2. How do I provide instruction and support for the ELLs without holding back the students who are fluent in English?

The author highlights the importance of differentiation in this section. She cites how teachers can modify the text by selecting additional, easier texts or adding vocabulary or visual supports to help students understand the original text. She also mentions how teachers can create their groups strategically to support their ELLs by placing them with peers they will engage with and support them by modeling appropriate language skills and helping them through the learning process.

3. This student knows English — I hear him talking to his friends and on the playground. He just doesn't want to try in class.

The author mentions that it is very common to see ELLs seem very fluent in social situations and very comfortable with social language, but see their language skills in the classroom still emerging. Students need assistance in acquiring content-specific vocabulary as social language is used across various settings and is easier for students to acquire. The author emphasized the importance of a welcoming, low stress environment in order for students to feel comfortable taking risks and attempting to use and learn unfamiliar language. Additionally, allowing students to practice with a partner or in small groups before sharing out gives them the opportunity to see other students model appropriate and accurate responses while also gaining confidence in their own response.

In the beginning of the article it explains what comprehension is. In the article it defines comprehension as the understanding and interpretation of what is read. Decoding what is read, making connections and thinking deeply is what student need to do in order to fully understand the topics that are being taught to them. To know when a student is having trouble understanding comprehension they ask simple questions as in “ I don’t understand what is happening in the book”. Parents can also recognize this at home when their child is frustrated when doing homework. In the classroom the student may be focusing on the wrong topic or not paying attention at all. To help these students as a teacher, using graphic organizer reading to the student one on one or, when the reading is over, explicitly instruct what happens in the reading and modeling what the student should be doing and the connections they should be making. Overall this article has greatly increased my knowledge on this topic. It taught me key signals on to when the student is having a hard time comprehending the material and what do when this happens.

1. Create a positive, respectful and supportive classroom environment.

   
   

   This is very important for students because if they do not feel comfortable in the classroom they won't feel comfortable trying to speak in English if their language skills are not very high yet. It is also important for teachers to use valuing and validating words while students are talking.

2. Select interesting topics for discussion.

   
   

   This is helpful to all students.

3. Encourage active listening.

   
   

   One good way to have students work on this skill is note taking, the students have to pick out key important things that are discussed. Some keys teachers can use to show students important things is to emphasize a word or phrase, repetition, and saying things such as "this is important", or "Be sure to remember this".

4. Provide Scaffolds for expressing ideas.

   
   

   Sentence starters, or sentence frames are good examples to use in the classroom. One that the author uses is "In the text_____ is arguing_____, but I think______. and, if _______ then_____." This is great for students it gives them a good scaffold to start out and as the student progresses you can take some phrases away till the student is writing the sentences on their own.

5. Plan for multiple opportunities to practice using English.

   
   

   It is important to have time planned for students to work in groups and talk about what is being discussed in class using vocabulary and specific grammatical structures.

6. Reduce teacher talk

   
   

   It is helpful to students if teachers encourage them to talk more, if a student is answering a question ask them to explain more and making sure to pause so that students have time to work out their thoughts.

As teachers plan to engage students in oral interactions, they must first ensure the ELL students knows explicitly the purpose of what is being asked of them. Next, Second, teachers need to make sure students have ideas upon which they will elaborate. This is important so that the student knows they can build upon their ideas. Next, teachers need to help students organize their thoughts and ensure their language follows specific patterns correctly. After that, the teacher should help the student combine and make more complex sentences by using connector words such as and. This goes along with teaching synonyms. Lastly, the teacher should focus on helping the student verbal say words and sentences with correct pronunciation.

Teachers must find ways to provide students learning opportunities that engage them in productive talk. While the ELL student is talking, they must listen carefully to the language they use in order to support their continued growth. This is really important for supporting students with oral language. The article shared a statistic that "ELLs spend less than 2 percent of their school day in oral interaction" (WestEd). The teacher must reduce the amount of time they are speaking to the class to allow time for interactions between the students. This can be working with a partner or in groups. The teacher could also have small group work so they can work with at risk students.

This article was very useful and I would recommend reading it! It gave insight on how to support ELL students and specific do's and don'ts. It also gave dialogue of conversations with examples. Lastly it gives common misconceptions when it comes to ELL students. One example I liked was to correct students so they the mistakes do not fossilized. This is not true however. It is shown that students have plenty of time to correct themselves which is better for them than being corrected by a teacher.

The article defines fluency as the ability to read words accurately, with appropriate speed, and with expression. Fluency is also one of the 5 components that are necessary when a child is learning how to read. Reading fluency can often be confused with a students accent but they are not the same.

The 5 strategies they list to help students' fluency are:

1. Listen to Fluent Reading: this is basically modeling for the student. This strategy has proven to be helpful for more than just fluency, as incoming teachers we are told to model things for the students all the time. Another thing that is helpful is to have the students listen to audio books and read the text at the same time. This is helpful because students get to see the text and hear it and they get to make the connections between the sound and the word.

2. Reread Familiar Texts: This is helpful to students because after they decode words that are harder for them they can reread the text and focus on their fluency.

3. Read Short Text: This gives students an opportunity to reread the text faster.

4. Opportunities to Read Out Loud: This benefits ELL students greatly but unfortunately they are not given many opportunities to do this.

5. Oral Language Development: Not all students are proficient in their oral language development so their fluency is not very high. Once students improve their oral language their fluency will improve as well. Vocabulary development is very helpful in this.

Under the guidelines for instruction heading, the author provides multiple suggestions for ELL students to increase their fluency while reading. An example includes, reading and re-reading the same passages. This is very important in my eyes, as repetition is good to build any skills, including fluency. If a student continues to practice with the same reading, they will increase how fluently they can read it. Other examples include, introducing ELLs to more vocabulary, modeling fluent reading, and provide opportunities for Ells to hear a wide range of texts.

The article then discusses what students should read while practicing fluency skills. The texts should be at the students’ independent reading level. A text is at students’ independent reading level if they can read it with about 95% accuracy (ReadingRockets). This is important because if a student cannot read the text, they will not be able to read it fluently.

Lastly, activities for students to increase their fluency is discussed. Student adult reading is one activity that can be beneficial. This is where an adult reads 1 on 1 with a student. The adult reads first to model. Then the student reads while the adult provides encouragement. I like this strategy because it creates a connection or relationship which can make it easier for the student to learn fluency.

Some others listed are choral reading, tape-assisted reading, partner reading, and readers' theatre which is where students act out or perform. That can be a very fun way for ELLs to learn fluency.

Overall, this was a good article to read to better my understanding of fluency and some ways to help student's with fluency struggles.

The article discusses four methods you can use help teach your students.

1. Using a prosody pyramid to help your students understand the concepts of thought groups, focus words, stressed syllables, and peak vowels.

2. Demonstrating reading with prosody to help your students to better understand how changing your tone and timing of a sentence can change the meaning of the reading.

3. Practicing reading aloud using various different methods like partnered reading and echo reading.

4. Assessing the students understanding of prosody by listening to them read and asking them questions like" Why did you read that line louder?" or "Why did put emphasis on that specific word?"

I found this article very interesting because I personally never really put much consideration into how I read when it come s to tone and timing. I never really considered the struggles a student that is not a native English speaker or struggling learner might have grasping this concept.

1.) Teachers need to be using content rich instruction to accelerate comprehension. ELL students have a hard time understanding words using direct translation and retain information better through context. These could be text, audios or videos Also using prior knowledge of words and scaffolding off of it is an individualized way of helping fluency

2.)ELL students reach comprehension and fluency mastery levels when they are able to understand the material. To enhance comprehension. teachers need to have careful attention to vocabulary, have context rich instruction, and use specific literary scaffolds.

3.)The third way is leveraging direct instruction for academic vocabulary. Having one definition for each word will not get the ELL student to a mastery level. The teacher needs to have multiple definitions, visual aids, uses of it in a sentence and many more strategies.

4.)Having students practice all the time is extremely important in order to increase fluency. It facilitates syntactic processing, productive experimentation, and automatization of skills. Feed back for the student is also crucial to this.

Listen to Fluent Reading

Listening to fluent reading gives students a model for them to base their reading off of. Students can hear and see what fluent reading looks like. This can be done through listening to teachers, peers, or audiobooks. Students can even create their own audiobooks for other students to follow along with. Teachers can have a student-made audiobook library that allows ELLs to listen to their peers read grade level texts they follow along to.

Reread Familiar Texts

Rereading helps students gain fluency because they have already had the opportunity to practice decoding some of the more difficult words. Therefore, they will be able to focus on their fluency rather than other skills.

Read Short Texts

Short texts allow students to practice fluent reading in small chunks, rather than have to attempt to reread an entire paragraph or passage.

Opportunities to Read Aloud

Since ELLs are often afraid to read aloud to the whole class and are often given less opportunities to read aloud, the article suggested that teachers use alternative strategies for read aloud opportunities. Those strategies included partner reading, reader's theatre, choral reading, and echo reading.

Oral Language Development

Many reading programs operate under the assumption that students are proficient in their oral language skills. That is often not the case for ELLs. Teachers can use resources such as oral language task cards, songs, nursery rhymes, or poems to help develop ELLs oral language skills.

In this article strategies are given on ways to support students in developing strong language skills.

Some examples from the article include:

1) Encourage conversation

The more we encourage our students to engage in conversations the more opportunities they have to practice their oral language skills.

2) Have students summarize things they have heard

The use of this skill helps students put their thought into words and allows for further conversation to be discussed.

3)Explain subtleties of tone

Remind students to be mindful that tone can change the meaning of what a speaker is saying. Choose your tone carefully.

4) Attend to listening skills

5) Model syntactive structure

"When students use fragmented syntax, model complete syntax back to them. This builds oral language skills and gives students practice in a skill necessary for mastering written language."

This article also provides a resource called

Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, OWL LD, and Dyscalculia

By Virginia W. Berninger, Ph.D., & Beverly J. Wolf, M.Ed.

Speed

Accuracy

Expression

Speed

The video states that reading to fast or to slow will have a negative affect on fluency. A reader must read at a "just right speed".

By doing this the reader will have a better understanding of the material they just read.

Accuracy

Accuracy is the ability to read what is written correctly. Now that we have the speed of reading just right now we focus on reading and sounding out the words to make our reading have flow. According to the video using your finger to track the words you are reading is a good strategy for a beginning reader to improve their accuracy.

Expression

Adding feeling to your reading and paying attention to punctuation.

Without the use of emotion or punctuation readers will not get the same meaning for the written text or the text may not make sense.

This video is a great resource for a student who may need extra help with their reading fluency.

1. The first strategy that they give is to Pre-teach vocabulary. They also gave a few examples on how to do this.

   Using gestures

   Showing real objects

   Pointing to pictures

   and using the Spanish equivalent and then asking students to say the word in English.

2. Focus on cognates, these are words that sound the similar in Spanish and English such as: family and familia, and conversation and conversación. You need to be cautious of false cognates though, these are words that sound similar in Spanish and English but mean different things such as: Mano does not mean man it means hand.

3. Using scaffolds for students the article had examples of these as well.

   graphic organizers

   the 6 ESL steps (I will list later)

   having word walls and reviewing them daily

   and labeling pictures

4. Using computers and televisions. students feel comfortable using a computer or watching television, they can listen to shows or books in English and they can work on their reading and writing skills.

5. Use audio books, audio books are good for all students because they are able to hear the words being said while also looking at them.

6. Use a word wizard box. This is a box where students are encouraged to write down a word they have heard at home, on TV, or anywhere else. At the end of class the teacher pulls out a word and asks the student who wrote it and how the word was used.

7. Encourage oral language use. This is one that is encouraged for a lot different things for ELLs to learn. Encourage the students to speak as much as possible, ask questions that are interactive and meaningful.

8. Model correct usage. reaffirm the student's ideas by saying the word correctly and in the correct context.

The article also had 6 steps to follow to help ESL students.

1. Pre-Select a word from an upcoming text

2. Explain the meaning with student-friendly definitions

3. Provide examples of how it is used

4. Ask students to repeat the word three times

5. Engage students in activities to develop mastery

6. Ask students to say the word again

The second practice discussed is developing districtwide lists of essential words for vocabulary instruction. The words in these vocabulary lists should be pulled from the core reading program and from the textbooks used in content areas, such as science, history and math. This list can be added to if additional problem words come up. The article mentions that when making this list you should focus on definitions not decoding. It states that for content area vocabulary you should only teach 2-8 words a week to avoid overload.

The third practice they talk about is including vocabulary for everyday life not normally included in academia. Teaching English learners simple words and conversational words can help them to better understand texts being read. It mentions that most textbooks assume that the student knows and understands these words, so they do not include definitions or ways to teach these words. You can emphasize the meanings of common phrases and expressions during this also.

It discusses that most teachers might struggle to pull off these practices. You should seek help if needed. It mentions forming teacher study groups and coaching programs can help you to develop the necessary skills to pull this off. It also mentions that you should not assume the student understands the topic in their native language especially in content areas like science, geography and history. If the student does not know the concept being taught in their native language focus purely on teaching them it English. The article also states that as the teacher you should also try to develop some understanding of the students primary language because this can help you better provide instruction to the student for more difficult concepts being taught that might not directly translate in their native language.

Previewing Unfamiliar Vocabulary: The article suggests teachers look at the text to identify unfamiliar words that could slow down a student and cause them to struggle with comprehending a text. However, teachers should select no more than five total words per chapter. According to the article, "research has shown that students acquire new vocabulary faster if teachers focus in on five to ten words a week instead of overwhelming students with lengthy lists."

Using Visuals: According to the article, visuals play two key roles in promoting vocabulary development among ELLs. Visuals help clarify the definitions of words if the definition of the word is confusing or contains other unfamiliar words. Visuals can also be used in the place of students writing sentences or definitions. Many ELLs struggle to express their thoughts in words. Allowing them to draw a picture gives the students the opportunity to still demonstrate they understand the word.

Providing Student Friendly Fill-In-The-Blank Definitions: Fill-in-the-blank allows for teachers to provide student-friendly definitions rather than having them find their own definitions that may have a lot of challenging or unfamiliar vocabulary. This also ensures students are obtaining the desired definition for multiple meaning words so they will understand the vocabulary word in context. According to the article, this strategy especially benefits ELLs because students aren't writing the full definition, they are able to listen and think more about the words they are learning in class. Additionally, it allows the teacher to call students' attention to key words and phrases in each definition.

Highlighting Vocabulary Words in Context: The article claims that more exposure to these vocabulary words is better and it is especially important for students to see these vocabulary words in context as it provides them with multiple examples of how each word can be used. Only then can they truly memorize the words and make them a part of their "working vocabularies".

Practicing with Graphic Organizers: Graphic Organizers provide students with a way to "organize information and ideas" about newly learned vocabulary words which allows them to "visualize and make connections to new material". The article suggests the KIM strategy. This organizer allows for students to make their own connections to each word to help them remember it.

How to Build Background Knowledge

1. Use Outlines to Scaffold Comprehension

   Provide ELLs with a "brief, simple outline of a reading assignment or oral discussion" ahead of teaching the new lesson. This resource will give ELLs the opportunity to pick out and organize key ideas and details as they read.

2. Take Students on a "Tour of the Text"

   Show students how to effectively navigate a text. Explain to them how their text is organized, including the name and function of each text feature. Once students understand these concepts, they will be able to preview texts on their own. For more information on how to actually instruct ELLs on how to navigate a text, check out this other article from Colorin Colorado.

Teach Vocabulary Explicitly:

1. Incorporate New Words into Discussions and Activities: In order for students to really master a word, they must use it themselves. Appropriate use of new vocabulary words across various settings will help students add those new words to their working vocabulary.

2. Use a "Picture Walk" for vocabulary. Before reading a text, give students the definitions to their new vocabulary words. Then, have students "walk through" the text without reading and look at the pictures. Ask students to connect their newly learned vocabulary words to the pictures.

Check Comprehension Frequently:

1. Provide Students Lots of Different Ways to "Show What They Know": "Drawings, graphs, oral interviews, posters, and portfolios" among other things are great ways to give students the opportunity to display their learning to us in the way they feel they can best express it.

2. Use Informal Comprehension Checks": Do not wait for formal assessments to assess how much a student's comprehension skills have grown. Informal comprehension checks such as in-class activities or questioning students as they are reading can give teachers a good idea of how well a student is comprehending what they are reading at that point and if other actions need to be taken to help that student.

#1: Teach Students Textbook and Chapter Elements

At the beginning of the students' school year, introduce them to all the elements of a textbook and how they are used. Students should do activities to help them learn how to use each feature in the textbook. For example, using the glossary to define a set of words or finding what page ______ is talked about by using the index. Students should also be regularly asked questions to "check their comprehension on the differences between these tools". Each time a new textbook is introduced, make sure students have the opportunity to look through it and be sure to review all the features of the textbook while also introducing any new features they may not be familiar with. After students master the larger parts of the textbook such as the index, glossary, and table of contents, it is important to further break down the text and examine individual chapters. It is here where students will learn about those smaller text features such as headings, bold print, graphs/charts, maps, and more. It is essential students can do more than just identify the feature. They must understand its function.

#2: Use a Chapter Walk

Once students have learned about all the features of their textbook, they should be given the opportunity to do their own "chapter walk".

"Have students look for:

• the objectives of the chapter

• key vocabulary

• visual elements (pictures, maps, diagrams, and graphs)

• headings and subheadings

• captions."

  
  

Based on what students pull from their preview of the text, students should be asked to make predictions about what they will be reading and identify and discuss new vocabulary words defined in the text. This discussion will help draw out student's existing knowledge and build extra background knowledge, setting up students for success when reading their textbook and being exposed to new material they might have otherwise struggled with.

The article states that the selected research topics should be "relevant topics that interest them" but also "appropriate for the ESL student's proficiency". In other words, the topic should be one that students are interested in, but one that they can find resources and content on their level. The research project should also align with the curriculum.

The article explained how project-based learning (which requires research) is "an excellent means of acquiring and developing new language skills". The teacher can develop research projects that help students focus on areas like spelling, speaking practice, grammar, team communication, etc.

My two favorite possible topics for research projects for ELLs that the article spoke about were...

1. Research your Family Tree- I believe this is an excellent project to start with because it does not require students to have any background knowledge. This is a topic many ELLs would be comfortable and excited to share. This could also help build a sense of community in the classroom and make ELLs more comfortable and likely to participate/share in the future.

2. Dramatization- This is a fun activity for students to get together and have lots of discussion with their gen-ed peers, where they will hopefully observe good communication skills and be exposed to a lot of oral language. Additionally, whatever dialogue the ELL performs to the class would most likely be rehearsed, and the student would therefore be very confident and comfortable speaking in front of the class.

1.) The first scenario is "What if the student does not know any English?". First, the teacher has to diagnose what level of language proficiency. Level 1 is starting and Level 2 is emerging. In the scenario the teacher read everything aloud and waited for the student to come out of his shell rather than cold calling on him. After a couple of week , the teacher placed him in a discussion group where he can work on social and academic language.

2,)How do I provide instruction and support for the ELLs without holding back the students who are fluent in English? Three strategies is that the teacher can modify texts, create grouping structures that set students set up for success and target the amount and nature of student support.

3.) This student knows English — I hear him talking to his friends and on the playground. He just doesn't want to try in class.

This is not because the student is not trying in class, but needs assistances. ELLs develop social language before they develop academic language. This is because of the amount of time spent on each. School is only six hours whereas a student is in a social setting before, during and after school hours. Schools also cause anxiety for students. ELL students may become anxious and scared because they do not know the language which in turn hinders their learning.

4.)How is the child ever going to learn English if they don't speak it at home?

Research has proven that development of a students first language can facilitate development in second language they are trying to learn. Also , the student could feel more comfortable completing homework once in their own language and then again in their second language

5.)What kinds of activities should I be doing to help the student develop their oral language and oral reading?

There are four types of activities that this article suggests. The first is to have a low anxiety environment that nurtures students taking risks and feeling comfortable . The second is repeated practice. Thirdly, is making everything in the classroom more comprehensible and easy understand. Finally, having an exciting and intriguing classroom.

Scaffolding from old vocab words makes it easier for students to learn new ones. The use of graphic organizers, labels, drawings and pictures make it clear to understand what these words mean. Using technology can increase interests and create a non threating environment for ELL students. A teacher can use audio books and get the same effect. By hearing and seeing the word the student gains prosody and oral fluency.

Asking students to bring in words that they hear at home or the television and have them use one ow two in a discussion is a great way to expand vocabulary. This technique is called a wizard box. Academic language is only going to be learned from the teacher. So, the use of oral language is extremely important. Encouraging them to speak in the class and having them talk in discussions increases their knowledge. Also, instead of telling them their pronunciation is wrong, reaffirm it and them correct it.

We can help students increase their reading fluency by assessing them during our teaching. In the article, it talks about the different ways of assessing as well as grading the student in their reading fluency. The first one is expressing and volume, next is the phrasing of the text, then is the smoothness of how they read, and lastly is the pace of their reading. This comes with their individual rubric that can help us identify their areas of need before teaching them. This can give us a better idea on how to help the student each day to improve their fluency little by little. 

Depending on what area the students need more help with their fluency, we might need to adjust our lessons to meet those needs. Sometimes the way that the student may need help might be by having one and one reading where you can help assist their mistake. By having to listen to them read and later to assist them may make a big difference in their learning. We can also have the student participate with other students that are more advanced and can be able to assist their needs. They also explained about having a routine to meet in the classroom environment for meeting the goals of reading fluency to help the students improve. The teachers can keep a score on their accuracy for the reading rate and help them reach the goals needed for their future classes.

Some examples were:

1) Use Visuals- It's much easier to show a picture of the real item when teaching new vocabulary to a student. This helps the student make connections and picture what you are trying to explain.

2)Use the student's native language whenever possible. This helps the student pair the two words to make connections.

3)Teach vocabulary in context. Students are more apt to remember the meaning of a word when it is tied to familiar text.

4)Never underestimate the value of context clues

and finally

remember you can use games when teaching vocabulary to keep learning fresh and engaging for students.

1) Scaffolding

Combine reading passages with scaffolding activities such as fill in the blanks, concept maps or cluster webs to help your students find main idea and supporting ideas when reading text.

2) Scanning

Pair reading passages with questions to teach students to look for key words that will help them decipher given text.

3) Skimming

Skimming a text or taking a picture walk through a text gives students base knowledge before they read the text on their own. This gives students confidence when they read the passage own their own.

4) context cues

Teaching students to use context cues when they come across unknown vocabulary is a great way for them to make an educated guess based on words in the sentence that they do understand.

5) Summarizing

By having students summarize what they have read will give teachers a good idea of if students have comprehended the given text. This can be done as a journal prompt or as an oral retelling.

Through the use of these given strategies both ELL and mainstream students will have a greater chance of comprehending the text they read.

The article goes over 4 strategies to help the ELL students comprehend a text while supporting their learning. The strategies are providing pictures, checking their comprehension often, using frames for sentences and paragraphs, and dividing a text into chunks. Students may see a word with a definition or a passage they need to read and get overwhelmed because they might not understand or have the vocabulary to comprehend it. To help them we have to provide pictures so they can connect the text with the image making it easier for them to understand. Some of the students may not be as familiar with the culture/background as other students which is why a picture might give the information they need. Some ELL students may not feel comfortable expressing the teacher they don’t understand so it is important to have different ways to know this information. By assessing them exit tickets or having them turn and talk to a partner they feel comfortable gives us the information needed to see if they comprehend their learning. We must do this frequently so the student can be at the same pace as the other students before progressing with our teaching. It is also important to provide the students with sentence/paragraph frames so they have an expectation on what their teacher is asking them to write. They might struggle on how to write a sentence which would make them feel stuck but by allowing them to use this tool, they may feel more at ease and engage more with the content. For reading a text, the students may be frustrated on seeing a bunch of words together they might not be familiar with. To avoid this problem, we must break it down into smaller chunks so this way it would be easier for them to revise the sentences and their comprehension of the passage. By doing this, we allowed them to look up the words they are not familiar with which makes them have a better understanding of the passage. 

There are multiple ways of helping an ELL student learn the concept and the new language. By putting in practice these techniques, we might see an improvement on the student’s performance as well seeing them more comfortable in the classroom. I can say that these techniques do help a student comprehend better a concept due to the fact that some of these techniques are ones that I used while working with my ELL students. Even being an ELL student myself, I sometimes use these techniques to help me improve my comprehension while learning on becoming a teacher, making a stronger understanding on how the students may feel in a classroom environment. 

1)Scanning

Scanning is good strategy to do after the students do skimming. Skimming involves looking a little more in depth at material compared to skimming. The idea is for the students to connect what they read skimming to what they read scanning. A good idea for this strategy is to set a timer for the students so they do not get too caught up within the text.

2)Predicting

This strategy has the students read a paragraph and then predict what will happen in the next one. It helps students build on their English skills and they can ask questions if they did not understand or missed something.

3)Summarizing

Summarizing involves ELL students telling the main idea of the passage that they read. This can either be done in groups or individually and have the students present in front of the class.

4) Discussing

The strategy of discussing is asking students easy questions after the reading and having them answer. Multiple choice questions work the best because then the students will debate what the best answer is. The idea is to create conversation within the classroom.

5)Extracting

This strategy involves using flyers or brochures on vacation destinations. These pieces of information can introduce ELL students to new words and learn about new areas.

6) Diving In

This strategy uses advertisements and flyers to have ELL students try to negotiate on the product by writing a small paragraph. Students can either work in groups or present in front of the class. This helps with students read subtitles and improve their English skills. Whenever there is a difficult word the add can be paused to give students time to write it down and explain the word.

The article also discusses how challenging it is for ELL students to comprehend what they learn in all subjects including math, science, history, etc. It says in order for ELL students to build their comprehension skills, they must strengthen their vocabulary. There is a reason why vocabulary comes up in almost everything related to reading. Vocabulary skills are needed to perform many tasks associated with reading, in this case, comprehension.

There is also a a section where it gives the steps in order to explicitly teach comprehension skills to ELL students. This section is very useful because it shows steps that you can use when you are in your classroom. Additionally, their is a section for advanced ELL's. In this section, it talked about how when ELL's increase their skills, you can teach these skills to the whole class because it can benefit everyone. An example is having students read an expository text in pairs and shar main ideas from it.

Overall, this was a very useful and beneficial article to read and learn more about how to explicitly teach comprehension skills to ELL students.

The focus of this article is on strategies you can use to help ELLs develop their reading comprehension skills. It first talks about general use strategies you can use with all students. It states you should fully explain how, when, where, and why any comprehension skill or strategy you are teaching is used. Define, model and explain the strategy you are teaching them. You should also allow the students several opportunities to practice the skills with small groups and the entire class. It then goes on to explain how you can add on to this for ELLs. When you group students, you should pair the ELL student with strong English speakers and have them take turns reading and thinking aloud with short passages. It also says to make sure you identify words the student might struggle with and provide easily understandable definitions for them. It mentions that you can also provide a checklist of skills that the students should be doing while they are reading. The article also mentions that you should also verify that the student understood what they read by questioning them using simply worded questions that contain key terms they read in text.

Reading comprehension involves a lot of factors such as: background knowledge, decoding skills, vocabulary knowledge, grammar understanding, and interest. It is important that a student has these skills before teaching comprehension. Background can be given to students in their native language. Students should understand 90% of the vocabulary in a text to be able to understand what the text is about.

If a student is struggling with comprehension you need to find out what area they are struggling with so you can improve this skill, not every student is going to struggle with the same skill. A good assessment can help determine what the students are struggling with the most.

4 Quick Steps:

1. Build on background knowledge

   Tell students what they are going to be reading about and ask the students what they already know about this topic. If they do not know much make sure to give them the information they will need to be able to understand.

2. Break up a text into more manageable chunks

   Break the text into smaller parts instead of a whole article or chapter. Try to find important paragraphs and focus on those the most rather than the whole thing.

3. Read to decode the words first

   Read the passage first as a whole class and then have the students read the passage individually. Make sure to go around to the students you know have difficulty with this and provide them with more support.

4. Sort the students by ability

   Have the students answer a few comprehension questions, when the students are done put different marks on the students papers depending on how they did answering the questions, usually two or three different groups.

5. Give each group and activity

   Give the different groups that the students were separated into for step 4 different activities depending on their skill level. The group that did good answering the questions can read the rest of the chapter, write a short summary, or answer some more difficult comprehension questions. The group that struggled can re-read the passage and underline things they don't understand, play vocab games in pairs, or review phonics that are in the passage.

Overall I think this article is helpful and gives some good ideas for how to help your students who are struggling and how to keep the students who aren't struggling as much active in the class and continuing to work.

First Fenner provides a basic foundation about informational text for all students, and then narrows her focus to include a few specific strategies about teaching informational text to ELLs. She explains how the texts used as a common standard were selected by using three criteria: (1) text complexity, (2) quality, and (3) range. Using this criteria as an aid, teachers should modify and adapt certain informational texts for the particular needs of each student, especially Ell students.

Some strategies highlighted to help ELL students build their informational comprehension skills first include building background knowledge. Second, teachers can provide a selected glossary of the text's vocabulary, answer scaffolded text-dependent questions, and use sentence frames grounded in the text that are adapted for different levels of students' language proficiency(Fenner). Another strategy is direct instruction with high frequency vocabulary. Lastly, Fenner explains to engage the students to fill out a who, what, when, where, why outline to help them understand the text better.

This article was easy to follow and understand. I would recommend reading this article for yourself to help build your knowledge on how to deliver instruction to help ELL students with informational comprehension skills.

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

   Teachers need to explain to students the structure of an expository text such as the table of contents, glossary, index, titles and headings, and bold words. For new readers they might not have seen these elements in a book before, it is important to point these out and explain there use so that students are able to get the full use out of the text they are reading.

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

   This builds students confidence and offers new learning opportunities. Some strategies for this include: asking students to look for a certain part of the text and having them tell you what clues they found to get them to their answer, making predictions about the text, and practice highlighting give students a plastic sheet to put over their page and give the students dry erase markers and have them underline or circle key points in the text so they can practice finding key points and not highlighting the whole thing while it also isn't permanent.

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

   Some strategies to help with this are, think aloud, demonstrate how to figure out vocabulary show students how to use context clues to figure out a definition, use the glossary, or sometimes some books have the definition of of vocabulary on the page where the word is used, and use a graphic organizer.

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

   Some strategies for this are, assign reading partners have ELL students and fluent students work together and have them alternate reading paragraphs or pages the student who is not reading is paying attention and is to give a short summary before it is their turn to read, encourage student engagement this is good for all things and all students as well, and have students re-tell what they have learned.

There are many other strategies that can be used but I think this article did a great job naming a few really good ones.

1. A picture is worth a thousand words.

   By using picture representation of new key terms students are able to pair the picture and word which can clarify meaning and encourage understanding.

2. Check for comprehension frequently.

   Often ELL students will not ask question out of fear of peers knowing they don't understand. The article uses a strategy called turn and talk. In this strategy students are encouraged to write their answers using a sentence prompt before sharing ideas with a partner. This alleviates the stress of a possible room answer in front of their peers.

3. Use sentence frames.

   For example, if students are asked to give evidence, you can use the sentence frame “I know this because the text says _____.”

4. Chunk texts: Reading academic texts is a challenge for ELs because of the complex vocabulary, complicated syntax, and density of text. One strategy is to chunk passages into short, manageable sections.

   This article contained very useful strategies for not only ELL students but any struggling reader.

1.) Create vocabulary lists: Ask the students to skim through the article. While they are doing this this, ask them to pick out any words they see that they are having a difficult time understanding. Once they have done this, the teacher can define these words in a list and give it to the student.

2.) Discuss Title: This strategy call for the teacher to ask guiding questions to the student while reading the title. Articles and other text may have confusing titles, so this will help the student get a general feel for the text they are going to read.

3.) Understand Topic sentences: Topic sentences usually hold the most information in paragraphs. As a reading, being able to comprehend this is very important. As a teacher with ELL students, asking the student" What is the man idea of this topic sentence? "What is it describing top the reader? and other questions can help the student understand better.

4.) Summarizing the conclusion: In the conclusion, the summary of the thesis is almost always included. Getting the student to compare this sentence to the topic sentence can reinforce what the text is informing.

The first major benefit she describes is that it gives these students time to practice their reading skills. Reading skills are very crucial for ell students to practice, which research projects allow for. This teacher asks the students to find information in their native language and then google translate it into English.

Ell students are also practicing their writing skills while they are doing research projects. Students are not allowed to copy and paste information, so this requires them to paraphrase. She provide sentence stems to help beginner ell students n her classroom.

Speaking skills are also built while students are conducting research. Her students present their research on a presentation in front of her small class. Here, the students have the opportunity and coaching from their teacher as well as their peers which makes it easier for them. Peer support is very important for ell learners. This also helps students with their listening skills.

This article was very good in address benefits to ELL students as they make their way through school. It also provides some research topic ideas such as animals, careers, US cities, colleges, cultures, etc... you can incorporate into your classroom!

Paragraph two of the article describes how this research process works. The students are educating about American-style academic writing via the university's library and its databases, showcasing various lexile levels for the students. This is coupled with a heavy focus on citation in the APA format, further cementing this teaching style for these students. The article also describes how it does not want students to continue their habits of just google searching answers, and it is shown by the article's statement that “students quickly discover the advantages of using the library databases, especially the correct APA or MLA citations displayed at the bottom of the article”. 

The article ties these academic research skills to the business world, describing how it helps with requests for proposals, feasibility studies, analysis, and copyright protection for new ideas and innovations. The author ends the article by saying that students should be focusing on both research skills as well as academic writing. He states that this program and method of research helps prepare students to help themselves transform a language background weakness into acknowledged strength. By researching and reading and categorizing these various articles. Students can build a strong background with the English language and form relationships with bigger words and phrases that they might not have been comfortable with before.

ACTION 1
Capitalize on the resources
and experiences that ELLs
bring to school to build
and enrich their academic
language.

ACTION 2
Analyze the academic
language demands involved
in grade-level teaching and
learning.

ACTION 3
Apply the background
knowledge of ELLs,
including their language
proficiency profiles, in
planning differentiated
language teaching.

ACTION 4
Connect language and
content to make learning
relevant and meaningful for
ELLs.

ACTION 5
Focus on the developmental
nature of language
learning within grade-level
curriculum.

ACTION 6
Reference content standards
and language development
standards in planning for
language learning.

ACTION 7
Design language teaching
and learning with attention
to the sociocultural context.

ACTION 8
Provide opportunities for all
ELLs to engage in higher-order
thinking.

ACTION 9
Create language-rich
classroom environments
with ample time for
language practice and use.

ACTION 10
Identify the language
needed for functional use in
teaching and learning.

ACTION 11
Plan for language teaching
and learning around
discipline-specific topics.

ACTION 12
Use instructional supports
to help scaffold language
learning.

ACTION 13
Integrate language domains
to provide rich, authentic
instruction.

ACTION 14
Coordinate and collaborate
in planning for language
and content teaching and
learning.

ACTION 15
Share responsibility so that
all teachers are language
teachers and support one
another within communities
of practice.

The next part of this article that I was able to take away from is professional learning communities or PLC. These are groups that are put together in order to help an ELL student. ELL students have their own unique language score meaning each student has their own strengths and challenges. There are 3 questions that each PLC should focus on when they work together is

• What do we want each student to learn?

• How will we know when each student has learned it?

• How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning?

Another part that the article talks about is how the PLC team should review the ELL student's assessment scores to better help the student. Some of the items that a team could look at are

• Students' state reading scores

• School-wide assessments that provide scores for vocabulary and comprehension

• English Language Proficiency scores from the ACCESS for ELLs test

The team then team has to rate the actions that were previously mentioned using a scale from 0-5 to help the student with the instructional goal. The PLC team then meets and share their 3 actions that they have identified. They will then find one to two actions to work with for the next 6-8 weeks. The next step was to create goals for ELL students. A teacher will now figure out what success means with some goals. Some of the ways to determine success is

• Know students' language domain proficiency levels

• Use language domain information to provide differentiated options for classroom and pull-out instruction and tasks

• Assess reading comprehension using language proficiency accommodated tasks

The next piece that the article discusses is creating strategies for achieving these goals. The first step is knowing the ELL student's domain language proficiency levels. This is used to know what strategies could be used to help the student based on their levels. Then there is a formative assessment that is created based around common vocabulary and sentence structure. Another point that I have learned from the article was collecting evidence. This evidence could be successfully modifying material or grouping students based on scores. Some examples of evidence that a teacher may use as evidence for ELL students are assignments, notes, rubrics, student's questions and audio clips. Teachers can then share and discuss ideas to assess students based on their content-based language levels. The final part of this article discusses how at the end of the PLC cycle the team will reflect on the student's success and evidence of students learning. They will review the three action reflection questions and then try to provide as much evidence as possible to support these claims. Teachers also look at the student's ability to complete work at their language proficiency level.

The article states that some of the benefits of using research projects with ELL students are that they touch on reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills.

Reading Skills:

Students can find information in their own language and then translate it into English, this helps them make the connections to what they are reading and helps them be able to pull out the most important pieces of information. Having students find pictures that go along with the information helps them build the connection between what they are reading.

Writing Skills:

Students learn how to put the information they find into their own words and putting the information into full sentences for the assignment they are completing. For beginning students or students who are struggling you can give them sentence starters to help them.

Speaking Skills:

Having students present their assignment to the class will improve their speaking skills and they will get more comfortable with it the more they do it.

Listening Skills:

While other students are presenting students need to write down questions they have about the presentation and ask them at the end. The teacher can determine the amount of questions they will need to have by the end. This ensures that the students are actively listening and paying attention to the other students.

Research is a great way to help ELL students because they get to take control of their learning.