Building Bridges for Emergent
Bilinguals, Part II:
Learning to Read
Across Content Areas
Rebecca Curinga, PD Coordinator
Annie Smith, Co-Director Curriculum and PD
PD Session #2
November 22, 2013
Agenda
• 8:45 Review of Oral Language as a scaffold and follow-up on
Homework Assignment
• 9:30 What is reading? How Bridges students learn to read in
English
• 10:15 Break
• 10:30 Learning to Read with the Language Experience
Approach using the Bridges Curriculum
• 12:00 Lunch
• 1:00 Practicing the Language Experience Approach across
content areas using the Bridges Curriculum
• 2:15 Wrap-Up, Homework and Evaluation
2
Your Questions
• How Bridges includes higher order
thinking?
• How will / can [Bridges] strategies be
employed when approaching complex
texts?
• How do we support all or most of our
students’ multiple intelligences?
• How will the Bridges Program operate in
my school?
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Activity 1:
Review from last session
4
Language Abilities
Oral
Literacy
Receptive
(Input)
Productive
(Output)
Listening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
5
Components of Oral Language
Pragmatics /
World
Knowledge
Vocabulary
Syntax
Morphological
Skills
Phonological Skills
• Social Rules
• Meaning of words and
phrases
• Word order and grammar
rules
• Word parts
• Sounds, syllables and
rhymes
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Activity 2:
Homework Sharing
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Scaffolding Oral Language
Think-pair-share:
• Find a partner to discuss your notes on the assignment
from the last PD, on either:
• Teacher talk: Making Input
Comprehensible
• Student talk: See-Think-Wonder
• You have five minutes to share your experiences and
come up with ONE important take-away.
• Then you will share with the group.
8
Scaffolding and PD Sessions
• Session #1 focused on scaffolding
input to make it comprehensible and
to develop oral language (through
See-Think-Wonder).
• Session #2 (today) will focus on how
oral language is a scaffold for
foundational reading.
9
Oral Language Scaffolds Reading in
the Bridges Curriculum
Unit Structure
Week 1
Build Background, Provide Context, and
introduce Essential Question
Week 2
Experience to Oral Language to Print
Week 3
Presentations to Writing
Week 4
Experience to Oral Language to Print
Week 5
Presentations to Writing
Week 6
Synthesis: Creative Projects and Presentations
Week 7
Claim Evidence: Response to Essential Question
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Today’s Goals
To be able to:
1. Recognize the components of reading and
the process of reading in English for Bridges
students.
2. How oral language scaffolds reading: Learn
and practice the Language Experience
Approach (LEA) to support the development
of foundational literacy for Bridges
students.
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Activities for Goal 1:
What is Reading? How do
Bridges students learn to
read in English?
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a. Read Something
Break into 4 Groups:
1. Group 1 (no Bangla speakers)
2. Group 2 (no Spanish speakers)
3. Group 3
4. Group 4
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b. Group-share
What would you need to know
and do to read and understand
your paragraph?
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c. ___________
What skills were you able to
apply when you tried to read
your paragraph?
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Group 1 Reading Sample
• Volunteer to read aloud?
• Is this reading?
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Group 2 Reading Sample
• Volunteer to read aloud?
• Is this reading?
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Group 3 Reading Sample
• Volunteer to read aloud?
• Is this reading?
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
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Group 4 Reading Sample
The procedure is actually quite simple. First, you arrange the
items into different groups. Of course one pile may be sufficient
depending on how much there is to do. If you have too go
somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step;
otherwise, you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo
things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too
many. In the short run this may not seem important but
complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as
well. At first, the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon,
however, it will become just another fact of life. It is difficult to
foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate
future, but then, one never can tell. After the procedure is
completed one arranges the materials into different groups again.
Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually
they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to
be repeated. However, that is part of life.
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d. ___________
Which skills do Bridges students
bring to the task of reading?
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Reading is complex!
• Everyone learns to understand and speak a
home language
• Not everyone learns to read and write in a home
language
• It is not a natural process – it has to be taught!
• 2 major processes:
• Deciphering print -- bottom up
• Comprehending meaning -- top down
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Oral Language to Reading
Top Down
Pre-Reading:
Print Concepts
Reading
Comprehension
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Bottom up
Reading Stages
• Learning to Read: infancy to 3rd grade
• Learning the ‘mechanics’ of reading
• Confirmation of oral language and
concepts you already know
• Reading to Learn: 4th grade and up
• Fluency and automaticity in reading
• New concepts are learned through
reading
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Activities for Goal 2:
How oral language scaffolds reading:
Learn and practice the Language
Experience Approach (LEA) to
support the development of
foundational literacy for Bridges
students.
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Teaching Bridges Students
to Learn to Read
FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS
RUBRIC:
What are the foundational
skills students need to learn
to read?
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Your Role as a Bridges
Teacher
Shared
Responsibility
across the team
• Content
• Language
• Literacy
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The Language Experience
Approach (LEA)
What I can say, I can read.
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What happened in Unit 1?
Science
Social Studies
Vocabulary: organisms,
plants, humans, resources,
water, sun, soil, air, body,
need, live / die, breathe,
eat, grow, use, similar,
different
Vocabulary: world map,
land, continent, water,
ocean, place, country,
culture, live, travel, go,
walk, work, swim, play,
big, small, close, far,
similar, different
Syntax:
There is/ are ______
This is _______
Syntax:
____ is/ are ______
____ have _______
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Building the Context
Know where you came from, know
where you are going!
Understand the ‘big picture’ of the
unit goals
• Sequencing
• Layering
• Recycling
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Unit 2 Science
EQ: How do organisms
survive where they live?
Focus: Plant, human, and
animal adaptations to two
extreme biomes: tundra
and desert.
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YESTERDAY:
Unit 2, Lesson 1
What happened?
Why is it important?
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LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE
APPROACH
STEP #1: Shared
Experience
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TODAY:
Unit 2, Lesson 2
What happened?
Why is it important?
How did it contribute to
developing Oral Language?
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Components of Oral Language
Pragmatics / World
Knowledge
Vocabulary
Syntax
Morphological Skills
Phonological Skills
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LEA Part 1:
Start with the Whole
Step 1: Experience (not reading)
•For example: Trips, speakers, personal
experiences, pictures, video, games,
simulation, experiments, music…
Step 2: Scaffold a Discussion
•For example: use word wall, sentence
frames, home language
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Modeling LEA
Steps 3 -9
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Your role as we model
1. Student- You are a participant
experiencing the method.
2. Teacher- You are a teacher reflecting on
the method.
REFLECT:
• What did we do?
• Why did we do it? How does this
support learning to read?
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How do organisms survive where
they live?
Imagine that you were in the science
classroom during the ‘Experience’.
Look at the images (again) and discuss
what you see with your partner.
Be prepared to share what you notice.
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Unit 2, Lesson 2 continued
What happened?
Why is it important?
How did it target foundational
reading skills?
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LEA Part 2:
Zoom in on the Parts
Extension Activities:
•Partner Reading
•What words start / end with ‘d’?
•Box the Words (is, in, and, not, so)
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Deserts
There are deserts in the world. Deserts have
sand, sun, and wind. Some deserts are hot.
Some deserts are cold. All deserts are dry.
There is not a lot of rain in deserts, so there
is not a lot of water. Some animals live in
deserts. Some plants live in deserts. Some
humans live in deserts. But many
organisms cannot survive in deserts.
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LEA Part 3:
Back to the WHOLE
•Read whole text again.
•How did extension activities
improve reading?
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LEA Practice in Content
Area Groups
•Participants practice
LEA.
•Then, share their
experiences.
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Summary of Today’s PD Session
1. How did your experience with LEA change
your understanding of how to teach your
students to ‘learn to read’ in your content
class?
2. What is one thing you will do in your
classroom this week to help build these
‘learning to read’ skills?
• Print concepts
• Phonological awareness
• Sight word recognition and fluency
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Homework Assignment:
Practicing LEA
Document your experience with the
following and be prepared to share at the
next PD:
1. Build an LEA activity using your
classroom content.
2. Include one extension activity focusing
on ‘learning to read.’
3. Implement the activity with your current
students.
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