Chapter
11
Teaching second /
Foreign Language
Literacy
to School-Age Learners
Key questions:
In what ways is developing literacy in a second language similar
to / or different from developing literacy in one’s first language?
Which aspects of language and literacy should teachers focus on
when teaching children English?
Classroom applications: Children´s L2 literacy instruction
Support knowledge and skills learned in and from the L1, and
teach children to use these resources in the L2:
ELLs teachers who want to provide rich and challenging literacy instruction to their students
should first consider the following aspects while teaching literacy.
Teach multiple literacy skills, but keep constant focus on
meaning-making
ELLs at early literacy levels need explicit reading instruction in
phonics and phonemic awareness, as well as in vocabulary,
comprehension, and fluency, all within meaninful contexts.
However, even when focusing on teaching these lowlevel skills, instructions should not be done in isolation
but should always occur within a context that is
meaningful, interactive, and interesting for students.
After students inicially read a text or book to
understand or discuss what it says, Teacher
should use the same text to focus on phonics
using the same words from the text.
1
2
All these activities
should be done
keeping the following
six principles in mind
Teacher should do phonics work with
students using L2 words that they know to
introduce words that have new sounds
patterns and word structure.
3
Whenever possible, teachers should make
connections to words and sounds patterns
from student’s L1 as well as to other similar L2
words that they already know.
Teacher should keep word work short using
variety of activities in classroom like using big
books, shared reading, show and tell or
collaborative writing activities to foster this
awareness in children.
4
All these activities
should be done
keeping the following
six principles in mind
Teacher should keep in mind that all this
activities are focus on facilitating
comprehension of the text and not to recite rules.
5
6
Teachers should remember that the main goal
of these activities is to develop independent
readers.
Many ELLs particularly have problems in the development of
higher-level literacy skills (reading and writing) , including
comprehension, making inferences, critically analyzing what they
read and communicating their ideas effectively through writing.
The real challenge for teachers, is delivering clear instructions
and steps that can moves students toward higher-level skills
using many activities for comprehension skills.
.
Activities for fosterering ELLs’ reading comprehension
Activities for fosterering ELLs’ reading comprehension
Teach reading, writing, speaking and listening in an
integrated manner
When teaching a second language, there are many benefits to
teaching reading, writing, speaking and listening together.
 Talking about the reading passage, helps students to make
sense of what they have read.
 Talking about writing (sharing concepts and opinions) can let
students to try out new ideas for writing or give them ideas for
improving what they have wrote.
 Literature can also open students’ ideas to alternate
interpretations of a text
Teach reading, writing, speaking and listening in an
integrated manner
So, it is clear that Speaking can serve as an entry point into
reading and writing. For both skills, talking plays an important
role in the development of fluency in students language in
general and for their L2 literacy.
Children need to be provided with opportunities to talk
meaningfully about their reading and writing and not just given
work sheets to practice some subskills over and over
Reading and writing benefit from being taugth together for
multiple reasons:
Reading as a model for writing: after students read a text, is
important to go back and highlight new vocabulary, try to identify
authors’ techniques used to write (This is important for creating
students’ own writing) and to notice grammatical structures.
Writing for themselves: this can help readers to form their own
ideas about the reading they are trying to understand. (making
summaries or paraphrasing)
Writing as a response to reading: this provides opportunities to
students to use new vocabulary and understand multiple text
they have read in the same topic..
Reading and writing benefit from being taugth together for
multiple reasons:
Bringing together oral language, reading and writing: Various activities can be
use to bring these skills together. These activities can be:
Reader’s theater or role plays from histories: (students take part of a character and read or
act their part)
Choral reading: when all the class read the passage out loud together, with feeling.
Poetry reading and writing or literature circles: which is when in groups of students read the same
book and share some aspect from the reading.
Reading and writing benefit from being taugth together for
multiple reasons:
Reading a variety of genres: seen how the language features
of texts change from genre to genre is an effective method for
teaching students to produce those same discourse features
themselves.
Build deep understanding of academic vocabulary constantly
Part of what makes vocabulary difficult is that often the same word can take
on multiple meanings in different contexts and subject areas. So, even if
students develop a large vocabulary, is often the alternate meanings that
are difficult to understand.
Effective vocabulary instruction provides multiple exposures to target words
over multiple days and across various reading, writing and speaking
opportunities.
Build deep understanding of academic vocabulary constantly
One of the best way to build vocabulary is through
continuous reading and writing on a single topic.
“TEXT SETS”
This is a collection of reading materials that are well organized,
this should include a wide variety of written texts that vary in
length, difficulty and structure, also these texts must be
interesting, relevant for the class and accessible to most
students.
Build deep understanding of academic vocabulary constantly
Develop a program of sustained, extensive reading and
writing at the level of students
One of the most important elements of building reading and writing fluency is simply doing it a lot in the
classroom.

However, teachers must be careful to select reading materials with no more than a couple of unknown
words per page; otherwise, students will be stock in unknown vocabulary and struggle with comprehension.
UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGÓGICA NACIONAL FRANCISCO MORAZÁN
Faculty of Humanities
Literature and Languages Department
English Program
Reading and Writing Didactis
Why teach Grammar? - Attitudes or positions to grammar
Professor
Mr. Miguel Ángel Paz
PRESENTED BY
Rodolfo Alberto Aguilar Alvarado 1503-1993-03259
Tegucigalpa, D.C. Wednesday, July 15h, 2020