Strategy Implementation Report
Name: Deborah LaPierre
Dates: Week of 1/13/14 Grade Level: 5th
How does this strategy connect my content and language objectives? How does this strategy facilitate my students’ ability to access the content?
How does this strategy facilitate my students’ ability to comprehend the mentor text, build essential knowledge, or produce oral or written
discourse connected to the content objective? How does this strategy provide comprehensible input for my students?
Lesson Sequence:
Day 1: Aesop’s Fables, level M
1. Pre-teach vocabulary
using seven step
vocabulary instruction
strategy.
2. Use sentence frame
strategy to express key
vocabulary in a
summarization of one of
the fables.
Sheltered Instruction Strategy:
1. Use 7 steps to pre-teach key vocabulary from mentor text,
Aesop’s Fables, level M.
2. Use sentence frame strategy to express key vocabulary in the
related language function of summarizing.
Tier I
Tier III
neck(of a bottle)
gracefully
fable
pitcher
flatter
goddess
compliments
shepherd
luxury
pasture
Day 2: Aesop’s Fables, level M
humble
1. Teacher will use the think
aloud strategy to model
summarizing of a fable.
2. Students will work in
partners. Partner #1 will
read the first fable. (One
paragraph long) Partner
#2 will summarize the key
details of the Fable.
Partner #1 will read the
next fable. Partner #2 will
summarize key details.
Tier II
greedy
reflection
3. Use Think Aloud strategy to model the reading
comprehension language objective of summarizing.
4. Use Partner Reading, variation #3 reading comprehension
strategy to have students summarize fables.
5. Use a graphic organizer designed to assist students in
summarizing of a text in writing.
The two partners will
switch jobs after reading
and summarizing each
fable in the book.
Teacher will circulate to
assist as necessary.
Day 3: Aesop’s Fables, level M
3. Students will complete
beginning, middle, end
organizers for two of their
favorite fables to
summarize in writing.
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Strategy Implementation Report
Content Objective:
Language Objective: Language Objectives should be directly linked to the language
Students will demonstrate
comprehension of traditional
literature texts at their
instructional reading level.
skills students will need to be successful in achieving the content objective.
Students will summarize two fables both orally and in writing.
Language Objective Differentiation for Proficiency Levels:
The students are level 4 students and one level 3 student. I will give
the level 3 student sentence strips with starter phrases such as,
“So, what just happened is…” and “The first thing that happened
is...The next thing that happened is….The last thing that
happened is…”
I will also offer these starter phrases to my level 4 students because
many of them have communication, language, or reading
comprehension disabilities.
The use of the beginning, middle, and end organizer will assist in
scaffolding the students who have difficulty summarizing
because of ELL and special education status.
Content and Concept Language Integration:
How have I integrated all possible domains into my teaching and learning strategies and activities?
How did this strategy help to make the content comprehensible to ELLs in my classroom?
By using the seven step strategy to pre teach the vocabulary in conjunction with the sentence frame
strategy the students are able to better comprehend an unfamiliar genre, the fable. After, the students
are being given an opportunity to read the vocabulary words in the context of the sentence frames and
in the actual text. This foundation prepares them to listen to me as I “think aloud” or model the
summarizing strategy using one of the fables. Then, the students are asked to both read aloud to
another student, again reinforcing the use of vocabulary and oral language practice, while the second
student is then responsible for demonstrating the comprehension strategy of summarizing. Best of all,
the students switch responsibilities after every short fable, so the activity benefits both students in
both ways. Finally, on the last day, students are asked to “put all the pieces together” and complete
graphic organizers summarizing their two favorite fables. So, the students are integrating all four key
domains of language: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. These strategies allowed my students
the best possible chance for success in meeting the content objective.
How did this strategy help the ELLs in my classroom to produce academic language and discourse?
All of these strategies helped the ELL students in my group access the academic vocabulary, and better
comprehend this genre on their way to successfully meeting the content objective for the unit.
According to Calderon (2009), “strategies for learning vocabulary and strategies for reading
comprehension should not be taught separately but in the context of the text students are about to
read.” Because my students are both ELL and special education students the difficulty of completing
academic tasks is even greater. By utilizing the strategies that I have learned to teach vocabulary
reading comprehension in these lessons, my students have had tremendous success with the fable
genre. If additional benefit to the students was specifically selected fables at their independent
reading levels in order to minimize difficulties in decoding. By using these vocabulary and
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Strategy Implementation Report
comprehension strategies and engaging the students in the four components of language they were
better prepared to read and comprehend the text.
To increase my ELLs’ engagement and interaction, the next time I try this strategy, I would …
The next time I try this strategy, I would be more careful about pairing my students. Although I paired
strong decoders with weaker ones, I should have been more concerned with pairing stronger
summarizers with weaker ones. Because I work with special education students who are also ELL
students it is sometimes difficult to pair or group students; some are good decoders and have very
weak comprehension skills and others are weak decoders and have very good comprehension skills. I
would definitely mix up the pairs next time I try this strategy.
Also, next time I would try this strategy using a non-fiction text with more content specific vocabulary. I
would be interested to see how this strategy assists with summarizing of non-fiction material.
Generally my students are better at summarizing fictional stories than they are summarizing nonfiction texts. The strategy was generally successful in this lesson, but now that the students are
familiar with it, I would like to challenge them even more.
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