way to check for understanding while students read a chunk of difficult text or learn a new concept or content. Here's how this strategy works: a new idea from discussion or the reading is shared, then pause (providing think time), then ask a strategic question, pausing again. By strategic, you need to design them ahead of time, make sure they are specific, guiding and open-ended questions. (Great questions fail without giving think time for responses so hold out during that Uncomfortable Silence.) Keep kids engaged as active listeners by calling on someone to "give the gist" of what was just discussed/discovered/ questioned. If the class seems stuck by the questions, provide an opportunity for students to discuss it with a neighbor.
Trying Something New
With all the diverse learners in our classrooms, there is a strong need for teachers to learn and experiment with new scaffolding strategies. I often say to teachers I support, you have slowed down in order to go quickly. Scaffolding a lesson may, in fact, take longer to teach, but the end product is of far greater quality and the experience much more rewarding for all involved.

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Using 6 Successful Scaffolding Strategies - Teach & Kids Learn (TKL)

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What's the opposite of scaffolding a lesson? It would be saying to students something like, "Read this nine-page science article, write a detailed essay on the topic it explores, and turn it in by Wednesday." Yikes - no safety net, no parachute, no scaffolding - just left blowing in the wind.

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This website is so informational on how to teach reading techniques to EL Learners. It has examples such as chunking, shared reading, and adapted texts. I really liked this website and the way they organized it and explained everything.

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by Valentina Gonzalez

"Learners who know the language can concentrate on the academic content. But learners who do not know the language, or do not know it well enough, must devote part of their attention to learning and understanding the very language in which the content is taught" ( Goldenberg & Coleman, 2010).

Imagine that for a moment. Let it soak in. If you didn't yet know a language well enough, you would need to spend energy understanding the very words and not just the reading. Maybe you've experienced this before. It's a literal struggle, trying to decode and put together sounds, then figure out and translate the words. This can take a toll on a person!

Now imagine a child doing this daily. Or for that matter, doing this all day long . Picture a newcomer in a high school biology class at the end of the day. If they are new to the language, they will most likely have to translate complicated text word by word after having spent every previous class that day translating each word. To help students, we can adapt and scaffold reading instruction to fit their unique needs.

The National Literacy Panel (2000) identified phonemic awareness, phonics, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, and writing as the five key components of literacy. With these components in mind, let's look at a few scaffolds (temporary supports meant to be gradually released) for reading that may work to enhance English learners' success with comprehension.

These reading scaffolds can be implemented in any grade level and content area through whole group, small group, or individual settings for differentiation:

Chunking

Chunking is a technique that breaks larger reading texts into smaller portions for students. When texts are dense or lengthy, they can seem overwhelming. By breaking them down into smaller pieces, we help to lower students' anxiety. Think of a large pizza. Would you eat the entire pizza in one bite? Probably not. It's sliced for us to hold a piece at a time. Then we take small bites from that one piece. It's manageable that way. Chunking texts is especially useful in areas like social studies and science, where text has the tendency to be vocabulary heavy.

Adding in opportunities to talk makes content even more comprehensive. For instance, a routine such as Nancy Motley's Talk, Read, Talk, Write offers students chances to access prior knowledge and build background before reading. Students discuss with a group or partner. Then students read a text with a purpose for reading that is given to them by the teacher. Once everyone has signaled that they are finished reading, they participate in structured discussion again. And finally students write about their reading while using the discussions they've had to support their thoughts. Teachers can chunk reading even more for students who are at beginner levels of English proficiency: talk, read, talk, read, talk, read, talk, write.

Shared Reading

Shared reading (Holdaway,1979) is the act of reading together in unison as a group. All students have access to the text. Shared reading is not just for elementary levels. In primary grades, teachers may read from big books, but in secondary classes, shared reading can be poetry, brochures, an excerpt from a chapter, a paragraph, song lyrics, etc. Teachers can provide each student with a copy of the text or can project the text on a screen for everyone to see. First the teacher models expectations by reading the text. Then the teacher invites the class to read together. This oral reading practice provides students with an opportunity to gain fluency in a risk-free setting. Everyone is reading aloud. Shy students can listen and read aloud as they feel brave enough, and more vocal students gain practice, too. Students benefit from practicing intonation and appropriate rate of speed.

Three ways to differentiate shared reading are Echo reading, Choral reading, and Reader's Theater.

Echo Reading is perfect when students need to hear the teacher model each sentence first while they are tracking print. Then students repeat the sentence. This technique is best for students at beginner proficiency levels or when a new language structure is being shared.

Choral Reading is a typical shared reading experience in which students and teacher read in unison, often with the teacher tracking print. English learners gain fluency and benefit from the low-risk environment. They have the ability to listen and join the reading at their comfort level.

Reader's Theater is an excellent method to use with students after they have had a chance to hear a text in its entirety. Reader's Theater can be done by dividing a text into parts and assigning students or groups to read certain lines or paragraphs. English learners benefit from rehearsal time with the lines or paragraphs they will read aloud to the whole group. Some teachers ask students to create props for their characters or parts. Acting out a story is both enjoyable and engaging for students as they participate in listening, speaking, and reading with expression.

Adapted Texts

Adapted texts are texts that have the same content but are at different reading levels. Using adapted texts helps English learners continue to learn content while they are learning English. Many teachers create their own adapted texts, which allows them to control the vocabulary that is embedded. However, creating adapted texts does take time. There are also many online platforms that offer adapted texts such as Newsela, Newsinlevels, and Wordify.

Partner Reading

Providing time and space for students to read together, or partner read, supports English learners with reading comprehension, listening, and speaking. Peer-to-peer interaction is important for English learners' language development. Partners usually read the same text and hold their own copies. In primary grades, and many times in secondary too, students are more successful when the teacher offers explicit modeling of expectations ahead of time. For example:

"During partner reading, I'm looking for partners who are sitting with their knees close to touching. You will take turns reading a page. After your partner reads, you will share what the main idea of their reading was. I'm listening for sentences like: 'The main idea was...' or 'I didn't understand...'"

Primary Language Support

When I was an ESL teacher, the students I taught spoke Korean, Urdu, Japanese, Russian, etc. I was not able to speak all of their languages, but I could still provide primary language supports. I provided my ELs with bilingual dictionaries and taught them how to use them. We also worked hard at valuing all languages. It was important for me to show my ELs that the literacy they had in their primary language was valuable and useful as they acquired English. We labeled the classroom in the students' home languages. I also made it known to them that continuing to read, write, and speak in their primary language was important, and so I encouraged them to read books in their primary language. Anytime we had extra funds, I asked to purchase books in our students' primary languages for the library.

Another way to include primary language support is through preview-review. This technique is sometimes referred to as preview-view-review and takes only a few extra minutes before and after a lesson ( Wright, 2015). It has been found to be effective in increasing comprehension, especially for students at beginning levels of English proficiency. Preview-review includes providing students with primary language support before and after a lesson or a read aloud. Let's look at a classroom example:

The second grade class is preparing to learn about living and nonliving things. The ESL teacher gathers English learners prior to the lesson to preview in their primary language. She asks them what they know about living and nonliving things. They discuss and make a chart in their primary language. The teacher reads a short passage and checks for comprehension, and then they return to the whole group.

The mainstream teacher conducts the whole-class lesson on living and nonliving things in English. The teacher shelters instruction to ensure that ELs comprehend the lesson. She uses repetition, visuals, and gestures. Then she sends them off to read and write with a partner in English.

Following the English lesson, the ESL teacher pulls the ELs back together once again to review what they learned in their primary language. This is an excellent opportunity to clear up misconceptions.
Note that, In this example, the ESL teacher is able to speak the students' primary language. But that is not always the case. It is suggested that if the teacher cannot speak the students' home languages, a same-language-speaking paraprofessional can provide the preview-review.
The bottom line of all this is that, when students enjoy what they are reading and they understand what they are reading, they will feel successful. The more often this feeling occurs, the more they will want to read, and the more their comprehension will increase.

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Teaching Techniques to Scaffold Reading for English Learners

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by Valentina Gonzalez "Learners who know the language can concentrate on the academic content. But learners who do not know the language, or do not know it well enough, must devote part of their attention to learning and understanding the very language in which the content is taught" (Goldenberg & Coleman, 2010).

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This source gives several ways you can use post-it notes in order to help students improve their reading skills. I personally, like to use post-its for many things including color coding notes for long readings and taking general notes while reading.
https://elementaryassessments.com/using-post-it-notes-for-reading-comprehension/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest&utm_campaign=tailwind_tribes&utm_content=tribes&utm_term=1041980014_48408984_203352

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This is when teachers take time to teach their students words and their meanings before being introduced to them in a text. For ELLs this helps them be able to grasp new concepts easier and faster, rather than being more confused because they do not know the words related to the new concepts. A creative way to front load vocabulary is giving students exposure to them in real life. For example, when learning about different rocks the teacher could bring in different types of rocks, such as Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic rocks. This helps the students make a permanent connection between the word and its meaning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxvbBEqmNYM

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This website provides a really awesome graphic to break down types of scaffolding to be used in the classroom! It includes sensory, interactive, and graphic scaffolding methods and the purpose of using each of them in the classroom. It also specifically points out how each method benefits ELLs.
https://www.empoweringells.com/scaffolding-instruction/

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after reading a book, a good way to remember what the student read and promote growth can be to draw the chapter or story in comic format! This way they can recall their understanding and rewrite it  in a fun and interesting way that allows them to be creative.

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This is a game that students can practice their listening skills. Teachers can play an audiobook and ask questions relating to the dialogue (preferably in the order the answers occur in the book) and when the student hears the correct answer they toss their ball (one from a sheet of paper) into the corresponding basket with the correct answer. For example, for an audiobook with different people you could have the baskets represent the characters and ask who's birthday it is and then they would shoot the ball into the corresponding basket. This website has some other games and ideas to work with listening skills for ESL as well, I just thought this one seemed fun.

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Listening seems like a passive activity.

ESL teachers know better than anyone-that's not exactly true.
Language learners need to actively develop their listening skills.
Listening is every bit as vital to learning as reading, writing and speaking.

But it often slips through the cracks in the classroom.

Listening exercises are regularly brushed over, confined to the dreaded audio CD that accompanies the textbook.

You yawn as you press play.

And then you start listening to the slow, staged dialogues involving Mario and Margaret's outing to the store. You know the ones, right?

One thing's for sure: if you're bored, your students definitely are.

Whether you're using a range of audio resources or you're simply getting students to speak to each other, listening is a great opportunity to expose students to a variety of accents, as well as to have fun whilst learning.

So hold onto your seat belts, it's time to make English listening practice awesome! These ESL listening activities for intermediate students are game changers in the classroom.

The 10 ESL activities listed below aim to get your students thinking, moving and working together.

And, of course, a competitive element never hurts, does it? The idea is to vary your listening exercises, never allowing for the students to get overly comfortable or familiar with how an exercise is going to look.

Keep it moving, people!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.Click here to get a copy. (Download)

1. Relay the message

This classic game, otherwise known as "running dictation," is a great active ice breaker, as well as a natural way to introduce a topic.
The game plan:
Put students in pairs or groups of three, assigning one (or two) as runner and one as writer. Sit the writers at tables at one end of the room.

Stick pre-printed messages at the other side of the room, one for each group or pair. These messages can be the same or different, easy or difficult, long or short, depending on the level and goals of the class.

When you shout the word "go," the runner runs to the message, reading and remembering what they can. This can be as much as a few sentences or as little as one word. The aim is to be able to relay it accurately to the writer.

The runner goes back to the writer to relay the part of the message that they memorized. The writer (you guessed it!) writes it down.

Repeat until the message is complete. Teams score points for speed but more importantly for accuracy of spelling and punctuation.

2. Back-to-back interview

What better way to improve listening skills than to listen to each other? This is a great activity for practicing listening without relying on lip reading or actions. It also incorporates speaking practice, thus killing two birds with one stone. You can use this activity to introduce famous people you want to talk about during your lesson.
The game plan:
Pairs of students sit back-to-back, one as the interviewer with a list of questions.

The interviewee is given a famous person to role play, with a list of answers. (This can also be done as an exercise to learn more about each other personally. For example, at the beginning of a course when students don't know each other well).

The interviewer asks the questions, writing down the answers as they go along.

The fastest interviewer to work out who they're talking to wins!

3. Follow the directions

This activity provides excellent English listening practice which will prepare students to ask for directions in a foreign country. It allows students to gain audio rather than visual practice with receiving directions, giving them the ability to understand step by step instructions.
The game plan:
Provide students with a street map, either a real one or something tailored to the activity and their level. You can even go crazy and create a big one for the classroom floor!

Split the students into teams, and have one person go at a time.

4. Telephone

In this game, students are responsible for listening carefully to their peers as well as successfully relaying a message. It encourages students to determine similar sounding words from one other, and can be used as a starter activity to introduce any topic.
The game plan:
Create two teams of students and set up both teams in lines. The end of each team line should be at the whiteboard.

Whisper a word or sentence to the student farthest away from the whiteboard, and then have them whisper the message they heard to the next student. Each student whispers to the next until the end of the line.

The last student writes the message on the board. The winner is the team with the most accurate spelling, pronunciation and content, although bonus points for originality and hilarity may be awarded!

5. Minimal pairs card hold-up

Improve your students' knowledge of proper pronunciation with this quick-fire game, which is good for reinforcing phonics lessons.
The game plan:
Students spread the word cards out on a table.

Call a word out. For example: "feet!" The students have to search their decks and hold up that word's card as fast as possible.

6. Video clip quiz

TV shows and movies bring exciting listening practice to the ESL classroom. Of course, with tight classroom schedules, fitting in entire TV episodes or feature films just isn't feasible.

Bite-sized video clips-like the interactive ones curated by FluentU-are the perfect way to showcase vocabulary, grammar and idiomatic expressions in a compelling way for students and teachers alike.

You can incorporate video clips into just about any lesson. Students get appealing entertainment served up with everyday, conversation-speed English, giving them plenty of opportunities to practice and improve their listening skills.

FluentU's ever-growing collection of English language videos comes from real-world sources like children's shows, music videos, Disney movies, YouTube videos and inspiring talks.

Each video is fully captioned, so that students can see every English word they're hearing.

When students encounter an unfamiliar word in a video, they can just click or tap on that word to pause the video and get an instant definition-complete with pronunciation examples, visual clues and multiple text and video examples of that word used in context. They can also add the word to their flashcards for later review.

FluentU also has quizzes for each video and flashcard deck that adapt to the needs of every learner.

Teachers can use FluentU's extensive video library as an endless source of lesson plan ideas. Find videos that support your curriculum, bringing textbook topics to life. Work collaboratively with your colleagues and keep students organized by class-all with one synchronized, cloud-based account that's easily accessible from computers, tablets and smartphones.
The game plan:
Give students a question to answer, dividing them into teams.

Begin watching the clip. To play, students must pay close attention and stand up when they hear the answer to the question. Pause the movie and see if the first person who stood up knows the correct answer.

Ask the second question. Repeat. Alternatively, you can give the students a list of questions to answer and allow the clip to play through entirely. Then you see who has the most correct answers at the end.

7. Song gap-fill

Songs are a great way to engage reluctant listeners, as they can be tailored perfectly to fit the preferences of the students. Why not use the latest pop song? Lyric repetition is welcomed here!
The game plan:
Give each student/pair the song lyrics with some words missing. To make it easier you can put the missing words in a box at the top of the page.

Play the song, pausing if necessary. The aim is for the students to fill in the missing words.

Once at the end, go through the answers to see which student/pair got the most correct.

8. Order-the-lyrics

This activity is a variation on the above, giving students practice in noticing the subtle differences between lyrics in music.
The game plan:
Pairs get a set of the song lyrics cut up into lines.

As they listen to the chosen song, they have to put the lyrics in the right order on the table. Repeat the song if necessary. You can always have a sing-along after the activity is completed!

9. Listen and throw

Of course, there's no reason why you shouldn't go back to your trusty textbook audio CD. Go ahead, and spice up the accompanying listening exericises to make this CD even more valuable as a learning tool. In this exercise, students are listening for a specific answer to a question in an audio dialogue.
The game plan:
Sit the students in a circle and split them into three or four teams.

Give each individual a piece of paper that's their team color. Have them scrunch the paper into a ball.

Place three baskets in the middle of the circle, each with a possible answer written on it.

Ask a question relating to the listening exercise - this should preferably be something that appears near the end of the dialogue. For example, "Whose birthday is it?"

Students listen to the dialogue and throw their paper ball when they know the answer. Count the colors in the correct basket to determine the winner.

10. Slap the picture

This activity uses friendly competition to encourage sharp listening and quick reaction times. A good activity for when students are getting tired or losing concentration.
The game plan:
Students sit opposite each other in pairs, with pre-prepared words in between them. There should be no more than eight words, and students should look at them first to familiarize themselves.

As they listen to a chosen dialogue, they have to slap the correct word when they hear it. Fastest slap wins a point! They can keep a tally as they go along to see who the winner is.

Whatever the activity, whatever the age or level, the most important thing is for your students to stay engaged by being challenged, doing something new and having fun.

Which of these ESL listening activities for intermediate learners will you try first?

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10 Awesome Activities to Improve Intermediate ESL Students' Listening

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Listening seems like a passive activity. ESL teachers know better than anyone-that's not exactly true. Language learners need to actively develop their listening skills. Listening is every bit as vital to learning as reading, writing and speaking. But it often slips through the cracks in the classroom.

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https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/458452437066711315/
I feel this is an amazing way for students to learn vocabulary words, grammar, etc. This allows students to write out the words and add pictures. Students can be creative with their work, while also learning their site words. It will keep students engaged too. Rather than losing their focus, doing assignments such as rewriting words over and over again. I also feel it helps students visually connect objects with words.

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I really enjoy the concept of sentence framing, which I believe can be used for both writing and speaking. Frames provide structure so that language learners can begin to produce sentences on their own. The blanks can be in the beginning, middle, or end of sentences, and the goal for the Els is to use their prior knowledge to fill in the blank/blanks to finish the sentence. This website provides a great lesson plan focused on the use of sentence frames (create a free Teaching Tube account to view) !

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. Why does Ms. Brewer give students the option of using sentence frames?

2. How can you create a sentence frame that encourages varied responses?

3. What makes sentence frames an effective strategy for English Language Learners?

School Details

Stevenson Elementary School
14220 Northeast 8th Street
Bellevue WA 98007

Data Provided By:

Teachers

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Using Sentence Frames to Jumpstart Writing

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To help her students get writing, fifth grade teacher Stacy Brewer gives her class sentence frames. The sentence frames help students start writing by providing them with a structure to work with. Stacy describes how this strategy is particularly helpful for English Language Learners because it provides them with language and makes writing less intimidating.

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This website has 2 graphic organizers on it to help students make sense of what they have read. One is a venn diagram that helps them compare and contrast ideas. The other graphic organizer helps students work on recognizing main ideas and details.
https://teachingreadingwritingmiddleschool.weebly.com/graphic-organizers.html

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In this scaffolding strategy, it is incorporating all of the domains. First, the teacher explains the assignment and shows and example, next the students do it with her, then the students complete it on their own and share. This is a great strategy because it not only uses all of the domains but it also allows for students to get more comfortable in all of the domains. EL's need as much practice as they can get and when the assignment is demonstrated to them a couple times before they have to do it on their own, this will allow them to feel more comfortable when completing the assignment. The website below gives a little more detail about the activity and how it can benefit students. I really enjoy this activity because an EL student can get comfortable listening to the teacher, interacting with their peers, and speaking in English.

https://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/the-i-do-we-do-you-do-model-explained/

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By using Sentence Stems it gives English learners the basics to the sentence and allows for them to say what they want to without getting stuck on all the 'in between words.'
In the example below it shows an example.

Source: https://brownbagteacher.com/scaffolding-beginning-writers/

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This activity is kind of like a large class mad libs. The students will fill the blanks in with the part of speech written underneath the line. This will help them to not only recall to vocabulary words but also grammatical concepts.

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Scaffolded Writing to help students write a summary.

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Sep 13, 2016 - Scaffolded Writing to help students write a summary.

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For this scaffolding strategy, the teacher needs to give the students time to comprehend the question asked before giving the answer. This is because it takes time for students to comprehend what exactly the question is asking, and this time can vary for many students. This article also emphasizes how important repetition of the question is for students to understand it. Sometimes, people need to hear the question multiple times, and then they will be able to come up with an answer. If no one is able to answer the question

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3 Scaffolding Strategies - Coleman LeMoine

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3 Scaffolding Strategies - Coleman LeMoine

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This website was made to aid teachers who have ELLs. It gives 3 great strategies that are pretty basic on how to further support struggling listeners. https://everydayesl.com/blog/listening-exercises-for-struggling-listeners

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Graphic organizers, pictures, and charts can all serve as scaffolding tools. Graphic organizers are very specific in that they help kids visually represent their ideas, organize information, and grasp concepts such as sequencing and cause and effect.

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This is a tool that will prompt you to think and figure out what you are going to write about. This is. a form of support system to help with writing. With young children I might get them to draw the scene they want to talk about first and then write about it so they are just thinking about how fun drawing is not how hard writing is.
Source: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov93/vol51/num03/-Using-Scaffolding-to-Teach-Writing.aspx

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Minutes at the beginning and end of class are great times to find out what children know. Entry and Exit slips are great ways to incorporate new technology into the classroom!

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Formative assessment-discovering what students know while they're still in the process of learning it-can be tricky. Designing just the right assessment can feel high stakes-for teachers, not students-because we're using it to figure out what comes next. Are we ready to move on? Do our students need a different path into the concepts? Or, more likely, which students are ready to move on and which need a different path?

When it comes to figuring out what our students really know, we have to look at more than one kind of information. A single data point-no matter how well designed the quiz, presentation, or problem behind it-isn't enough information to help us plan the next step in our instruction.

Add to that the fact that different learning tasks are best measured in different ways, and we can see why we need a variety of formative assessment tools we can deploy quickly, seamlessly, and in a low-stakes way-all while not creating an unmanageable workload. That's why it's important to keep it simple: Formative assessments generally just need to be checked, not graded, as the point is to get a basic read on the progress of individuals, or the class as a whole.

7 Approaches to Formative Assessment

1. Entry and exit slips: Those marginal minutes at the beginning and end of class can provide some great opportunities to find out what kids remember. Start the class off with a quick question about the previous day's work while students are getting settled-you can ask differentiated questions written out on chart paper or projected on the board, for example.

A quick way to see the big picture if you use paper exit tickets is to sort the papers into three piles: Students got the point; they sort of got it; and they didn't get it. The size of the stacks is your clue about what to do next.

No matter the tool, the key to keeping students engaged in the process of just-walked-in or almost-out-the-door formative assessment is the questions. Ask students to write for one minute on the most meaningful thing they learned. You can try prompts like:

What are three things you learned, two things you're still curious about, and one thing you don't understand?

How would you have done things differently today, if you had the choice?

What I found interesting about this work was...

Right now I'm feeling...

Today was hard because...

Or skip the words completely and have students draw or circle emojis to represent their assessment of their understanding.

2. Low-stakes quizzes and polls: If you want to find out whether your students really know as much as you think they know, polls and quizzes created with Socrative or Quizlet or in-class games and tools like Quizalize, Kahoot, FlipQuiz, Gimkit, Plickers, and Flippity can help you get a better sense of how much they really understand. (Grading quizzes but assigning low point values is a great way to make sure students really try: The quizzes matter, but an individual low score can't kill a student's grade.) Kids in many classes are always logged in to these tools, so formative assessments can be done very quickly. Teachers can see each kid's response, and determine both individually and in aggregate how students are doing.

Because you can design the questions yourself, you determine the level of complexity. Ask questions at the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy and you'll get insight into what facts, vocabulary terms, or processes kids remember. Ask more complicated questions ("What advice do you think Katniss Everdeen would offer Scout Finch if the two of them were talking at the end of chapter 3?"), and you'll get more sophisticated insights.

3. Dipsticks: So-called alternative formative assessments are meant to be as easy and quick as checking the oil in your car, so they're sometimes referred to as dipsticks. These can be things like asking students to:

write a letter explaining a key idea to a friend,

draw a sketch to visually represent new knowledge, or

do a think, pair, share exercise with a partner.

Your own observations of students at work in class can provide valuable data as well, but they can be tricky to keep track of. Taking quick notes on a tablet or smartphone, or using a copy of your roster, is one approach. A focused observation form is more formal and can help you narrow your note-taking focus as you watch students work.

4. Interview assessments: If you want to dig a little deeper into students' understanding of content, try discussion-based assessment methods. Casual chats with students in the classroom can help them feel at ease even as you get a sense of what they know, and you may find that five-minute interview assessments work really well. Five minutes per student would take quite a bit of time, but you don't have to talk to every student about every project or lesson.

You can also shift some of this work to students using a peer-feedback process called TAG feedback (Tell your peer something they did well, Ask a thoughtful question, Give a positive suggestion). When you have students share the feedback they have for a peer, you gain insight into both students' learning.

For more introverted students-or for more private assessments-use Flipgrid, Explain Everything, or Seesaw to have students record their answers to prompts and demonstrate what they can do.

5. Methods that incorporate art: Consider using visual art or photography or videography as an assessment tool. Whether students draw, create a collage, or sculpt, you may find that the assessment helps them synthesize their learning. Or think beyond the visual and have kids act out their understanding of the content. They can create a dance to model cell mitosis or act out stories like Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" to explore the subtext.

6. Misconceptions and errors: Sometimes it's helpful to see if students understand why something is incorrect or why a concept is hard. Ask students to explain the " muddiest point" in the lesson-the place where things got confusing or particularly difficult or where they still lack clarity. Or do a misconception check: Present students with a common misunderstanding and ask them to apply previous knowledge to correct the mistake, or ask them to decide if a statement contains any mistakes at all, and then discuss their answers.

You can use sticky notes to get a quick insight into what areas your kids think they need to work on. Ask them to pick their own trouble spot from three or four areas where you think the class as a whole needs work, and write those areas in separate columns on a whiteboard. Have you students answer on a sticky note and then put the note in the correct column-you can see the results at a glance.

Several self-assessments let the teacher see what every kid thinks very quickly. For example, you can use colored stacking cups that allow kids to flag that they're all set (green cup), working through some confusion (yellow), or really confused and in need of help (red).

Similar strategies involve using participation cards for discussions (each student has three cards-"I agree," "I disagree," and "I don't know how to respond") and thumbs-up responses (instead of raising a hand, students hold a fist at their belly and put their thumb up when they're ready to contribute). Students can instead use six hand gestures to silently signal that they agree, disagree, have something to add, and more. All of these strategies give teachers an unobtrusive way to see what students are thinking.

No matter which tools you select, make time to do your own reflection to ensure that you're only assessing the content and not getting lost in the assessment fog. If a tool is too complicated, is not reliable or accessible, or takes up a disproportionate amount of time, it's OK to put it aside and try something different.

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7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

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Within these methods you'll find close to 40 tools and tricks for finding out what your students know while they're still learning.

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Ashley Cintron- Pre-teach academic language

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Ashley Cintron- Pre-teach academic language

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by pre-teaching academic language, you make the reading more understandable for students. since this is a new language for students they may not know what context the word is being used in so by teaching it to them beforehand it makes the reading go a lot smoother for them.

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Lindsey George, Ashley Cintron, Mallory Hovart

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Lindsey George, Ashley Cintron, Mallory Hovart

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Student-Teacher conference to recount learning. by doing individual conferences students are more likely to open up about what they are struggling with and why.

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Mackenzie Pearson, Jenna Cooley, Katelyn Stephens

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Mackenzie Pearson, Jenna Cooley, Katelyn Stephens

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Our group would like to have a Gallery Walk for our students. They will post their work on a bulletin board, then all students will walk around and review each others' work by leaving feedback on sticky notes.

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Teach Each Other!
Have students get into groups (2-4 students) and have each student teach the other students about 1 concept they learned about from the main lesson.

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Coleman LeMoine, Jake Connelly, Taylor Barge, and Chloe Mazurek

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Coleman LeMoine, Jake Connelly, Taylor Barge, and Chloe Mazurek

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Exit Ticket: We are discussing using a form of "Exit Ticket" to see if the students got what they needed out of class before they leave.

Dipstick Activity: Quick and easy ideas

write a letter explaining a key idea to a friend,

draw a sketch to visually represent new knowledge, or

do a think, pair, share exercise with a partner.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-smart-fast-ways-do-formative-assessment

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We decided to have our students use journals so we can keep track of their progress throughout the year. It also is a way for students to look back at their work and see their growth and have it all easily organized in one place. It also is easily accessible for all students regardless of their comfort levels when speaking in class and participating in group discussions.

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Madeline Whitehead, Megan Campbell, Jenna Wages, Carmen Smith

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Madeline Whitehead, Megan Campbell, Jenna Wages, Carmen Smith

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Put a die at each desk. At the end of class, each student rolls and briefly answers aloud a question based on the number rolled:

1. I want to remember …

2. Something I learned today

3. One word to sum up what I learned

4.Something I already knew

5. I’m still confused about …

6. An “aha” moment that I had today

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Shelby R., Elise P., Emily B., Aubany T. 

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Shelby R., Elise P., Emily B., Aubany T. 

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Tickets Out the Door: KWL Charts!
Requiring students to fill out a KWL chart at the end of the day to asses
1.) What they know
2.) What they want to know
and
3.) What they learned
is a great way to assess the student's positive and negative understandings throughout the day.

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Our idea is to provide students with pictures (the same recurring picture or different pictures each time) every week and have them develop skills in descriptions of pictures. Have them explain what is going on in the picture and who is in the picture so that over the course of the school year you can see the students descriptions get more in depth.

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I will scaffold my students' writing skills by working with them to create a rubric for a writing assignment. I will hear their ideas and we will implement them into the rubric we create. I will then use that rubric to grade their writing assignment.

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Lindsey George - Reading - Pre-Teach Vocabulary

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Lindsey George - Reading - Pre-Teach Vocabulary

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https://www.edutopia.org/blog/scaffolding-lessons-six-strategies-rebecca-alber

This allows students to be introduced to vocabulary in forms other than direct text. Allows teachers to introduce vocabulary a bit at a time so students do not get bogged down and can focus on a few at a time. This will help immensely with long and complicated text.

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This website has some awesome activities to help work on reading comprehension. It is geared towards ESL students, but I think they can be used in the classroom with both ESL students and non ESL students. It allows students to work on reading comprehension in different ways aside from just reading and then answering questions.

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The purpose of ESL reading comprehension games is to improve the cognitive abilities of your students. When reading, they interpret the meaning of individual words and thus learn how the sentences are formed. Besides, reading comprehension activities can also improve writing skills, as a good reader is usually a good writer as well.

In this article, we are going to talk about various fun reading activities for an ESL classroom, so both classroom and online English teachers can learn new ways to engage with their students.

Planning to become an online tutor? Earn $15-22/hour.

ESL Reading Comprehension Activities

ESL Reading Puzzle

For this comprehension activity, you will need two jigsaw puzzles consisting of around 20 pieces each. You will need only the backs of those puzzles to write one word of a small story per each piece. However, you can try and search for blank puzzles, or create your own puzzle - whatever suits you best. Mix up the pieces of one of the puzzles and tell the students to assemble the story and then read it aloud. Use the second puzzle as an example of the correct story.

Rhyming Riddles

Prepare a worksheet with riddles that the students should read in order to figure out the mystery word. The clues include words that rhyme with the mystery word.

Scrambled Sentences

Write or print a text or a dialogue on a paper and then cut it into strips with one sentence per strip. Ask the students to assemble the sentences into coherent text or dialogue. For this reading comprehension activity, students can work in teams and the winning team should be the first to put the sentences together. To make the task more difficult, cut out words instead of sentences.

Filling in the Gaps

Ask students to fill in the gaps in a text with a word that passes best. You can suggest the three variants of words, whereas advanced students can come up with a missing word themselves, or even fill in the entire missing sentences.

Text Related Questions

In this reading comprehension activity, the students should read the text and answer the multiple-choice or true/false questions that are related to this text. Please note that the correct option should not be very obvious.

Book Discussion

Assign your students a book that they should read at home and then discuss the chapters during the class. The difficulty level of the book should correspond with the level of your students.

Proverbs and Idioms

Study the English proverbs and idioms together with your students and encourage them to find the matching proverbs and idioms in their mother tongue. If a proverb or idiom has the same meaning in the student's mother tongue but is explained by different words, encourage this student to translate this proverb or idiom into English. This activity will go a long way with reading comprehension.

Matching Comprehension Activities

Give your students a set of book descriptions accompanied by short biographies of fictional characters with a focus on their reading tastes. The task of the students is to match the readers with the books that would fit them best. Some books have similar topics, so the students have to read all descriptions very carefully in order not to be misled. For example, a person enjoys cooking and would like to buy a cookbook, but not a fiction book about cooking. You can replace the book descriptions with music albums, concerts, job descriptions - whatever you find useful for your students - and adjust the characters' bios accordingly. You can also match the job descriptions to jobs, headings to text, or use something else for this matching reading ESL activity.

Closest Meaning

Give your students a set of sentences and ask them to identify a sentence that is closest in meaning to the "main" sentence.

Irrelevant Sentences

Give your students several texts where one sentence is irrelevant and encourage them to identify this sentence. The students can work in teams, and the winning team should identify all irrelevant sentences earlier than other teams.

Dialogue Completion

During this ESL reading comprehension activity, you should ask your students to fill in the gaps in dialogues with the most suitable phrases.

Spelling Mistakes

Advanced students can try to identify the misspelled words in ESL readings.

Text Genre Identification

During this ESL reading activity, you should give your students several texts of different genres and encourage them to guess the genre.

In addition to reading skills themselves, such classroom reading games help the learners build up the following skills:

sequencing

summarizing

comparing

drawing conclusions

solving problems

finding the main idea, important facts, and supporting details

We hope that you will be actively using or are already using these ESOL reading exercises so that your students improve their reading skills.
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13 Activities To Improve ESL Reading Comprehension

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The purpose of ESL reading comprehension games is to improve the cognitive abilities of your students. When reading, they interpret the meaning of individual words and thus learn how the sentences are formed. Besides, reading comprehension activities can also improve writing skills, as a good reader is usually a good writer as well.