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My students love reading books on this website. Teachers can sign up for free and create accounts for their students. These high interest books can be read to them as well.

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Instantly access 25,000 high-quality books for kids

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Instant access to thousands of great kids books.

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Teachers can sign up for free to access reading passages. You can search for passages by exile level and even find paired passages.

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This dictionary helps put definitions into student friendly terms.

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This article explains Tier 1, 2, and 3 words.

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Bringing Words to Life is a landmark book for me and many other educators on the topic of vocabulary instruction. It's hard to say what the three most important ideas in it are because there are so many, but one of the most widely discussed in Beck, McKeown and Kucan's discussion is how to choose which vocabulary words to teach.

They divide words into three groups:

Tier 1 words occur frequently in everyday life. Such words generally are not worth teaching explicitly, as they will be absorbed via continued natural exposure, Beck argues.

Tier 3 words consist of technical vocabulary specific to a certain domain or discipline. They are subject-specific and highly specialized. 'Filibuster' is fine to teach you are a history teacher but English/ Language Arts teachers should not focus on such words, Beck argues, because it's better to focus on words that appear more frequently in a wide array of contexts.

Tier 2 words, then, are the place to focus. These are, as Daisy Christodoulou describes it in 'words that occur across a range of domains, are characteristic of written texts and occur less frequently in oral language.'

This notion of teaching Tier 2 words is pretty common among the schools I work with-there are a lot of us Beck acolytes out there. But I also feel like there are some very simple, very persistent challenges implicit in executing the idea. For example when watching trainings or reading blog posts, I often see teachers present a very simplistic group of words as being typical of Tier 1. For example even Daisy Christodoulou, who is one of my heroes, uses this list of typical Tier 1 words in her post: warm, dog, tired, party, walk.

The problem with that list is that the words in it are so simple that they are not actually words teachers would use in vocabulary lessons and so, as a result, our conception of Tier 1 words eliminates nothing, and we are left with a vision of words to teach that is merely Tier 2 and Tier 3- technical vocabulary and everything else.

I was discussing this with Maggie Johnson and Colleen Driggs the other day because we are developing a Plug and Play workshop on vocabulary (coming out soon!), and we set out to develop a list of Tier 1 words that were words teachers would actually teach in vocabulary lessons but that were in fact too simple. We came up with words like "communication" and "situation."

Then this morning, I read t his really useful post on vocabulary from Katie Ashford, who's an English teacher and the Director of Inclusion at Michaela Community School in London. The whole post is outstanding but Katie defines Tier 2 words in a way that's slightly different from what I've seen elsewhere, and the difference is very useful. " The words that will have the biggest impact on a child's vocabulary are words that you see often in books, but hear rarely in speech. Words such as: derive, evoke, surreptitious, capricious, incredulous and eradicate all fall into this category." This strikes me as an incredibly useful and simple way to decide if a word is Tier 1 or Tier 2. "Communicate" and "situation" are much more complex than "dog" or "walk." They are long, for example, and the definition might be fairly nuanced. But they are still Tier 1 words in my opinion because they occur all the time in common speech, and so most students know enough about them to be functional. They are not as useful to teach as a word like "derive" or "eradicate" because the latter more readily lend themselves to better reading comprehension.

Anyway, Katie's framing of Tier 1 caused me a moment of clarity, and I now think I have a definition that I can use to exclude words teachers might teach as vocabulary on the grounds that they are Tier 1.

Isabel Beck, Tier 1, Tier 2, Vocabulary

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On Vocabulary: What is a 'Tier One' Word? - Teach Like a Champion

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Bringing Words to Life is a landmark book for me and many other educators on the topic of vocabulary instruction. It's hard to say what the three most important ideas in it are because there are so many, but one of the most widely discussed in Beck, McKeown and Kucan's discussion is how to choose which vocabulary words to teach.

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I use TPR in my classroom to teach vocabulary all the time and students love it. Watch a video of a teacher using it and read more about it here.

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Total Physical Response (TPR) is a method of teaching language or vocabulary concepts by using physical movement to react to verbal input. The process mimics the way that infants learn their first language, and it reduces student inhibitions and lowers stress.

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This article, by Beck, McKeown, and Kucan, explains how to choose vocabulary words to teach students.

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The teacher's edition for a fourth-grade anthology suggests teaching the following words before inviting students to read an excerpt from Charlotte's Web (White, 1952): comfort, cunning, endure, friendless, frolic, lonely, soaked, and stealthily. Why do you think these words were selected? One obvious reason for selecting words to teach is that students do not know the words. Although cunning, endure, frolic, and stealthily are probably unfamiliar to most fourth graders, comfort, friendless, lonely, and soaked are probably not. Familiarity does not seem to be the principle used to make the selection. What about importance or usefulness? Are the selected words useful for writing or talking? Would the words be important to know because they appear in other texts with a high degree of frequency? Some - but not all - of the words might be considered useful or important. Thus, the question remains: Why were the words selected? The purpose of this chapter is to consider what principles might be used for selecting words to teach.

Useful words

As a way to begin thinking about which words to teach, consider that words in the language have different levels of utility. In this regard, we have found our notion of tiers, as discussed in Chapter 1, to be one helpful lens through which to consider words for instructional attention. Recall that Tier One consists of the most basic words - clock, baby, happy - rarely requiring instruction in school. Tier Three includes words whose frequency of use is quite low, often being limited to specific domains - isotope, lathe, peninsula - and probably best learned when needed in a content area. Tier Two words are high-frequency words for mature language users - coincidence, absurd, industrious - and thus instruction in these words can add productively to an individual's language ability.

Identifying Tier Two words in texts

To get an idea of the process of identifying Tier Two words, consider an example. Below is the opening paragraph of a retelling of an old tale (Kohnke, 2001, p. 12) about a donkey who is under a magical spell that forces him to do the chores for a group of lazy servants. The story would likely be of interest to third and fourth graders.

Johnny Harrington was a kind master who treated his servants fairly. He was also a successful wool merchant, and his business required that he travel often. In his absence, his servants would tend to the fields and cattle and maintain the upkeep of his mansion. They performed their duties happily, for they felt fortunate to have such a benevolent and trusting master.

The underlined words are those we identified as consistent with the notion of Tier Two words. That is, most of the words are likely to appear frequently in a wide variety of texts and in the written and oral language of mature language users. (Note: We chose this paragraph because there were so many candidate Tier Two words; however, most grade-level material would not have so many words in only one paragraph.)

One "test" of whether a word meets the Tier Two criterion of being a useful addition to students' repertoires is to think about whether the students already have ways to express the concepts represented by the words. Would students be able to explain these words using words that are already well known to them? If that is the case, it suggests that the new words offer students more precise or mature ways of referring to ideas they already know about. One way to answer the question is to think about how average third and fourth graders would talk about the concepts represented by the Tier Two words. We think that students would be likely to offer the explanations shown in the accompanying list.

Adding the seven target words to young students' vocabulary repertoires would seem to be quite productive, because learning the words would allow students to describe with greater specificity people and situations with which they already have some familiarity. Note that these words are not simple synonyms of the familiar ones, however, instead representing more precise or more complex forms of the familiar words. Maintain means not only "keep going," for example, but also "to continue something in its present condition or at its present level." Benevolent has the dimension of tolerance as well as kindness.

Selecting from a pool of words

The decision about which words to teach must also take into account how many words to teach in conjunction with any given text or lesson. Given that students are learning vocabulary in social studies and science as well as reading or language arts, there needs to be some basis for limiting the number of words so that students will have the opportunity to learn some words well.

Now consider which of the words will be most useful in helping students understand the above paragraph. For the seven words noted there, our thinking is that fortunate is particularly important because the fact that the servants thought they were lucky is an important condition of the story. Similarly, benevolent plays an important role in setting up the story, as the servants appreciate their master's kindness and do not want to upset their pleasant living situation. If one other word were to be selected, a good choice would be merchant. Merchant is a word that comes up in fourth- and fifth-grade social studies textbooks in discussions of colonization of the Americas (e.g., "European merchants were eager to locate new resources like tobacco and indigo which could be found in the colonies"; or "Colonial merchants were dismayed by the taxes on English goods which meant higher prices for their customers but no more profit for themselves").

The other candidate words, tend, required, performed, and maintain, are also words of strong general utility, and the choice of whether to include any more words is based solely on considering how many words one thinks students can usefully handle.

You try it

Below is another excerpt from the tale about the donkey under the magical spell described above (Kohnke, 2001, p. 12). You might find it useful to try your hand at identifying Tier Two words. You will get to see our choices below the excerpt, so that you can compare your selections with ours.

The servants would never comment on this strange occurrence [finding the kitchen clean even though none of them were seen doing the cleaning], each servant hoping the other had tended to the chores. Never would they mention the loud noises they'd hear emerging from the kitchen in the in middle of the night. Nor would they admit to pulling the covers under their chins as they listened to the sound of haunting laughter that drifted down the halls to their bedrooms each night. In reality, they knew there was a more sinister reason behind their good fortune.

Which words did you select? Trying to be all-inclusive, selecting any words that might fit Tier Two, we chose comment, occurrence, tended, mention, emerging, admit, haunting, reality, sinister, and fortune. We considered them Tier Two words as we viewed them as fairly "general but sophisticated words." That is, they are not the most basic or common ways of expressing ideas, but they are familiar to mature language users as ordinary as opposed to specialized language. The concepts embodied in each word are ones that students already have some understanding of, as shown in the accompanying list.

Now, the notion of tiers of words is not a precise one, and the lines between tiers are not clear-cut, so your selection may not match ours. Thinking in terms of tiers is just a starting point - a way of framing the task of choosing candidate words for instruction (see the accompanying box). Even within Tier Two, some words will be more easily familiar and some will be more useful than others. For example, our hunch is that admit, reality, and fortune are likely known to most fourth or fifth graders; that tended is not often used in a way that is key to understanding; and that fifth graders may already associate haunting with scary things - a Halloween context - which is fitting for this story. Thus we ended up with comment, occurrence, mention, emerging, and sinister. We judged the first four of these to be most useful across a range of contexts, and we chose sinister because it is a strong word with emotional impact that is used in literature to describe fictional characters as well as in nonfiction, such as when describing a group's sinister plans to invade another's territory.

Considerations beyond Tier Two

There is nothing scientific about the way words are identified for attention in school materials. Some words are obvious candidates, such as selecting the word representation for a social studies unit on the American Revolutionary War era. But beyond the words that play major roles, choices about what specific set of words to teach are quite arbitrary. Teachers should feel free to use their best judgment, based on an understanding of their students' needs, in selecting words to teach. They should also feel free to treat words in different ways. As Chapters 3, 4, and 5 will show, Tier Two words are not only words that are important for students to know, they are also words that can be worked with in a variety of ways so that students have opportunities to build rich representations of them and of their connections to other words and concepts.

In many texts, however, there may be several unfamiliar words that do not meet the criteria for Tier Two words but which nevertheless require some attention if students are to understand a selection. Consider the following excerpt from the short story "My Father, the Entomologist" (Edwards, 2001, p. 5):

"Oh, Bea, you look as lovely as a longhorn beetle lifting off for flight. And I must admit your antennae are adorable. Yes, you've metamorphosed into a splendid young lady."Bea rolled her eyes and muttered, "My father, the entomologist." "I heard that, Bea. It's not nice to mumble. Unless you want to be called a ... Mumble Bea!" Bea's father slapped his knee and hooted. Bea rolled her eyes a second time. The first day of fifth grade, and my father tells me I look like a longhorn beetle. Bea shuddered at the thought. She absolutely detested bugs.

With fourth and fifth-grade students in mind, we have divided the 12 underlined words from the story into the following three categories:

The first column contains words that are important to the story but that can be dealt with very quickly. Longhorn beetle does not call for attention-students will understand it as a type of insect, and more knowledge is not needed to understand the story.

Antennae and entomologist are needed to understand the situation the author uses to set up the story, but the two words can be quickly described as "those things that stick out from an insect's head" and "a scientist who studies insects." More precise information is not required for this selection.

Metamorphosed can be explained as simply changed or grown, but to get the humor intended here, the information needs to be given that it is the type of change that certain insects go through, such as when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. But, again, no more precision is required, and this is not the place to go through the elaborate explanation about the process or how it occurs. That should occur in a science unit about insects.

The words in the next two columns have more general applications and are consistent with Tier Two words. The words in the second column - obsessed, detest, and despise - are most substantively related to the plot of the story, which is about a father who is obsessed with bugs and his daughter who detests and despises them. Detest and despise create a kind of "two-fer" situation, in that they are very close synonyms that could be introduced together and used interchangeably.

The rest of the words do not play key roles in the story, nor is their unfamiliarity likely to interfere with comprehension. So, which other words are attended to, if any, is simply a matter of choice and convenience. That is, a decision as to the number of words taught might be made on the basis of how many a teacher wants to make room for at the moment. Factors in this decision may include, for example, how large the current vocabulary load is in the classroom, the time of year, and the number and difficulty of other concepts presently being dealt with in the curriculum.

Assume that there is room for several more words from this story. It might be convenient to teach splendid and shuddered, because they could take advantage of concepts already established for the story. Shuddered fits well, since something that is detested might well make one shudder. Splendid is also a good fit, as in: "Bea's dad thinks bugs are splendid, but Bea detests them." Or "If you're obsessed about something, you might think it's splendid." These two words would also be favored because they have a bit more dimension to them than mumble, muttered,or hurl. This is not to say that mumble, muttered,or hurl should not be taught, but simply that, presented with the choice of words to work with, splendid and shuddered seem to lend themselves to a wider diversity of possible uses.

What if there are not enough words?

Now let us consider a text that does not seem to offer much for vocabulary development because all of the words in the text are familiar to students. An approach in such a case could be selecting words whose concepts fit in with the story even though the words do not appear. For example, if the story features a character who is a loner, introduce the words hermit, isolated,or solitary; if a problem is dealt with, present it as a dilemma or conflict; if a character is hardworking, consider if he or she is diligent and conscientious. Think in terms of words that coordinate with, expand, or play off of words, situations, or characters in a text.

Bringing in words whose concepts fit with a story is especially salient when young children are just learning to read and there are only the simplest words in their text. Consider a story in which two children (Pam and Matt) try on a number silly hats, some of which are very big and two of which are exactly alike. A number of words came to mind, and we chose absurd, enormous, and identical. Next we suggest how those words might be introduced to young children:

In the story, Pam and Matt had very, very silly hats. Another way to say that something is very, very silly is to say that it is absurd. When something is absurd, it is so silly it's hard to believe.

Some of the hats that Pam and Matt wore were so big that all you could see were their feet. Another way to say that something is very, very big is to say that it is enormous. Enormous means "very big - very, very big."

Pam and Matt put on red hats that were almost exactly alike. A way to say that two things are exactly alike is to say that they are identical. Identical means "exactly alike."

Words don't need to be completely unfamiliar to students in order to be good candidates for instructional attention. Words might be selected for attention that may be familiar to students but which illustrate the power of an author's choice of words to reveal information about a character or situation. For example, notice the underlined words in the following excerpt, which is taken from a sixth-grade unit on Egypt (Banks et al., 1997, p. 87). The topic is Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh.

Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut was a princess and the wife of a pharaoh. She seized the chance to become pharaoh herself when her husband died. Her young stepson was supposed to become the new pharaoh of Egypt. Hatshepsut proclaimed, however, that the ten-year-old boy was too young to rule on his own. In this way she succeeded in being named co-ruler.

Hatshepsut's Trading Journey
In the eighth year of her reign, Hatshepsut organized the biggest trading expedition of her career. An expedition is a group of people who go on a trip for a set reason. The goal of Hatshepsut's expedition was to trade with Egypt's neighbors to the south in Punt. Historians think Punt may have been in what is today Ethiopia or Somalia...
The huge caravan of scribes, soldiers, artists, and attendants set off along a dusty road that led east to the Red Sea. There they loaded their cargo onto five sleek ships for the long journey south.

The only word identified for attention by the publisher in this segment is expedition, which is explained within the text. The two underlined words - seized and sleek - offer possibilities for drawing students' attention to the effect of an author's choice of words and help the topic come alive.

That Hatshepsut "seized" the chance to become pharaoh reveals something about her character that would make for an interesting discussion. For example: "It says that Hatshepsut seized the chance to become pharaoh. Seize means 'to grab something or take control of it firmly.' So, what does that tell us about Hatshepsut? Was she afraid of being pharaoh? Do you think she was eager to become a ruler?"

Similarly, that the expedition sailed off in "sleek" ships communicates the prosperity and style of the Egyptian civilization. Discussion could prompt thinking in that direction: "Sleek is a word used to describe something graceful and stylish, that marks its owner as well-to-do. 'They sailed off in sleek ships.' What picture does that give us of Egypt?" Additionally, words like ambitious and calculating could be introduced to characterize Hatshepsut.

An example for older students

The examples provided thus far were drawn from texts for readers in the intermediate grades. Although the same principles apply to selecting words from texts for students in the upper grades, they may play out a bit differently. Thus, we present a discussion of the words that might be selected for Agatha Christie's "In a Glass Darkly" (1934), a story that is likely to be of interest to students in eighth or ninth grade. It is a rather brooding tale that moves from a murderous premonition to unrequited love, jealousy, and near tragedy before resolving happily. The story begins as the narrator, while staying with a friend, sees a vision of a man strangling a woman. The woman turns out to be his friend's sister, Sylvia, with whom he falls in love. But Sylvia is engaged to the man he saw in his vision. He tells her of the vision, and she breaks her engagement. For years, the narrator is unable to tell her of his feelings for her. Finally, love is revealed and they marry. But he is deeply jealous, a feeling that results in his nearly strangling his wife - until he notices in the mirror that he is playing out the scene of his premonition.

The language of the story is sophisticated but not particularly difficult. Most words will likely be at least passingly familiar to many readers in eighth or ninth grade. However, many of the words are probably not of high frequency in the students' vocabularies, and thus an opportunity presents itself for students to work with these words and gain fluency with them. Here are the 30 words from the story that we identified as Tier Two words:

Of the 30 words, we decided to focus on 10 of them: essential, altered, well-off, devoted, entrenched, inevitable, sobering, revelation, upshot, and disinterested.

Ten words may be a lot to develop effectively for one story, but we see it as a workable number because many of them will already be familiar. Also, two of the words could be introduced rather briefly with little or no follow-up work. These are altered, which could be defined simply as "permanently changed," and well-off, which could simply be given the synonym wealthy. The reason for attention to these two words is that they could cause confusion at the local level in the story if not understood.

Two other words were also chosen because they could cause confusion in a part of the story. These are upshot and disinterested. The narra-tor talks of the upshot of his decision to tell Sylvia that he saw a vision of her fiancé choking her. Because of the context and feel of the story, we thought upshot might be interpreted as some sort of physical violence, instead of simply "the result of." The word disinterested meaning "not being involved in a particular situation" is often confused with uninterested, meaning "not interested," and the story provides a good opportunity to introduce that distinction.

Five words seem to convey the mood and emotional impact of story developments: devoted, entrenched, inevitable, sobering, and revelation. And the word essential was chosen because "one essential detail" turns out to be a key plot device - that is, in his premonition, the narrator notices a scar on the left side of the choker's face. The essential detail he fails to account for is that he is seeing this in a mirror, so the scar is actually on the right. The five words can be used to describe the plot as follows: The narrator is devoted to Sylvia, although entrenched in a jealousy that causes inevitable problems. Only a sobering revelation (that essential detail) saves him, his marriage, and his wife.

A couple of points should be emphasized here. The words were selected not so much because they are essential to comprehension of the story but because they seem most closely integral to the mood and plot. In this way, the vocabulary work provides both for learning new words and for enriching understanding of literature. This decision was made possible because there was a large pool of words from which to choose. Sometimes choices are more limited, and sometimes the best words are not so tied to the story. In such cases, a decision might be made to select words that seem most productive for vocabulary development despite their role in the story.

For the six words we consider to be most important to teach, some characteristics of the words themselves also drove our selections. Sobering was selected because its strongest sense for students might be as the opposite of drunk. So, the context of the story provides a good opportunity to overcome that and introduce its more general sense. The others, essential, devoted, entrenched, inevitable, and revelation, have wide potential for use and are not limited to specific situations or stereotypical contexts. Yet, they seem to be strongly expressive words that can bring emotional impact to contexts in which they are used.

An example for young children

We turn now to selecting words to enhance the vocabulary repertoires of young children - those who are just learning to read. We make two immediate distinctions between vocabulary work with intermediate and older students and work with students in the earliest grades, typically kindergarten though early second grade. The first is that we consider the best sources for new vocabulary to be trade books that teachers read aloud to children rather than the books children read on their own. In Chapter 4 we will make our case for that position. The second distinction is that in contrast to introducing words before a story, in our work with young children we have found it most appropriate to engage in vocabulary activities after a story has been read.

There are two reasons we decided that vocabulary activities for young children should occur after a story. First, if a word is needed for comprehension, since the teacher is reading the story she is available to briefly explain the word at the point in the story where it is needed (e.g., "A ukulele is a kind of guitar"; or "When ducks molt, they lose their feathers and can't fly until new ones grow"). Second, since the words that will be singled out for vocabulary attention are words that are very likely unfamiliar to young children, the context from the story provides a rich example of the word's use and thus strong support for the children's initial learning of the word.

The basis for selecting words from trade books for young children is that they are Tier Two words and words that are not too difficult to explain to young children. Here, we present our thinking for selecting three words for instructional attention from The Popcorn Dragon (Thayer, 1953), a story targeted to kindergartners.

In our review of The Popcorn Dragon for Tier Two candidate words, we first identified the following seven: accidentally, drowsy, pranced, scorched, envious, delighted, and forlorn. From the pool of seven, we decided to provide instruction for three: envious, delighted, and forlorn. We considered three issues in making our choices. First, we determined that the concept represented by each word was understandable to kindergartners; that is, 5-year-olds understand the concepts of wanting something someone else has (envious), being very happy (delighted), and being very sad (forlorn). Second, it is not too difficult to explain the meanings of those words in very simple language, as illustrated in the previous sentence! And, third, each word has extensive possibilities for use. In particular, the words are found in numerous fairy tales; that is, there is often some character who is envious of another, and there are characters who are delighted or forlorn about the turn of events. The words, however, are not restricted to make-believe; they can all be used in describing people in common situations.

We found the other candidate words - pranced, accidentally, scorched, and drowsy - interesting and potentially useful, but we saw scorched and pranced as narrower than the ones we chose, and drowsy and accidentally as not quite so interesting. We hasten to make the point that this is all a matter of judgment. The final decisions about which words to teach may not be as important as thoughtful consideration about why to teach certain words and not others.

What about words being on grade level?

A concern that surfaces in deciding which words to teach is whether words are appropriate for students at certain grade levels. Key to this concern is to understand that no formula exists for selecting age-appropriate vocabulary words despite lists that identify "fifth-grade words" or "seventh-grade words." There is simply no basis for determining which words students should be learning at different grade levels. For example, that coincidence is an "eighth-grade word" according to a frequency index means only that most students do not know the word until eighth grade. It does not mean that students in seventh or even third grade cannot learn the word or should not be taught it.

There are only two things that make a word inappropriate for a certain level. One is not being able to explain the meaning of a word in known terms. If the words used to explain a target word are likely unknown to the students, then the word is too hard. The other consideration for word selection is that the words be useful and interesting - ones that students will be able to find uses for in their everyday lives. Of course, this is a matter of judgment, best decided by those who know the individual students. Work we have done with kindergarten and first-grade children shows that sophisticated words can be successfully taught to young children. For example, kindergartners readily applied nuisance to disruptive classmates, and understood what was happening when a commotion occurred in the hall; first graders could easily discern argumentative peers from those who acted dignified!

In summary

In evaluating words as possible candidates for instruction, here are three things to keep in mind:

How generally useful is the word? Is it a word that students are likely to meet often in other texts? Will it be of use to students in describing their own experiences?

For example, students are likely to find more situations in which to apply typical and dread than portage and brackish.

How does the word relate to other words, to ideas that students know or have been learning? Does it directly relate to some topic of study in the classroom? Or might it add a dimension to ideas that have been developed?

For example, what might knowing the word hubris bring to a middle school student's understanding of the battles at Lexington and Concord, which set the Revolutionary War in motion?

What does the word bring to a text or situation? What role does the word play in communicating the meaning of the context in which it is used?

A word's meaning might be necessary for understanding a text. Or understanding its meaning might allow an enriched insight about the situation being presented, such as in the case of Hatshepsut's seizing power and her expedition traveling in sleek ships.

Keep in mind that there is no formula for selecting age-appropriate vocabulary words despite lists that identify "fifth-grade words" or "seventh-grade words." As long as the word can be explained in known words and can apply to what students might talk or write about, it is an appropriate word to teach.

Your turn

We invite you to use what you have learned in this chapter to make some decisions about which words you will teach.

1. Select a text that your students will be reading. It can be a story, or an excerpt from a chapter book or novel, or a social studies textbook.

2. List all the words that are likely to be unfamiliar to students.

3. Analyze the word list:

Which words can be categorized as Tier Two words?

Which of the Tier Two words are most necessary for comprehension?

Are there other words needed for comprehension? Which ones?

4. On the basis of your analysis, which words will you teach?

Which will need only brief attention?

Which will you give more elaborate attention to?

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Teaching vocabulary is complex. What words are important for a child to know and in what context? In this excerpt from Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, the authors consider what principles might be used for selecting which words to explicitly teach.

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Watch these videos to see how one teacher teaches vocabulary to her ELL students.

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The site navigation utilizes arrow, enter, escape, and space bar key commands. Left and right arrows move across top level links and expand / close menus in sub levels. Up and Down arrows will open main level menus and toggle through sub tier links. Enter and space open menus and escape closes them as well.

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Using cognates to help ELL students.

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Amber explains why cognates can be an effective tools for helping ELLs learn vocabulary.

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The cameras are a bit outdated, but this looked like a very hands on/interactive way to teach vocabulary to newcomers.

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Teaching vocabulary with digital cameras

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Learn how Amber helps vocabulary come alive for her students with digital cameras -- all while teaching them important technology skills!

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Read about using portfolio assessments, performance-based assessments, and assessing content knowledge.

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Informal assessments (also called authentic or alternative) allow teachers to track the ongoing progress of their students regularly and often. While standardized tests measure students at a particular point in the year, ongoing assessments provide continual snapshots of where students are throughout the school year. By using informal assessments, teachers can target students' specific problem areas, adapt instruction, and intervene earlier rather than later.

Ongoing assessments are particularly important for English language learners (ELLs). Standardized tests in English do not usually reflect ELLs' true content knowledge or abilities. Yet informal assessments can provide a more well-rounded picture of their skills, abilities, and ongoing progress. Today's No Child Left Behind legislation requires that meticulous records be kept on the progress of ELLs. Having these records will make it easier when questions of program placement, special services, and grading arise.

There are two commonly used informal methods: performance-based assessment and portfolio assessment. Both methods utilize typical classroom activities to measure progress toward curricular goals and objectives. These activities can be monitored and recorded by teacher observation and student self-assessment.

Performance-based assessments

Performance-based assessments are based on classroom instruction and everyday tasks. You can use performance-based assessments to assess ELLs' language proficiency and academic achievement through oral reports, presentations, demonstrations, written assignments, and portfolios.

These assessments can include both processes (e.g., several drafts of a writing sample) and products (e.g., team projects). You can use scoring rubrics and observation checklists to evaluate and grade your students. These assessment tools can help document your ELLs' growth over a period of time.

Here is a sample language and academic assessment form that you can complete on a monthly basis to learn about the overall academic and English proficiency progress of your ELLs. If there is an ESL or resource teacher at school assisting your ELLs, you can share this assessment of the ELL's progress during the past month.

When using performance-based assessments, it is important to establish clear and fair criteria from the beginning. It might be helpful to develop these criteria in conjunction with other teachers or specialists at your school. Performance-based assessments promote a wide range of responses and do not typically produce one single, correct answer. Therefore, evaluation of student performances and products must be based on teacher judgment, using the criteria specified for each task. Here is a sample oral scoring rubric.

You can also develop assessment (and instructional) activities that are geared to your ELLs' current level of English proficiency. Performance-based assessment activities can concentrate on oral communication and/or reading. Here are examples of commonly-used activity types designed for assessing speaking or reading:

Reading with partners

Retelling stories

Role playing

Giving descriptions or instructions using visual or written prompts

Oral reporting to the whole class

Telling a story by using a sequence of three or more pictures

Completing dialogue or conversation through written prompts

Debating, either one-on-one or taking turns in small groups

Brainstorming

Completing incomplete stories

Playing games

When using performance-based assessments with beginner and intermediate English proficiency level ELLs, it is best to assess no more than three items at a time. For example, in one role play activity, you might assess ELLs' abilities to:

1. Respond to "what" and "where" questions

2. Ask for or respond to clarification

3. Read addresses or telephone numbers

Portfolio assessments

Portfolios are practical ways of assessing student work throughout the entire year. With this method, you can systematically collect descriptive records of a variety of student work over time that reflects growth toward the achievement of specific curricular objectives. Portfolios include information, sample work, and evaluations that serve as indicators for student performance. By documenting student performance over time, portfolios are a better way to crosscheck student progress than just one measure alone. Portfolios can include:

Samples of written student work, such as stories, completed forms, exercise sheets, and descriptions

Drawings representing student content knowledge and proficiencies

Tapes of oral work, such as role-playing, presentations, or an oral account of a trip

Teacher descriptions of student accomplishments, such as performance on oral tasks

Formal test data, checklists, and rating sheets

Checklists or summary sheets of tasks and performances in the student's portfolio can help you make instructional decisions and report consistently and reliably. Checklists can also help you collect the same kind of data for each student. In this way you can assess both the progress of one student and of the class as a whole. This sample math development checklist is an example of how you can organize your data collection for each ELL.

In addition, here are a few ways that your ELLs can have an active role in the portfolio process:

Students can select samples of their work and reflect on their own growth over time.

You can meet with ELLs to develop their goals and standards, such as with this sample writing criteria chart.

Together with students, you can set tangible, realistic improvement goals for future projects.

Students - as a class, in groups, or individually - can create their own rubrics.

Assessing content knowledge

ELLs need to learn grade level academic content even though they are still in the process of learning English. Even if ELLs are at the beginning or intermediate stages of English language development, you can still use their thinking ability and challenge them with content knowledge activities. ELLs need your help to exercise their critical thinking skills - such as knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation - in order to succeed in school during all stages of English language development.

It is possible to assess ELLs' understanding of math, science, social studies, and other content areas somewhat independently of their level of English proficiency. The following assessment techniques can help you adapt assessments to reduce English language difficulties while you assess ELLs' actual content knowledge. These techniques can be used separately or simultaneously as needed.

Scaffolding assessments allow ELLs to demonstrate their content knowledge through exhibits or projects, drawings, and graphic organizers. Consider giving ELLs extra time to complete these tasks, or to give short responses.

Differentiated scoring scores content knowledge separately from language proficiency. To score content knowledge, look at how well ELLs understand key concepts, how accurate their responses are, and how well they demonstrate the processes they use to come up with responses.

You can use a content area progress form with the above techniques to rate your ELLs' overall content achievement in class. You will need separate forms for math, science, and social studies performance.

It is important to note that if students are being instructed in content in one language (e.g., English), they should not be assessed on that content in another language, even if it is their native language.

For more information on assessing ELLs in general, visit the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory (LAB) website.

Read about assessing fluency.

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Using Informal Assessments for English Language Learners

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Informal assessments (also called authentic or alternative) allow teachers to track the ongoing progress of their students regularly and often. While standardized tests measure students at a particular point in the year, ongoing assessments provide continual snapshots of where students are throughout the school year.

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This article explains 3 strategies for equitable assessment of ELLs.

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This is a rather long video, but it has some good information. It explains how to assess ELLs.

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Featuring Dr. Lorraine Valdez Pierce, discussing effective classroom strategies for assessing English language learners.

For this webcast:

For general information about our webcasts or to be part of our studio audience in Washington D.C., please click here.

This webcast is made possible by AFT Teachers, a division of the American Federation of Teachers, as part of a Colorín Colorado partnership between AFT and Reading Rockets.

Program description

This 45-minute webcast is a thorough introduction to assessment for teachers of English language learners. Dr. Lorraine Valdez Pierce will discuss performance-based standardized assessments; assessment as a tool for informing instruction; use of assessment to reinforce reading comprehension; and student self-assessment and self-monitoring.

Dr. Lorraine Valdez Pierce will also provide practical advice on how ESL and classroom teachers can collaborate when assessing English language learners and making decisions based on those assessments. Tips on record keeping and rubrics are also included.

Presenter

Lorraine Valdez Pierce is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at George Mason University. She focuses on designing curriculum and assessment procedures for English language learners at the Center for Language & Culture. She has also published articles in TESOL Journal, TESOL Matters, and Educational Assessment.

Moderator

Delia Pompa is the moderator of this webcast. She is the Vice President of the Center for Community Educational Excellence at the National Council of La Raza.

Transcript

Studio

Delia Pompa: Hello, I'm Delia Pompa. Welcome to this year's first Colorín Colorado webcast. Today, we're going to talk about assessment for English language learners. Dr. Lorraine Valdez Pierce is here to help us. She's coordinator of the ESL Teacher Licensure Program at the Graduate School of Education at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. Pierce, before we talk about assessment, tell us a little bit about English language learners, some of the characteristics that make teaching - make teaching them challenging.

Dr. Lorraine Valdez Pierce: Well, there are three big areas that make teaching English language learners challenging. The three areas are language, culture, and previous educational experience. So when it comes - when we're talking about assessment, language is right up there as one of the big three with regard to the difference in language between the language that they speak and the language that they're being assessed or tested in. Then there's culture, which will maybe lead to some differences in classroom behavior from what native speakers would be producing or preparing. But then there's also the parental role. When parents come from different cultures they may be less eager to run and participate in the American public school system. And then finally, the previous educational experience that these children bring may include literacy, or not literacy. And this is a very important variable in assessing students.

Delia: You've brought up lots of characteristics. Could you go back and define - give us a little more information on each one. Language, could you define how that would be different? What we would see there. What a teacher might see.

Dr. Pierce: Well, children who speak English as a second language, or bilingual children, come from, you know, over 100, 200 different language backgrounds. And what we know is the closer the language is to English, such as a romance language, the easier it would be for that child to acquire the language. But the more distance between their language, such as Russian, or Arabic, or Turkish, the more distance there is between the written language and the spoken language and English, the more challenge there might be in learning the English language. So that's - and that's the language part. The cultural part comes where children are raised in a home where they are maybe given a rather passive role, and they're taught to also go to school and just do what the teacher tells you, and not really engage or ask questions. And so the teacher may get the impression that these children are passive, or even not interested, or not making the effort, when really it's a cultural upbringing issue.

Delia: So the culture really reflects the styles of the different children and what their family values and what childrearing styles.

Dr. Pierce: Right. Childrearing definitely has an impact on the child's behavior and performance in the school.

Delia: And finally, previous education. How does that play into it? How does that make a big difference?

Dr. Pierce: Well, research tells us now, we have pretty clear evidence that says a child who brings native language literacy to the classroom has a tremendous advantage over the child who does not bring any kind of significant amount of native language literacy. So what we want to determine then when a child comes to the classroom is whether or not they have literacy in the native language. And if they do, then we can use that as a building block to acquiring English as a second language literacy.

Delia: Makes a lot of sense. So, it seems like assessment would be particularly important for this group. What exactly do you mean by assessment? We toss that term around all the time. What are we talking about when we talk about assessment?

Dr. Pierce: Yeah, assessment basically is the gathering of data, information, on a student's learning or knowledge or skills. And with regard to reading, it's what kind of information do we have on the student's reading skills and ability?

Delia: And is that a formal process that we use? Because it seems to me that teachers are gathering information on kids all the time.

Dr. Pierce: Right. It can be formal or informal. At the classroom level, it'll most likely be informal. And it must take the place of some kind of observation on the part of the teacher and then translating the observation to some kind of documentation.

Delia: So it's very broad.

Dr. Pierce: Well, the assessment itself has become a key issue when we look at No Child Left Behind, and when we look at Adequate Yearly Progress, which is another term we toss around a lot. What can you tell us about how assessment fits into No Child Left Behind in general, and to Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, which we'll try not to use, Adequate Yearly Progress we'll say.

Delia: In particular, how is that interaction taking place when you look at assessment, and then also when you look at the context of the characteristics of these children?

Dr. Pierce: Well, I think there's good news and there's bad news. I think the good news is at last we have some requirements on the part of the federal government and the states following those requirements, for accountability, accountability for the learning of English language learners who, for the longest time, have been an invisible student population, because their test scores on standardized tests have typically been excluded, or disaggregated. But now this is no longer allowed. And so the good news is we do have accountability requirements for monitoring the progress of these students. The bad news is that most school systems take the approach that one size fits all. And so the same tests that are used with native speakers of English are now being used with English language learners for the most part. And those are not appropriate, because of the language difference. And then, in the case of states that are developing native language assessments, this is still in kind of an - kind of an emerging field. There's not a whole lot of research out there on native language assessments for accountability at the state level. So you see a lot of states kind of searching for answers, and the whole field is evolving. So it's a very challenging aspect there, to get issues such as accountability and reliability and validity, important measurement issues addressed at these levels of assessment.

Delia: You used the word "disaggregation" awhile ago, which is probably something a lot of our audience is hearing about. What's the key thing about disaggregation that's important about English language learners in the context of No Child Left Behind?

Dr. Pierce: In the context of No Child Left Behind, disaggregation means the ability to find out how specific populations are doing with regard to approaching learning goals and objectives. So it's very important not to just mix in the English language learners with native speakers, but to pull out that data and information on all English language learners in the school system to find out how this group is progressing as a group from year to year.

Delia: So then how does assessing English language learners become an important piece of what we're doing? Why is it especially important?

Dr. Pierce: It's especially important when we talk about accuracy. And accuracy is another word for validity. That is, if we're going to make inferences from test data then we need to make sure that those inferences about where these students are, what they've learned, and what they haven't learned, that these inferences are accurate. And the only way you're going to get accuracy if you either use the language of instruction that these students are familiar with or use different kinds of assessments that more closely relate to instruction.

Delia: Okay, so how would a school handle a new student? Let's take a look at a real-life example.

The Reading Rockets Professional Development Webcast Series is a production of WETA. The Reading Rockets project is funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. This program was produced by WETA/Reading Rockets, which is solely responsible for its content. The views expressed in the program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of WETA/Reading Rockets, our funders, or our partners.

* To view this file, you'll need a copy of Acrobat Reader. Most computers already have it installed, or you can download it now.

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Featuring Dr. Lorraine Valdez Pierce, discussing effective classroom strategies for assessing English language learners. For this webcast: For general information about our webcasts or to be part of our studio audience in Washington D.C., please click here.

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This site explains many things about assessments. I appreciated their graphics and diagrams.

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Strategies for assessment.

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Think-alouds help students to learn what good readers do as they read. This site gives more information on thinking-aloud as you teach.

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Think-alouds have been described as “eavesdropping on someone’s thinking.” With this strategy, teachers verbalize aloud while reading a selection orally. Their verbalizations include describing things they’re doing as they read to monitor their comprehension. The purpose of the think-aloud strategy…

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Close Reading: Developing New Understandings

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Close Reading: Developing New Understandings

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Making Inferences

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Reading Rockets offers 7 strategies to teach text comprehension.

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Adapted from Adler, C.R. (Ed). 2001. Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read, pp. 49-54. National Institute for Literacy. Retrieved Nov. 1, 2007, from http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/publications/reading_first1text.html.

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Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension

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Comprehension strategies are conscious plans - sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading comprehension. These seven strategies have research-based evidence for improving text comprehension.

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Tips and tricks to help increase ELL nonfiction text comprehension.

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Kids need to be able to learn to read text for meaning ... (and ask themselves) "Do I know why I'm reading this? Do I know what information I'm looking for?" ... We're always delivering the curriculum in a way that draws on language and reading skills.
- Dr. Nonie Lesaux

Do you remember buying used textbooks in college? If you were lucky, you got one that was highlighted by a skilled student, giving you clues to key information from the book that you needed for your coursework. If you weren't lucky, you got a textbook that had practically all words highlighted on each page and you were looking at a sea of neon pink, yellow, or blue, which could be very distracting. My guess is that a lot of high school students head to college without ever having learned to interact effectively with non-fiction texts. Since books are a precious resource in K-12 education systems, students aren't allowed to highlight or mark in them, and may rely more heavily on the classroom instruction and peer interaction than their reading material to grasp the main idea of a lesson.

Of course it's not just a question of highlighting important information - it's a question of learning key concepts and vocabulary by becoming familiar with different kinds of text, by learning to use a textbook's tools and structure, and by monitoring one's own comprehension of non-fiction text. Without ever having developed these skills, students will have a tough time when it comes time for them to learn information independently in more advanced coursework and in college.

This is especially true for English language learners, who are challenged by learning a new language and new content in that language at the same time. Teachers can help prepare ELL students to successfully work with non-fiction, (or expository) text, however, in many ways - and the earlier the better. Starting early is important because if elementary school classrooms have a predisposition towards fictional stories and literature, students may struggle when they get to fourth grade and need to engage effectively with non-fiction texts in order to learn new content.

In Colorín Colorado's Reading to Learn: ELLs in Grades 4-6 webcast, featured panelist Dr. Nonie Lesaux addresses this transition:

There probably is a fourth-grade slump, but the question is whether we're just picking something up in fourth grade that's already been there for a lot of years for a number of kids, and/or whether, in fact, there are differences in the comprehension demands of the curriculum, and certainly that's a question ...(because by fourth grade) we have reading that cuts across a number of areas of instruction, so reading is not just relegated to reading instruction but rather we need to have good reading comprehension skills for math, for science, for other areas of the curriculum.

While some of those challenges relate to reading instruction in content areas, they also relate to improving the instruction non-fiction texts for ELLs so that students can work successfully with content-area material. In this article I will highlight components of non-fiction texts and effective strategies to help ELLs gain the skills needed to not only understand the content, but understand how the text structure works so they will be able to access content effectively throughout their education.

Introducing text

First, let's look at definitions of types of text:

Narrative: The main purpose of narrative text is to tell a story. Narrative text has beginning, middle and end, characters, plot or conflict, and setting. Usually, narrative texts are written from the author's imagination.

Expository: The main purpose of expository text is to inform or describe. Authors who write expository texts research the topic to gain information. The information is organized in a logical and interesting manner using various expository text structures.

To increase ELLs comprehension of non-fiction expository text, teachers need to provide:

1. explicit instruction on how expository text is structured.

2. models of "what good readers do" to get information from expository text.

3. opportunities for practice so that ELLs can identify and interact with the text

4. opportunities for peer interaction with the content of the text in order to increase comprehension.

Let's look at these steps in more detail:

1. Provide explicit instruction on how expository text is structured.

Teachers need to spend some time introducing students to the format of expository text. This is a lesson intended to teach students how to get information from non-fiction text rather than on the actual content of the text. That instruction can be done once students are familiar with the text format and structure.

Help students recognize the structure of expository text. Introduce the various parts of the text, such as the table of contents and the glossary. Discuss how these different parts are used for informational reading, how the text is organized, where different parts will be found in a textbook, and how they compare with one another.

For example, have students compare the index and the glossary, and discuss what they would use each section for. You might try asking a question such as, "If I want to know the definition of a word, will I look in the index or glossary?"

Elements that are important to introduce include:

Although it may seem very obvious to teachers, something as simple as finding bold words and identifying their definition in surrounding text may be new concepts to developing readers. As students are instructed to find different components of the text, ask questions such as, "What does this graphic tell us? Why do you think the author wanted to put that there?" Make it a thinking exercise so the students will internalize the knowledge.

Chapter walk

One way to help students become familiar with new kinds of books is through a chapter walk, which can be used with fiction or non-fiction text. Students preview the chapter before starting their first lesson in a new unit, looking for headings, graphics, pictures, important words, and key information. Students can discuss what they've noticed and what they think will be covered in pairs, gropus, or with the entire class. Once students have become comfortable with a new resource, this exercise can be used to preview content for future lessons and activate background knowledge.

This strategy can also be used with fiction books by using illustrations and chapter headings or important words in the text.

Types of text

For older students, teachers can spend some time helping them understand the different types of text they will encounter, such as descriptive, sequence, and cause and effect. This document posted by U-46 School District in Elgin, Illinois provides an overview of five expository text structures, associated signal words, and related graphic organizers.

2. Provide opportunity for ELLs to practice interacting with the text and identifying key components of the text.

Giving the students to practice these skills will build confidence and offer many learning opportunities. Practice activities can be done to demonstrate how to get information from the expository text. For example, ask students to look for the main idea of a text, and then to explain what "clues" they saw that supported their answer. Students might say things such as, "The main idea is usually in the first paragraph." Or, "I saw the summary written on the side of the page." Engaging the class in discussion about these key components will give all students a chance to demonstrate learning.

Other strategies include:

Making predictions: One method is the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DR-TA), which encourages students to be active readers. DR-TA is a process where the students listen to a brief summary of the text, review a few key words or pictures, and then make a prediction about the content of the text. As they begin to read the text, the teacher asks more questions about how their predictions match what they're reading.

Word splash: Students receive handouts with key words and phrases from the text "splashed" randomly across the page. The students spend some time making clusters of information that goes together. They can do this by circling groups of words, highlighting them in different colors, or drawing lines. The class discusses what they've learned from their clusters and what they predict they will learn from the text. Once again, when they begin to read the text they should make note of which parts of their prediction were correct and how they know that based on "evidence" in the text.

Practice highlighting: Students can practice highlighting text on worksheets or by using this method: Give each student a clear plastic overhead sheet and a "write-on/wipe-off" marker. Have the student paperclip the plastic sheet to a page in the textbook and work together to circle new vocabulary words and underline key points. The plastic sheets can be wiped off and used again.

Margin bookmark: One way to allow students to practice making notes is by using margin bookmarks. Prepare scratch paper "bookmark" strips that fit in the crease of the textbook and within the margin of the print, or that can be attached to the outside margin using a paperclip. Students can use these bookmarks to make notes in the margin. Give them specific tasks such as, "Write the definition of one of the bold words in your own words," or "Write one fact, one question, and one thing that is important for you to remember." Provide examples so that students see how they can interact effectively with expository text.

Define the important information: As evidenced by those textbooks full of highlighting I mentioned at the beginning of the article, if a student doesn't know what's important, then everything is important. I like to have the students do an activity I call "Pack the Suitcase" so that they can start identifying the most important information in the text. In order to do this activity, give the students a short text (no more than two paragraphs) and a small envelope with a picture of a suitcase drawn or glued on it. Pass out pieces of scrap paper and tell students that they need to:

1. review the text

2. write "an important point" on each piece of paper

3. "pack" them in their suitcase.

Students can use as many or as few pieces of paper as they want. When the students are finished, tell them they are going on a trip but that they packed too much - they must look in their suitcase and take out half of their items. Students will really have to decide which items (points) are most important to bring on the trip. Finally, have students "travel" to the other side of the room and sit with a partner and "unpack" the suitcases. See if they have the same points, and discuss any differences and how they identified what was important in the article.

3. Model "what good readers do" to get information from expository text.

As good readers, teachers sometimes forget how mystifying and overwhelming text can be for students. I can recall many years of math classes where I looked around at my classmates in puzzlement and wondered how they figured all the answers out! Looking at the textbook didn't help me because I didn't understand what I was looking for. I believe ELLs ofent have a similar experience, but if teachers model "what to do" when approaching expository text, ELLs will become more successful readers.

Here are some strategies to try:

Think aloud*: Read an introductory portion of the text to the class. Pause to model what you are thinking out loud, such as by describing what you know about the text. For example, a teacher may look at a chapter with a picture of a volcano and bold words in the text such as lava, magma, and geothermic. The teacher could say, "Hmmm ... I see this picture of a volcano and I notice bold vocabulary words. The words look very scientific and technical. I bet this will be a reading about science. I think I will learn facts about volcanoes and how they work."

Demonstrate how to figure out vocabulary: As you come to new vocabulary words, pause and think about how you can figure out what that word means. Show how you look for clues such as commas after the word that contain a definition, or show how the word is related to something else you know such as a root word or cognate in another language. Finally the teacher may want to demonstrate how to ask someone next to you for help with the word, or refer to your personal dictionary of new words that you've created for the unit.

Use a graphic organizer: Determine what you need to know in the text and show how to complete a graphic organizer. Talk about how the graphic organizer will help you remember the important information in the text. For example, if students need to determine the characteristics of an active volcano vs. an inactive volcano, the graphic organizer can follow a comparison outline and students fill in the correct information as related to the topic. Be sure to emphasize that this kind of activity can be used in any classroom and with any content. The student just needs to determine what they want to know and make an "organized picture" of the information so they will remember.

Model "fix up" strategies*: Proficient readers know when they "missed" something or what they are reading doesn't make sense. Developing readers tend to "just keep going" hoping that eventually it will all make sense. Of course, this makes it much more difficult to comprehend the content and it leads to frustration. Show students how you "double check" information when you don't understand it or it doesn't make sense. Read a section of the text aloud - especially a complicated portion - and stop to reflect. Say out loud, "What did I just read? That didn't make sense. Let me go back and read it again." If it still seems confusing, ask the students for ideas about how you could "check" your understanding of this information.

Determine if it's "In the Book" or "In my Head": In the Question Answer Relationship (QAR) strategy students are taught to identify if information is in the book (literal) or in their head (inferential). Teachers can demonstrate this by using questions to model how they figure that out. For example, a literal question might be, "What are three characteristics of an active volcano?" An example of an inferential question is, "Are volcanoes dangerous?" This can be a very important skill to develop because many developing readers spend a lot of time scouring the text looking for an answer that is not defined literally in the text.

*Strategies from, "7 Keys to Comprehension: How to help your kids read it and get it!" by Susan Zimmerman and Chryse Hutchins. See Hotlinks for further information.

4. Increase peer interaction with the content of the text in order to increase comprehension.

Giving students the chance to interact with their peers about new content will engage them and offer more opportunities to practice talking, writing, and thinking about what they have learned. You can do this with the following strategies:

Develop study guides to guide ELLs through content area textbook reading. Study guides will focus student attention on the major ideas presented, and can include graphic organizers as described above, key vocabulary, and guiding questions. These study guides can be very helpful in preparing for final exams and students can use them to "quiz" each other. More advanced students can develop their own study guides in partners or in groups.

Assign reading partners. Pair ELLs with friendly fluent readers. Ask partners to read aloud to each other, alternating sentences or pages. After the first student reads, the other student summarizes what they heard. Then the two partners switch roles.

Encourage student engagement. One strategy is the "Say Something" activity. Students take turns reading aloud, and following the reading, each student 'says something,' such as asking a question, making a comment, making a connection to something already read, or responding personally to the text. The exercise also engages students as readers and gets them thinking about the text. For ELLs, teachers may want to have a "phrase wall" displayed so they have a sentence structure to begin their comments. Examples such as, "That reminds me of..." Or "Do you know..." or "That's interesting because..."

Have students re-tell what they have learned. After students read a section of text, have them re-tell it to a partner or write a few summary notes in their notebook and switch notes with a partner. The partner can add notes, questions or comments to the author's notes.

For more tips on supporting reading instruction in the ELL classroom, take a look at our reading tips for teachers, as well as some reading comprehension strategies. You may also find some helpful tips from the AdLit.org Strategy Library.

Spending time working with text structure and guiding ELLs in how to access expository content effectively will have huge benefits for your students now and in the future. Textbooks are like other classroom tools, such as microscopes or computers. Without the proper introduction and practice, the student will only get a fraction of the information the teacher hopes they will gain. As teachers work with students to discover the secrets to using expository text for learning, they will be rewarded by deeper discussions and learning in the classroom. Most importantly, having learned these strategies, your students will be equipped to interact with a multitude of academic texts throughout the rest of their education.

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Increasing ELL Student Reading Comprehension with Non-fiction Text

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Kids need to be able to learn to read text for meaning ... (and ask themselves) "Do I know why I'm reading this? Do I know what information I'm looking for?" ... We're always delivering the curriculum in a way that draws on language and reading skills.

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This article explains the importance of building background knowledge, explicit vocabulary instruction, and frequent comprehension checks.

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Note: This article originally appeared in ASCD Express: Vol. 5, Issue 11, " Reading to Learn."

Comprehension is the reason for reading, but it can be the most difficult skill to master - especially for English language learners (ELLs). ELLs often have problems learning science, math, or social studies concepts, for example, because they cannot comprehend the textbooks for these subjects.

ELLs at all levels of English proficiency and literacy development will benefit from improved comprehension skills, which allow them to:

read more accurately

follow a text or story more closely

identify important events and concepts in a text

master new concepts in their content-area classes

complete assignments and assessments

feel motivated to read in school and for pleasure

There are a number of ways to build ELLs' comprehension skills. Often standard strategies that are used in mainstream classrooms are a good starting point - they just need to be tweaked with ELLs' language and academic needs in mind! This article focuses on strategies that are part of three main approaches: building background knowledge, teaching vocabulary explicitly, and checking comprehension frequently.

I. Build background knowledge

Draw on students' existing knowledge

Students may already possess content knowledge that they cannot yet demonstrate in English. Look for opportunities to make associations between students' experiences and new content. Allow students to use their native language with peers for a quick brainstorm about what they know about a topic before presenting their ideas to the whole class.

Build students' background knowledge

Students with limited or interrupted schooling may not have that same level of knowledge as their peers, especially when it comes to historical or cultural topics. When starting a new lesson, look for references that may need to be explicitly explained.

Take students on a "tour of the text"

At the beginning of the year and each time you hand out a new textbook, take students on a "virtual tour." Show them different elements of the text, such as the table of contents and the glossary, and discuss how these sections can be helpful. Explain how the text is organized, pointing out bold print, chapter headings, and chapter summaries. Once students learn how to recognize these elements, they will be able to preview the text independently. Remember that students need to know how to use a tool in order for it to be useful. Learn more about this strategy in Teaching ELLs to Navigate Textbooks Effectively.

Use a "picture-walk"

This strategy can be used for fiction or non-fiction books. "Walk through" the book with the students, pointing out pictures, illustrations, and other graphic elements. Ask them what they notice about the pictures and how they think those details may be related to the story or content.

Use outlines to scaffold comprehension

Provide a brief, simple outline of a reading assignment or an oral discussion in advance of a new lesson. This will help ELLs pick out the important information as they listen or read.

II. Teach vocabulary explicitly

Focus on key vocabulary

Choose vocabulary that your students need to know in order to support their reading development and content-area learning. Provide student-friendly definitions for key vocabulary.

Include signal and directional words

Remember that students may also need explicit instruction in signal or directional words ("because" and "explain"), in addition to key content vocabulary ("photosynthesis" and "revolution").

Use a "picture-walk" for vocabulary

Once students know a new word's definition, ask them connect those new words to the pictures they see in the text.

Teach students to actively engage with vocabulary

Teach students to underline, highlight, make notes, and list unknown vocabulary words as they read.

Give student practice with new words

Ensure that your students can:

Define a word

Recognize when to use that word

Understand multiple meanings (such as the word "party")

Decode and spell that word

Incorporate new words into discussions and activities

For students to really know a word, they must use it - or they will lose it. Use new words in class discussions or outside of class in other contexts if appropriate, such as on field trips. Give the students as many opportunities to use and master the new vocabulary as possible.

III. Check comprehension frequently

Use informal comprehension checks

To test students' ability to sequence material, for example, print sentences from a section of the text on paper strips, mix the strips, and have students put them in order.

Test comprehension with student-friendly questions

After reading, test students' comprehension with carefully crafted questions, using simple sentences and key vocabulary from the text. These questions can be at the:

Literal level (Why do the leaves turn red and yellow in the fall?)

Interpretive level (Why do you think it needs water?)

Applied level (How much water are you going to give it? Why?)

No matter what the proficiency level of the student, ask questions that require higher-level thinking

To probe for true comprehension, ask questions that require students to analyze, interpret, or explain what they have read, such as:

What ideas can you add to...?

Do you agree? Why or why not?

What might happen if...?

How do you think she felt...?

Use graphic organizers

Graphic organizers allow ELLs to organize information and ideas efficiently without using a lot of language. Different types include Venn diagrams, K-W-L charts, story maps, cause-and-effect charts, and timelines.

Provide students lots of different ways to "show what they know"

Drawings, graphs, oral interviews, posters, and portfolios are just a few ways that students can demonstrate understanding as they are beginning to develop their reading and writing skills in English.

Summarize

Ask students to use the following strategies to summarize what they have read (orally or in writing):

Retell what you read, but keep it short.

Include only important information.

Leave out less important details.

Use key words from the text.

It may be challenging to get ELLs' comprehension skills where you want them to be, but the extra effort it takes will be well worth it as you put them on the path to becoming successful readers.

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Reading Comprehension Strategies for English Language Learners

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Note: This article originally appeared in ASCD Express: Vol. 5, Issue 11, " Reading to Learn." Comprehension is the reason for reading, but it can be the most difficult skill to master - especially for English language learners (ELLs). ELLs often have problems learning science, math, or social studies concepts, for example, because they cannot comprehend the textbooks for these subjects.

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This video shows you how you can scaffold questions for ELLs so that they can answer more difficult questions.

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How to scaffold reading comprehension questions for ELLs

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Michelle shares her strategies for scaffolding her students' reading comprehension with examples from "A Christmas Carol."

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See it done in the classroom.

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Story setup: Pre-reading strategies for comprehension

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Learn about pre-reading strategies that will lay the groundwork before ELLs tackle a new text -- in this case, A Christmas Carol.

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Before, During, and After Reading Strategies for Guided Reading

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Before, During, and After Reading Strategies for Guided Reading

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This video shows a guided reading lesson for elementary ESL students.

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Guided Reading with ESL Elementary Students

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WIDA develops and provides proven tools and support to help multilingual learners, and their educators, succeed.

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The role of standards in instruction WIDA understands that your instructional context is unique. For example, you might be teaching academic subjects with multilingual learners integrated into your classroom, or you might be collaborating as a content or language expert for your shared multilingual students.

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This article explains how to write and use language objectives.

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This article provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and offers classroom-based examples from different grade and subject levels.

This article written for Colorín Colorado provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and includes:

what a language objective is

steps that teachers can take to create language objectives

how to implement language objectives in a general education classroom

how to align objectives to content and language standards

ideas and resources on how to support teachers as they become familiar with this practice

how to use language objectives in distance learning environments.

Language Objectives: An Overview
Mrs. Shell has been teaching eighth grade math for twelve years. She has deep content area knowledge and wants to provide all of her students with authentic activities and tasks to relate the significance of the mathematical concepts that she teaches to their lives. Mrs. Shell has always felt successful at teaching her classes but this year has been different. Her sections include students with more diverse backgrounds than previous years, particularly more English learners. As Mrs. Shell was beginning to feel frustrated with her inability to reach all her students because of their needs, she learned about one way to make her content more comprehensible to all her students - creating and posting objectives that tell the students not just what content concepts they will learn in each lesson, but also the academic language they will need to learn and use to meet the state's math standards. With this knowledge, Mrs. Shell is now confident that she not only knows what to teach, but also how to teach it so that all her students can be successful.

Generally speaking, academic English is the language of schooling and the language that helps students acquire and use the content area knowledge taught in schools (Anstrom, DiCerbo, Butler, Katz, Millet, & Rivera, 2010).

Teaching content to ELs: The challenge

In my work supporting general education and ESL/bilingual teachers who provide sheltered instruction for English learners (ELs), I have met many teachers like Mrs. Shell. While these teachers want to provide effective instruction for their ELs, often they don't see themselves as language teachers and so they aren't sure where to begin with their students.

These teachers aren't alone, however, and they are facing a challenge shared by teachers across the country. We know that for school-age students, academic language is crucial for school success (Francis, Rivera, Lesaux, Kieffer, & Rivera, 2006). In addition, research allows us to state with a fair degree of confidence that English learners best acquire English when language forms are explicitly taught and when they have many opportunities to use the language in meaningful contexts (Goldenberg, 2008).

Yet while the explicit instructional support that ESL and bilingual teachers provide is essential to English learners' academic language development, English learners receive a majority of their instruction from general education and content area teachers who may not have experience teaching academic language development.

The question becomes then: What do general education classroom teachers need to do in order to support the academic English development of language learners in both face-to-face and virtual environments, especially when English learners are one of many types of students they serve?

Teaching content to ELs: The solution

One principle that teachers of English learners can begin to apply immediately is creating and posting language objectives for their lessons (whether in the classroom or online in a virtual space. Many teachers are familiar with using content objectives to identify what students will learn and be able to do in the lesson. However, they are less likely to include language objectives that support the linguistic development of their students.

Implementing language objectives can be a powerful first step in ensuring that English learners have equal access to the curriculum even though they may not be fully proficient in the language. This is because the second language acquisition process requires opportunities for the language learner to be exposed to, practice with, and then be assessed on their language skills (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

To this end, language objectives:

articulate for learners the academic language functions and skills that they need to master to fully participate in the lesson and meet the grade-level content standards (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

are beneficial not only for language learners but for all students in a class, as everyone can benefit from the clarity that comes with a teacher outlining the requisite academic language to be learned and mastered in each lesson.

Now let's take a closer look at some examples and how to write language objectives.

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Writing Language Objectives

What is a language objective?

Language objectives are lesson objectives that specifically outline the type of language that students will need to learn and use in order to accomplish the goals of the lesson. Quality language objectives complement the content knowledge and skills identified in content area standards and address the aspects of academic language that will be developed or reinforced during the teaching of grade-level content concepts (Echevarria & Short, 2010).

These objectives involve the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing), but they can also include:

Below are examples of language objectives for different content areas and grade levels. They come from the Common Core State Standards for Math and English Language Arts (2012) and state standards in New York and California.
Sources:
How do I create effective language objectives?

Dr. Cindy Lundgren discusses the process of writing language objectives in this excerpt from her Meet the Expert interview.

Language objectives are directly correlated to content objectives. Once a teacher determines the lesson topic from the appropriate content standards, the teacher will want to begin thinking about the academic language necessary for English learners to complete the tasks that support the content objectives. This identification of the academic language embedded in the lesson's content will become the basis for the lesson's language objectives.

You can use the following guidelines to start thinking about appropriate language objectives for the lesson:

1. Decide what key vocabulary, concept words, and other academic words students will need to know in order to talk, read, and write about the topic of the lesson. Those words might be taught as a language objective. They should include technical terms, such as ecosystem, and terms like distribution that have different meanings across content areas. Other terms to highlight are those that language learners may know in one context, such as family (as in parents, siblings, etc.), but that have a different use in science (e.g., family of elements in the periodic table).

2. Consider the language functions related to the topic of the lesson (e.g, will the students describe, explain, compare, or chart information). See your state English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards for examples of these functions for English language arts, math, science, and social studies for all English proficiency levels and grade-level clusters.

3. Think about the language skills necessary for students to accomplish the lesson's activities. Will the students be reading a textbook passage to identify the stages of mitosis? Are they able to read a text passage to find specific information? Will they be reporting what they observe during a scientific demonstration to a peer? Do they know how to report observations orally? Acquiring the skills needed to carry out these tasks might be the focus of a language objective.

4. Identify grammar or language structures common to the content area. For example, many science textbooks use the passive voice to describe processes. Additionally, students may have to use comparative language to analyze two related concepts. Writing with the passive voice or using comparative phrases might be a language objective.

5. Consider the tasks that the students will complete and the language that will be embedded in those assignments. If students are working on a scientific investigation together, will they need to explain the steps of the procedure to one another? The language objective might focus on how to explain procedures aloud.

6. Explore language learning strategies that lend themselves to the topic of the lesson. For example, if students are starting a new chapter in the textbook, the strategy of previewing the text might be an appropriate language objective.

(Adapted from Short, Himmel, Gutierrez, & Hudec, 2012. Used with permission.)

Aligning Language Objectives and Standards

English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards

Developing appropriate language objectives for lessons involves becoming familiar with a state's content area and ELP standards. Whereas the content standards will provide the topic of the lesson and what exactly the students should be doing with that topic (e.g., solving problems, creating models, ranking ideas), the English language proficiency or development standards help to identify language skills and functions that students should be working on to achieve academic language fluency. These ELP standards can help to identify:

English Language Arts (ELA) standards

Other resources in addition to the ELP standards are a state's English Language Arts standards or the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History, Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (CCSS). The English Language Arts and Literacy CCSS might be especially useful to teachers of English learners due to its attention to literacy across the content areas.

Additional resources to consult, especially if a state is a member of the WIDA consortium, are the Model Proficiency Indicators (MPIs) outlined in their ELP standards. The MPIs outline what an English learner at a specific level of English language proficiency can do in a language domain (e.g., listening) by addressing the language functions embedded in an example topic for that content area with appropriate scaffolds or support (Gottlieb, Cranley, & Cammileri, 2007). Classroom texts and other materials (e.g., science investigations, primary source documents) are other good sources to consult when preparing a lesson.

Getting Started

How can I get started?

Careful lesson planning

In creating measureable and student-friendly language objectives that support the content objectives, it is important that learner tasks in the lesson are aligned with the objectives. It is not enough to have well-written objectives that promote language acquisition if the lesson is lacking in tasks that support the objectives. If the language objective for a middle school social studies lesson is for the students to orally retell the key characteristics in a historical event using sequential language, it is important that the teacher previews sequential language with the students, such as providing sentence stems or frames, and builds into the lesson some structured pair work so the students have an opportunity to retell the event to a peer. Therefore, careful lesson planning is another essential step in preparing effective language objectives.

Collaboration

It is also useful for content area and ESL/bilingual teachers to plan lessons together, as we saw with the 7th grade science lesson scenario involving Mr. Zhang and Mr. Lewis. In this co-planning scenario, each teacher used his expertise to better integrate content and language instruction for the language learners. This type of collaboration can help a teacher like Mr. Zhang learn more about the second language acquisition process of his students and can help a teacher like Mr. Lewis become more familiar with the grade-level content expectations that his English learners encounter in content area classes.

How do I know which language objectives are best for my students?

The language objective that the teacher selects will depend on what the English learners in the class need most at that point in the year and what language is most important to understanding the content concepts. If the students have already spent a good deal of time working with new vocabulary, then the teacher might consider having students use that vocabulary to develop their writing skill by writing a summary of the process they followed.

Conversely, the teacher might want to help students become more proficient with a particular type of graphic organizer in order to develop more strategic language learning. As all teachers know, teaching is a dynamic and complex process that requires a multitude of decisions to be made. However, the advance planning required in creating language objectives allows teachers to better anticipate the academic English needs of all students thus increasing the comprehensibility of the lessons.

It is important for teachers to realize that even though their lesson may include all four language skills (it is good if they do, since the language skills reinforce one another), they do not need to post a language objective for every language-related item addressed in the lesson. Teachers address many instructional needs in a 50- or 60-minute class period. Rather than highlighting all language uses in a particular lesson, it is important for the teacher to think about what is non-negotiable in that lesson.

In other words, the teacher should keep the perspective of the English learner in mind and ask, "Of all of the skills and functions addressed in my lesson, which is most important for helping students meet the grade-level standard and develop their language proficiency?" These objectives then must be measureable (i.e., can you see or assess the student's mastery of that objective?) and written in language that accounts for the linguistic and cognitive development of the students.

How can I make language objectives "student-friendly"?

Both of the above objectives are measurable, but both also take into account appropriate developmental stages of the students. Teachers of young students (e.g., PK or K) may even want to consider further adapting the objectives. For example, we have seen kindergarten teachers use symbols such as a pencil to symbolize "write" and a mouth to symbolize "talk" when they post their objectives for the children to see. We have also seen teachers of young learners rely on pictures to show the key terms they want the students to use or to convey the topic of the lesson (e.g., a picture of a ruler and of hands to discuss standard and non-standard measurement).

One way that teachers can ensure that their language objectives are measureable and student-friendly is by using appropriate verbs. Because language objectives should provide students with practice in the four language skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking, verbs related to those skills might include, but are not limited to, the following:

List

Retell

Summarize in writing

Record

Read

It is also important to not equate low language proficiency with limited cognitive ability. Therefore, teachers will want to make sure that the language objectives they create also reflect tasks that fall on the higher end of Bloom's Taxonomy and use verbs (e.g., orally justify) accordingly.

As noted above in the guidelines to creating language objectives, language functions are also a potential source for language objectives. Verbs related to language functions might include:

When should I share language objectives with students?

To help students take ownership of their learning and provide explicit direction to students, especially the English learners who are processing content in a new language, it is important that objectives be stated at the beginning of the lesson and reviewed with the students at the end of the lesson to allow them to assess if they have met the objectives (Echevarria, Vogt & Short, 2008).

How this happens may differ according to the grade level and content area of the class. Some teachers like to have the students choral read the objectives, while teachers of older students sometimes have them record the language objectives in their journal in addition to asking an individual student to read them aloud. Some teachers, such as those who teach science, like to reveal the objectives later in the lesson, perhaps after the warm up or exploratory activity, so that they can maintain an inquiry-based approach (Echevarria & Colburn, 2006).

Should I differentiate language objectives based on my students' language proficiency?

Although all teachers have students of varying language proficiency and skill levels in their classes, it is not necessary to differentiate language objectives by creating and posting multiple language objectives that reflect these proficiency levels. Rather, teachers should have one language objective that is appropriate for all students to meet. To provide the appropriate differentiation, the teacher would provide different scaffolds (e.g., adapted text, visuals, sentence frames) for students to use in order to reach the objectives.

For example, an appropriate language objective for an upper elementary language arts class might be for the students to be able to orally list text features found in a non-fiction book. For lower proficiency language learners, the teacher may give them a word bank from which to choose the text features; therefore, the students are meeting the same objective but with the appropriate amount of linguistic support from the teacher.

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Using language objectives in a distance learning environment

While teachers like Ms. Shell understand that the characteristics of good teaching for English learners does not change in a virtual environment, they do understand that instruction will necessarily need to look different in order to account for the challenges that distance learning presents for many learners.

Accordingly, teachers will need to think through how to:

Presenting language objectives

Many different ways exist for teachers to present language objectives in remote learning. For example, teachers might:

begin every virtual class by orally reading and presenting the content and language objectives in their Google slides and then asking students to briefly summarize in the chat box the activities they will be doing in that lesson to meet those objectives.

post the objectives at the top of a shared digital document that serves as a capture sheet for the lesson. A teacher might then ask learners to self-assess their progress towards meeting those objectives at the end of the document.

use live or recorded videos, especially when working with English learners with lower English proficiency. These videos can include props, for example ears to signify a listening objective.

use realia, such as rocks, if one of the lesson's language aims is for students to orally describe different types of sedimentary rocks.

Monitoring student understanding and engagement

Teachers in distance learning environments must also carefully consider how they will assess learner understanding and engagement throughout the lesson. Given the challenges virtual learning platforms present towards capturing data on learner comprehension (e.g., paralinguistic cues such as facial expressions, gestures, posture) teachers working in virtual environments know that it is more important than ever to ensure that students clearly understand the content and linguistic aims for each lesson.

Using comprehension checks and assessing progress

It is also essential that students understand how teachers will measure their progress towards meeting each objective. Towards this aim, teachers must build in multiple comprehension checks throughout the lesson that align to the lesson's objectives. Teachers can:

At the conclusion of a lesson, teachers can assess student progress towards meeting objectives via:

tickets out that are submitted digitally

the recording of a Flipgrid or use of another video platform where learners respond to a prompt that requires learners to use the academic language highlighted in the lesson's objectives.

Teachers can respond to the submitted tickets out or video with feedback that explicitly targets the students use of the language. When appropriate, teacher can provide learners with additional resources and/or support towards mastering that particular language skill or function. Teachers might also use that linguistic data to inform mini-lessons conducted to small groups of English learners during office hours or intervention time.

Next Steps

How can I learn more?

For more information on the SIOP Model, see Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

Although language objectives can be implemented in any lesson design approach, they are especially congruent with sheltered instruction and the SIOP Model. Since language objectives ensure that teachers meet the unique linguistic needs of English learners, they are sometimes easier to implement in the context of instructional practices espoused by the SIOP Model.

Practices that focus on explicit academic language teaching include:

Below are other resources that can help you learn more about creating language objectives and about integrating academic language into content area classes.

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Final Thoughts

We realize that it takes teachers some time to become very comfortable with creating language objectives, but our experience has shown that the implementation of language objectives can bring immediate benefits to instruction. Some immediate benefits include teachers understanding more concretely that they are both a content area and language teacher - as one teacher said in a CAL SIOP Model workshop, "I now see myself as a math teacher AND a language teacher".

We have also observed that when teachers consciously plan to meet the academic English needs of their learners, they end up with better planned learner tasks, and students begin to have more ownership of their content area and language learning. When it comes to building proficiency in academic English, as many teachers in our workshops remind us, "If you want to see it, you have to teach it." Therefore, if teachers want to see language development, language objectives are a great first step in helping teachers explicitly teach it.

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Recommended Resources

Further reading

Short, D., Himmel, J., Gutierrez, S., & Hudec, J. (2012). Using the SIOP Model: Professional development for sheltered instruction. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M.E., & Short, D. (2010). The SIOP Model for teaching mathematics to English learners. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Echevarria, J., & Short, D. (2011). The SIOP Model: A professional development framework for a comprehensive school-wide intervention. Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) Brief. http://www.cal.org/create/resources/pubs/professional-development-framework.html

Himmel, J., Short, D., Richards, C., & Echevarria, J. (2009). Using the SIOP Model to improve middle school science instruction. Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) Brief. http://www.cal.org/create/resources/pubs/siopscience.html

Short, D., Vogt, M., & Echevarria, J. (2010a). The SIOP Model for teaching history-social studies to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Short, D., Vogt, M., & Echevarria, J. (2010b). The SIOP Model for teaching science to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Vogt, M.E., Echevarria, J., & Short, D. (2010). The SIOP Model for teaching English language arts to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Jennifer Himmel is the Project Director for the National Center for English Language Acquisition at the Manhattan Strategy Group. She previously served as the SIOP Manager at the Center for Applied Linguistics, a non-profit organization for language education research, policy, and practice in Washington, DC. She has served as a curriculum developer and research associate for the U.S. Department of Education funded project, Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) that is investigating academic achievement of ELLs in grades 4th-8th, and as a language testing specialist for the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs® language proficiency test. She currently manages the SIOP Model professional development service line and provides technical assistance and professional development in sheltered instruction to districts and schools.

Video Clips: Language Objectives

How to Write Language Objectives: Tips for ELL Educators

In this video from Syracuse, NY, Jesus Ortiz, a bilingual teacher, learns how to write a language objective from Areli Schermerhorn, a peer evaluator with expertise in ELL and bilingual education.

Dr. Cynthia Lundgren explains language objectives

In this excerpt from her Meet the Expert interview, Dr. Cynthia Lundgren explains the value of writing language objectives when teaching English learners.

Anstrom, K., DiCerbo, P., Butler, F., Katz, A., Millet, J., & Rivera, C. (2010). A review of the literature on academic English: Implications for K-12 English language learners. Arlington, VA: The George Washington University Center for Equity and Excellence. Education.www.ceee.gwu.edu.

Echevarria, J., & Colburn, A. (2006). Designing lessons: Inquiry approach to science using the SIOP Model. In A. Lathman & D. Crowther (Eds.), Science for English language learners (pp.95-108). Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association Press.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. (2008). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP Model. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Echevarria, J., & Short, D. ( 2010). Programs and practices for effective sheltered content instruction. In California Department of Education (Ed), Improving education for English learners: Research-based approaches. Sacramento, CA: CDE Press.

Francis, D., Rivera, M., Lesaux, N., Kieffer, M., & Rivera, H. (2006). Practical guidelines for the education of English language learners: Research-based recommendations for instruction and academic interventions. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. www.centeroninstruction.org/files/ELL1-Interventions.pdf

Goldenberg, C. (2008). Teaching English language learners: What the research does-and does not-say. American Educator, Summer 2008, pp. 13-44.

Gottlieb, M., Cranley, E., & Cammilleri, A. (2007). Understanding the WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards: A resource guide. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, on behalf of the WIDA Consortium.

Short, D., Himmel, J., Gutierrez, S., & Hudec, J. (2012). Using the SIOP Model: Professional development for sheltered instruction. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (2007). WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, on behalf of the WIDA Consortium http://www.wida.us/standards/elp.asp

You are welcome to print copies or republish materials for non-commercial use as long as credit is given to Colorín Colorado and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact [email protected] .

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Language Objectives: The Key to Effective Content Area Instruction for English Learners

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This article provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and offers classroom-based examples from different grade and subject levels.

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Teaching with Content and Language Objectives

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Teaching with Content and Language Objectives

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Scroll to the bottom to see how a 3rd grade and a 6th grade teacher use content and language objectives in their lessons. Above the videos, you will see a content and language objective planning sheet that I found helpful for organizing objectives for the week.

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Selecting and Unpacking Standards Planning Document revised-9(1)-2

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Resource for Selecting Tier 2 Words and Writing Student

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Vocabulary Strategies that Support Student Independence

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