Importance of Learning English:

• It is important to expose learners to English as soon as possible.

• Research indicates that it takes English learners at least five years to reach the same oral skill level as their English-speaking peers.

• The push for a language arts curriculum has made outcomes harder for English language learners.

• Exposure is key!

  
  

Effective Teaching Practice:

• English language learners require support from teachers.

• Some language learners face not only a language barrier but also a cultural barrier.

• It is important to make students feel comfortable and provide as much support as possible.

  • Build on student experiences and familiar concepts.

  • Provide students with background knowledge.

  • Designate language and content objectives for EACH lesson.

  • Graphic organizers.

• Have clear instructions and be as concise as possible.

• Use pictures or real-life objects.

Assessment for English Learners:

• Modify assessments when able.

• Give students more time to do the assessments.

• Place students where they feel comfortable.

• Give them the assessment during the day when the student is most focused.

• Read the test to students (when applicable).

• Have students take a practice test.

• Make sure you document what exactly you have modified for the students.

• Do not modify norm-reference tests, as it will skew the norm.

https://www.nea.org/professional-excellence/student-engagement/tools-tips/english-language-learners-what-you-need-know

• Choose technology that aligns with your teaching goals.

Before introducing any technology into your classroom, think about what you want to achieve and how the technology will support those goals.

• Integrate technology seamlessly into your lesson plans.

Technology should be used to supplement, rather than replace, traditional teaching methods. Consider how the technology will fit into your existing lesson plans and how you can use it to enhance student learning.

• Provide clear instructions and support.

Make sure that students understand how to use the technology and have access to the resources they need to succeed. Consider offering training sessions or setting up a tech support system to help students who are struggling.

• Monitor and assess student progress.

Use technology to track student progress and provide feedback on their learning. This can help you identify areas where students need additional support and can help you adjust your teaching strategies accordingly.

https://www.theiotacademy.co/blog/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-technology-in-education/

Characteristics of Dyslexia:

• Learning to speak.

• Retention of phonological and phonemic awareness tasks.

• Learning letters and their sounds. Reading words in isolation.

• Organizing written and spoken language. Decoding words.

• Memorizing number facts.

• Reading quickly enough to comprehend (reading with appropriate accuracy, rate, and prosody).

• Persisting with and comprehending longer reading assignments.

• Spelling.

• Learning a foreign language.

https://www.ksde.org/Portals/0/CSAS/CSAS%20Home/Kansas%20Dyslexia%20Handbook%20(2023-2024).pdf

• The Alphabetic Principle is the concept that letters represent individual phonemes in a spoken word.

• This principle is critical for learning how to read and spell.

• This needs to be established early as it is the first step in learning how to read and write.

• The Alphabetic Principle can be broken up into two parts:

  • 1. Alphabetic Understanding - knowing that words are made up of letters and sounds.

  • 2. Phonological Recording - knowing how to translate letters into the appropriate speech sounds.

• Insight that spoken words are made up of a sequence of somewhat separable sounds - called phonemes

• The sounds in spoken words (phonemes) match directly to the letters in written words (graphemes) - (vice-versa)

• Every words can be broken apart into phonemes (tiniest parts of speech)

• Every written word is made up of specific symbols from the alphabet

• Every sound in a spoken word is represented by a letters

  
  

  https://braintrusttutors.com/what-is-the-alphabetic-principle/

1. Phonological Processing System - hears and recognizes words in sentences (processes spoken language) activates the meaning processing system.

2. Meaning Processing System - reviews stored vocabulary for the possible meaning of word (example: glass)

3. Context Processing System - involves background knowledge and language structure

4. Orthographic Processing System - Print

   
   

   
   

   https://relay.libguides.com/science-of-teaching-reading-resource-guide/four-part-processing-model
   

• The Science of Reading focuses on the Simple View of Reading.

• Word Recognition X Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension

• Reading comprehension should begin early ( comprehension modeling, text
  structures)

Structured Literacy:

• How literacy is today:

  • Deep understanding of what is read.

  • Remembering important information

  • Linking new information to prior knowledge

  • Knowing when and where to use knowledge

  • Use knowledge appropriately in and out of school.

  • Communicate effectively with others.

• Do something with literacy. Don’t just know what literacy is... USE IT!

• Children/Students/Adults - need to be able to read a VARIETY of text pieces.

  • Examples:

    • Articles

    • Picture Books

    • Chapter Books

    • Novels

    • Digital Print (how to decipher digital print)

    
    

https://www.readingrockets.org/classroom/evidence-based-instruction/science-reading

1. Pre-alphabetic phase - little knowledge of letter sounds, use

pictures to represent letters

2. Partial alphabetic phase - learning that letters represent sounds,

and the shape of letters

3. Full alphabetic phase - decoding harder words, unfamiliar word

patterns

4. Consolidated Alphabetic phase - learn more about words,

syllables

Ehir (1998) -

• Sight Word Reading - recalling words by sight

• Decoding - identifying letter-sound correspondence and larger units in words and blending them together to make a word. (c-a-t, f-l-o-p)

• Analogizing - comparing an unknown word to a similarly spelled unknown word (phone-stone, past-fast)

  • “If you know show, you will know bow.”

• Contextual Guessing - using context to figure out words

Thompson (1999) -

1. Recall (sight word reading)
2. Generation (decoding, analogizing, using context)

https://sites.google.com/escneo.org/sst3literacy/theoretical-models-of-reading/ehris-four-phases-of-word-reading

Phonological Awareness:

• Having an awareness of sound properties in words. Having the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words.

https://jillianstarrteaching.com/what-is-phonological-awareness/

• Word Awareness - Knowing how many words are in a sentence. (clap out words, push up counters for words)

• Alliteration-producing and identifying words that start with the same sound (name games, fun phrases)

• Syllable awareness - parts in a word (clapping, pushing up counters, breaking up words and having students guess)

• Rhyming - words that end with the same sounds

Phonemic Awareness:

• spoken language consists of a series of small sound units or phonemes and the ability to manipulate these phonemes (sounds)

• Sound out words: /k/ /a/ /t/= cat (hearing)

• Blend sounds /m/ /a/ /n/ = man (oral language)

• Pre-requisite for reading

• Rhyme

• Alliteration-same letter or sound at the beginning or adjacent

• SOUNDS and spoken language

  https://sarahsnippets.com/tips-and-activities-for-phonemic/

  
  

  Phonics:

• actual printed letters

• words

• writing sentences

• anything written

  
  

  
  

• Closed

• Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe)

• Open

• Vowelt Team (including diphthongs)

• Vowel-r (r-controlled)

• Consonant-le (C-le)

• Leftovers: Odd and Schwa syllables

Syllabus Division

• Letter sequences that are less likely to occur next to each other within a syllable.

• For example, in the word haystack, we have several clues as to where to divide the word.

  • First, there are two morphemes, hay and stack.

  • Second, each syllable is a common variant of CVC units and contains common onsets (h and st) and common rimes (ay and ack).

  • Third, the letter combination ys is not likely to begin a syllable. Double consonants are also a common signal of a syllabic division.

Spelling:

• Orthographic mapping is the process that successful readers use to become fluent readers.

• Through orthographic mapping, children use the oral processing part of their brain to
  connect the letters of the words they already know (phonemes) to the letters in the word (the spellings). They then store these meanings as sight words.

• The letters the reader sees and the sounds the reader hears connect and get processed together in their brains. Students connect something they know with something new.

https://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/shanahan-on-literacy/what-should-morphology-instruction-look

https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/spelling-and-word-study/articles/six-syllable-types

https://www.readingrockets.org/reading-101/reading-and-writing-basics/spelling

• Fluency is the ability to read rapidly, smoothly, without many errors, and with appropriate expression.

• Often done orally, but silent reading fluency is extremely
  important.

• When done silently, a fluent reader reads rapidly, without stumbling over words and WITH COMPREHENSION.

• Fluency is important because our brain can only do one thing at a time. Reading demands that we attend to two operations—decoding individual words and engaging in cognitive processes to understand what we are reading.

• (If too much of our mental capacity is used to focus on words, we will not comprehend the text.)

Stages of Reading Development—Chall (1996):

• Stage 0: Emergent Literacy Stage (basics of print)

• Stage 1: Formal Reading Instruction - (decoding, alphabetic system)

• Stage 2: Decoding—reading word by word, begin fluency skills (primary grades)

• Stage 3-6: Build fluency skills (comprehension, reading more complex text).

Guiding students to become Fluent Readers:

• Reading builds on automaticity, vocabulary, world knowledge, and
  the desire to read more.

• To get good at reading, you have to read!

• Reading develops fluency skills.

• Provide a wide range of books and reading materials that are interesting for students.

• Reading material needs to be at that child’s reading level.

• To help students become fluent, independent readers, they need to have some selection in what they read. They need to read for pleasure, information, escape, or whatever interests they have.

https://www.readingrockets.org/reading-101/reading-and-writing-basics/fluency

• Foundational Writing Skills x Composition = Skilled Writing Expression

• Foundational Skills: encoding of words into written symbols "nuts and bolts" of writing

  • Examples: letter formation, handwriting, correct spelling, punctuation/special organization

• Composition: knowledge of topic. Ability to choose words and order them logically.

  • Example: topic knowledge, vocabulary/word choice, sentence formulation (complete/incomplete sentence, verb tenses), grammar and usage (commas, punctuation, quotation), organization of ideas, audience awareness

Handwriting

Stage of Writing:

• Early Writing Stages:

• Pre-phonetic Stage: place letters on a page with no regard to words (scribbles)

• Semi-phonetic stage: represents some phoneme with graphemes

• (beginning sounds)

• Phonetic stage: nearly every phoneme is represented by a grapheme.

• Transitional stage: students realized that words can not always be written as they sound.

Syntax:

• Syntax is the study and understanding of grammar.

• Grammar is the arrangement of words, phrases, and clauses that make a sentence.

• Syntax is first understood by listening to language (speaking, listening to read-alouds, reading stories).

• Students benefit from instruction on how to form correct sentences and parts of sentences.

Semantics:

• Helps broaden and deepen students’ understanding of related words

• Helps students recognize and distinguish between shades of meaning

• Enhances students’ vocabulary, which can help them be more precise and descriptive in their spoken and written language.

• Helps develop students’ word-learning skills and encourages curiosity about words.

Grammar:

• Parts of Speech

• Nouns (person, place, thing, idea)

• Pronouns (I, you, he, she, it)

• Verbs (action words)

• Adjectives (describe nouns)

• Adverbs (modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs)

• Prepositions (show relationships)

• Conjunctions (connect words/phrases)

• Interjections (express emotion)

https://www.whps.org/uploaded/Offices/Curriculum_Instruction_and_Assessment/Families_-_Academics/Stages_of_Writing_Development.pdf

https://www.readingrockets.org/classroom/classroom-strategies/semantic-feature-analysis

Children’s vocabulary knowledge grows tremendously throughout school years.

According to NAEYC (2014), by the age of 3, there is a 30 MILLION word gap between children from the wealthiest to the poorest families.

Levels of Word Knowledge:

• According to Beck et al (1987), there are 3 levels of word knowledge.

• 1. Unknown - unfamiliar words

• 2. Acquainted - basic meaning only after a student gives it some attention

  • (typical vocabulary words)

• 3. Established - words known easily and automatically

Vocabulary Programs in a Classroom:

• 1. Provide children with frequent, extensive, and varied language approaches.

• 2. Includes instruction in individual words.

• 3. Provide students with instruction in learning words independently.

• 4. Foster's word consciousness—builds students' interest in words.

• This also involves reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Ways to Expose Vocabulary to Students:

• Interactive Oral Reading

• Children and an adult discuss unknown words that come up in their reading.

• Designed for primary grades but effective in upper grades as well.

• Exposes children to words that they wouldn’t normally be exposed to.

Teaching Individuals Words:

• Teaching individual words depends on how much students know and how well you want them to know the words you present.

• 1. Learning Basic Vocabulary - Building basic vocabulary words. Learn to read the most frequently used words in the English language. (sight words)

• 2. Learning to Read Unknown Words - Learning to read words that are already in their oral vocabulary (sight words and high-frequency words)

• 3. Learning new words that represent known concepts - these words are not in oral or reading vocabulary— but they have an available concept of the word (ELL learners).

• 4. Learning new words that represent new concepts - MOST DIFFICULT

Why Vocabulary Words Do I Teach:

• Beck & colleagues (2003, 2013) suggest 3 tiers of words:

• Tier One Words - Basic Words. Don’t necessarily need to be taught. (dog, cat, house)
  • Tier Three Words - low-frequency words. Usually found in specific domains of literature. Usually taught in content areas (science, social studies, math)
  • Tier Two Words - High-frequency words for mature language uses. These are the words to focus on. (ferocious, magnitude, etc.)

https://www.readingrockets.org/article/choosing-words-teach

• Comprehension is an evolving process. It begins before a book is opened, changes as the book is read, and continues to change after the book is read.

• A good book or book of high interest is easier to comprehend than something of little or no interest to you.

• Some students comprehend better with digital print. They can click around on the digital copy and find unknown vocabulary words and links of interest to them.

• Other students enjoy reading actual printed materials (Senses).

Four components of comprehension:

• 1. Knowledge

• 2. Strategies

• 3. Metacognition

• 4. Motivation

Developing Knowledge:

• Comprehension does not occur without knowledge (prior knowledge and background knowledge, language comprehension).

• Prior knowledge may be the best predictor of students' ability to comprehend, especially in informational text.

• The construction-integration model states that comprehension occurs when an idea
  in the text is linked to another or when the reader uses prior knowledge.

• It is helpful to activate students' prior knowledge before they read.

• Pre-reading discussions are critical.

• ELL students need to be taught to use their cultural beliefs and knowledge to make connections in reading.

• Internet can be a great resource to help make connections and activate knowledge.

  
  

  
  

https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/comprehension

comprehension

• Research studies show that a student’s reading

comprehension scores can be predicted if decoding skills

and language comprehension abilities are known.