Session 1 Facilitator’s Guide: Bridges new ELA:
Supporting SIFE with low home language
literacy
Sequence of Sessions
Targets for this Session



I can distinguish the instructional needs of SIFE with low home language literacy from other Multi-lingual Learners.
I can connect the instructional needs of SIFE with low home language literacy to the three strands of the SIFE curriculum.
I can analyze the reading methods and connect them to the needs of SIFE with low home language literacy.
High-Level Purpose of this Session

In this session, participants will be introduced to the distinct instructional needs of SIFE with low levels of home language
literacy. Participants examine two approaches to reading that support LL SIFE to use text as a resource to learn and develop
new knowledge. As a result of this session participants will be able to articulate how the moves embedded in these methods
support the instructional needs of LL SIFE.
Related Learning Experiences

Key Points

LL SIFE share characteristics with Multi-lingual learners (ELLS), however, they have distinct instructional needs which must
be addressed in the classroom.

Effective instruction for LL SIFE must include routines and instructional methods that support students to use text as a
resource to learn and develop new knowledge.
Session Outcomes
What do we want participants to be able to do as a result of
this session?
1. Distinguish the instructional needs of SIFE with low home
language literacy from other ELLs and SIFE
2. Identify the processes involved in reading and connect them
to routine instructional practices.
How will we know that they are able to do this?


Analysis of participant responses
Analysis of lesson.
Session Overview
Section
Time
Overview
Prepared Resources
1. Introduction
15 mins
Participants will be introduced Graphic of Bridges that shows
Facilitator’s Preparation
Review agendas.
to the session and introduced how New SIFE Curriculum is
to the context of our work with embedded.
SIFE.

3. The learner:
Distinguishing LL
SIFE from ELLs
Describe the goals of
Bridges and how the new
SIFE curriculum is
embedded.
38 mins
Student Profiles
Learner checklist
Bridges learners handout
3.Connect the
learner to the goals
of the curriculum.
15 mins
Participants will be introduced Graphic of components of new
to the structure and
SIFE curriculum
goals/purposes of the new
SIFE curriculum.
Synthesis of understanding:
oral share to connect
instructional needs to SIFE
Curriculum
4. The Reading
Process
31 mins
Participants will share the
Social Studies text
challenges they face
supporting SIFE to use text as
a resource to learn.
Participants read a complex
text to explore the process of
their own comprehension.
Read all documents that will be
used in participant activities.
Think through the activities with
‘participant eyes’ and consider
the important take-aways or
possible misconceptions.
Participants discuss the
resources they called on to
make sense of the text and
identify instances where their
comprehension was
challenged.
Participants connect their
experiences to reading theory
6. Read Retell
Protocol
46 min +
15 mins
BREAK
Participants will participate in
the Read-Retell-Respond
protocol.
Read Retell Protocol
Glossary words
Participants will connect the
instructional moves to students’
Chart for background info
needs and the CCS.
Participants will discuss the
implications of using the
protocol in the classroom with
low literacy SIFE
7. Close Reading
30 mins
Participants will distinguish
between the purposes for
Read-Retell-Respond and
close reading.
Participants will participate in
the close reading protocol.
Participants will connect the
instructional moves to students’
Close Reading document
needs and CCS.
Participants will discuss the
implications of using the
protocol in the classroom with
low literacy SIFE.
44 mins
Participants will practice read Wordbank for labeling
Retell using Nasreen’s Secret
Glossary
School from the Bridges
curriculum.
Word Match cards
Close read character handout
Synthesis and
Closing
8 mins
Synthesize learning in this
session through oral
discussion.
Session Roadmap
Time: 8:30 – 8:45 am
Section 1: Introduction
Time Slide #/Pic of Slide
8:30
-8:35
(5
mins)
Script/Activity directions
Our Background:
Working with SIFE in NYC as teachers, instructional coaches.
 Push in support
 Coach teachers to scaffold differentiation
 Pull out ELA classes
Evident that students were not gaining the skills and content knowledge
they needed to participate in class.
Plans to develop a sheltered 1 year program: Bridges
8:35
-8:40
(5
mins)

NYCDOE and NY Community Trust funding to develop Bridges

One year program to prepare students to participate in 9th grade
classes

Focused on needs of targeted population.
Grouping

Sheltered classes for students (20 max), who stay together all day
for one class in each subject area taught by a Bridges teacher.
Interdisciplinary and thematically connected because to accelerate
students need to build literacies (and the concomitant language) and
conceptual knowledge across disciplines. Literacy is not anchored in a
discipline it is a set of skills and concepts that is taken up and needs to be
reinforced across disciplines.
Literacy needs to be developed at the program level. In the Bridges model
happens collaboratively through weekly team meeting.

To build confidence

To build identities as a learner

Interdisciplinary curriculum, thematic alignment across content
areas, with integration of language and literacy in all subjects,
taught by content area teachers.
Has been piloted in three NYC schools (3 years)
4 school upstate (1st year)
____________________________
# 5 In July of 2013 we were contracted by NYSED to revise the ELA
component and align it to CCLS.
This work was driven by an understanding that instruction in the Bridges
Program needs to include attention to developing student’s skills as
readers and writers so they can use text as a resource to learn.
We are here today to highlight this part of the development of the
curriculum.
8:40
-8:45
(5
mins)
Share Goals:
 In order to support LL SIFE it is paramount to understand who they
are as learners and how to support their instructional needs
Share Agenda:
 We are going to put you in the role of student so you can think
critically about what is involved in reading and how to support LL
SIFE to internalize these processes.
Section 2: The Learner
Time
8:45 –
8:55
(8 -10
mins)
Slide #/ Pic of Slide
Time: 53 mins
Script/Activity directions
We imagine you are here because you have had
LL SIFE in your classes or schools.
MATERIALS
In order to consider instruction that will meet the
needs of this population it is important to
understand the learner.
Characteristics Checklist
Distribute Learner Profiles (A, B and C) and
Learner Profiles A, B and C
Learner Characteristics Checklist.
Direct participants to read the profiles and analyze
the characteristics (resources, skills, dispositions)
of each of the learners using the checklist.
Be prepared to lead a discussion that highlights
how LL SIFE are distinct from ELLs who are
literate in home language and
8:55 – 9
am (5
mins)
Debrief:
What is similar about ELLs generally (including
SIFE and LL SIFE?
 Most newcomer ELLs are unfamiliar with
the English language and American
culture.


8 mins
They are of a similar age.
Have cognitive capacity relative to their age
Let’s put this into the context of school where we
have assumptions about learners along the grade
level continuum.
What is distinct? Give participants the
opportunity to share their analysis.
Where do A and C fall on this continuum?
 A and C should fall into the group on the
right.
You may choose to chart their responses.
 All these students have academic literacy
in their home language – Instruction
involves building language and supporting
the transfer of skills and knowledge.

The Bilingual Progressions offer guidance
to scaffold language to support ELLs to
gain access to content. We have gotten
good at this.
Let’s look at the group that fall in the purple circle.
Profile B (Fatou) presents as an outlier in a high
school context. What is distinct about her and
students like her?


Have gained knowledge through concrete
and practice experience
Do not text use as a resource to learn
(which is assumed at the HS level)
(10 mins)
HS programs are intended for students who have
been using literacy as a tool for thinking and
interpreting information for 5-6 years. There is a
DISCREPANCY.
What were the assumptions we were making
about these students that kept them form
accessing the curriculum.
How are SIFE with low levels of home language
literacy different (below 3rd Grade)?
This graphic helps to surface some of the
Learner Profiles (D and E)
characteristics that distinguish LL SIFE.
Distribute profiles for D and E and look at these
together with B.
Distribute learner characteristics chart.
and Bridges Learner
characteristics chart
Chart paper
With an elbow partner discuss and chart.
How are these learners distinct? Discuss and fill in
chart.
Note: Slide 13 is a synthesis of these
characteristics. Review this in advance so that
you can build on participants knowledge and
support them to see connections.
6 mins
Bridges students are at or below 3rd grade literacy
in home language – but they bring different levels
of experience to print.
This is not designed as a homogeneous and it is
likely that the classroom will benefit from these
varied levels and that students will require
differentiation.
Ask participants: What might need to be taught in a
classroom to support students to BRIDGE this chasm
and be prepared for the HS context which their peers
have had 6 years to develop?
See slide 13. These are the cracks in the foundation
that distinguish this population. The previous
discussion of learner profiles should build to an
understanding that the
Chart paper
Think Pair with elbow partners.
Share
2 minutes
SYNTHESIS:
SIFE come with high levels of competence and are
meaningful participants in their home contexts.
When they get to our class rooms:
 What is different?
 How is knowledge transmitted?
 What kind of learning is valued?
And what does this mean for instruction?
When they get to our classrooms these
characteristics appear as ‘cracks in the
foundation’.
Acceleration means attending to these cracks in
purposeful and pointed ways in the curriculum.
May choose to skip this slide
Reflect on our perceptions.
~ Each of these students brings resources, among
them:
 Positive outlook on school – haven’t
experienced school failure
 Accustomed to taking on jobs and

2 mins
How do we propose to fill the cracks in the
foundation?



5 mins
responsibilities that require application and
focus.
Used to contributing to family and
community for mutual benefit.
First iteration of Bridges good at supporting
students to build conceptual knowledge, but
students weren’t learning to read.
Could not use text effectively as a resource to
learn and develop new knowledge
This was tantamount to academic foreclosure
and although we did not, as high school
teachers, have the training and skills to teach
reading there was no question that instruction
for these students had to attend to reading.
How is this different than your High School Class
room?
Pair Share
When we consider these students it is clear that
they are distinct because they are not yet
independent readers and writers in any language.
Design is borrowed from he elementary model
because it is that this stage of education that
instruction supports students to become readers
and writers.
This is often achieved at the elementary level
through a Balanced Literacy approach
The goal of balanced literacy is to develop
independent readers and writers through
direct/guided and independent practice.

Though students may be 17 or 14 they
missed this (high school teachers are not
trained to do this)
Balances an emphasis on skills and meaning
(building conceptual knowledge) and to do well
takes sitting down next to a student and knowing
that student well.
Conducted research and visited classrooms to
inform our design.
5 minutes
Distribute Graphic of New SIFE Curriculum
Over the last 1½ years we focused on developing
curricula that would target the ‘Cracks in the
Foundation’ - the instructional needs of this population.
Point to the Cracks in the Foundation Chart:
Pair Share: How does the curriculum design address
our goals?
For a classroom with mixed language learners
ELA Part 1 (Focus for the this morning): Targets the
development of academic language and thinking and
builds conceptual knowledge. TEXT in this class is
STRETCH and SUPPORTS STUDENTS to BUILD
CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE and ACADEMIC
SKILLS


ELA Part 2 (this Afternoon): Attends to reading
at the instructional level and targets the
discrete skills and understandings that support
comprehension (word meanings, syntax, sight
words, independent reading
FLL: For students who are new to print and
need to develop decoding and encoding skills
for the first time (ideally in home language)
Graphic of 3 Strands of
curriculum
Section
3: The Reading Process
Reading Process
Time
8 mins
3 mins
Slide #/ Pic of Slide
Time:
31 minutes
31 minutes
Script/Activity directions
Pair Share with Elbow Partners
Chart
Refer back to this throughout the session
Materials
Chart Paper
Today we are going to share two of the high impact methods we
use to support students to make sense of text in ELA PART 1.
 Read Retell Respond
 Close Reading

First we will put you in the position of the learner by challenging you
to make sense of a stretch text. So you can experience what
students experience with text.
Then, we will look at a text from ELA part 1 - Nasreen’s Secret
School (hold up the text) and you will experience how it is
presented in the curriculum.
Before we do that we want you to think about what is involved in
making sense of text by reading a text that is challenging – that
STRETCHES you and causes you to grapple and bring your tools
and resources to make sense of the text.
Distribute Text
Reading Text
5 mins
Work individually and as you read pay attention to:
1. How you make sense of text
2. When sense-making breaks down and consider how you
work through your confusion.
Only provide 3 or 4 minutes to read- participants will read this again
with more support. This is a first read.
Read this in advance and consider why it is challenging and how
sense-making might break down. Connect this to the components
of reading involved in comprehension (Slide #21)
4 minutes
What challenged your sense making?
What resources did you use to make sense of the text?
Invite volunteers to share their experience.
Connect this to the components of reading involved in
comprehension (Slide #21)
5 mins
Comprehension involves:
 Background knowledge on the subject
 Knowledge of the word meanings (Lexical or Semantic)
 Knowledge of how phrases and sentences build to
communicate ideas (Syntax)
 Knowledge of how text is structured (discourse)
You may have been overwhelmed by this text, but you brought
schema that helped you to tackle it and unpack it to begin to make
Chart Paper
sense.
SCHEMA: Content Schema and Text Schema
 Assimilate additional knowledge
 Help to judge what is important
Individual knowledge is shaped by culturally organized experience.
When students are unfamiliar with text AND new to the language
and culture these are not resources they have they have to be built.
6 mins
THINK PAIR SHARE: What does this mean to you? How does it
impact how you teach reading?
In order to build a successful reading program for Bridges students
we need to CONSIDER the STUDENT.
RESOURCES for reading are cultivated long before we ever meet
the text, but the majority of Bridges students
have not yet learned this or are at emerging levels in L1. They must
both LEARN to READ and learn to READ to LEARN at once (this is
acceleration).
The schema for language, from world experience, about text –
genre. Each student uses these resources to make meaning.
As we are thinking about how to support Bridges Students to be
readers we considered how we can make explicit and concrete the
processes or moves that we engage automatically when we read.
We are going to involve you in two of these methods to support you
to understand how these methods might make explicit some of
these processes of reading the support comprehension.
Section 4: The Read Retell Protocol
Time
10:10 10:22
15
minutes
Slide #/ Pic of Slide
Time: 49 mins protocol and 15 mins Break
Script/Activity directions
Materials
These are the moves in the Read Retell Respond Protocol. We are piloting
and tweaking as we learn from labsite classroom.
Glossary
This method targets a LITERAL understanding of the text.
I am going to take you through (more or less) the same process we move
students through. As you engage in these steps- think about how they
support your understanding. Think about the students WHY its important to
be explicit about each step
You will work with a partner and silently. You will either be partner A or
partner B (go around the room and have participants partner and identify
themselves as A or B)
1.Distribute Glossary and materials.
Read them, discuss with partners and when you have digested them ….
2. Use them to ANNOTATE the text to support your understanding.
3. Re-read to solidify your understanding (these are separate steps for
students - it is likely that as accomplished readers you are reading as you
annotate and make sense)
4. Interactive Read Aloud
5. Pair and Retell what happened. First in Home language. Then, in
English.
6. Share with whole group and teacher charts.
Flowchart
How did this process support your understanding? What helped? Why?
6 mins
Assign each group of two or three one of the moves to
analyze.
Glossary
Background information
Annotate the text (glossary words or other annotations)
Read silently
Teacher read aloud
Think pair share (2-3 groups)
Whole class retell
4 mins
Glossary group shares why it is important and how it connects
to the learner.
Background group shares
4 mins
Facilitator shares relevant slide and connects to theory builds
and extends participant responses.
Annotation group shares why it is important and how it
connects to the learner.
Facilitator shares relevant slide and connects to theory builds
and extends participant responses.
Early in the year in the curriculum students annotate glossary
words. Curriculum builds to teach students to identify important
words, key details and main ideas. (See structure, analyze
ideas, make meaning)
Distrbute
Read Retell
protocol
4 mins
Silent reading group shares why it is important and how it
connects to the learner.
Facilitator shares relevant slide and connects to theory builds
and extends participant responses.
4 mins
Teacher read aloud group shares why it is important and how
it connects to the learner.
Facilitator shares relevant slide and connects to theory builds
and extends participant responses.
4 mins
Retell group shares why it is important and how it connects to
the learner.
Facilitator shares relevant slide and connects to theory builds
and extends participant responses.
Must build structured opportunities for TALK.
Note: Students often read rather than retell it may help to have
students cover the text to make the move explicit.
4 mins
Class Retell group shares why it is important and how it
connects to the learner.
Facilitator shares relevant slide and connects to theory builds
and extends participant responses
Read Retell
Protocol with
connection to
theory
How does this method work to achieve the goals of the curriculum?
4 mins
Listen For:
 Builds conceptual understanding
 Develops academic language, literacy and habits of mind.
Important to make explicit the strategies and skills that we call on
naturally. Students often would rather read the text than retell the
text in their own words. This move is critical. To make it explicit have
students make it concrete by covering the text.
15 mins
Break
Section 5: Close Reading
Time
Slide #/Pic of Slide
Time: 26 -30 mins
Script/Activity directions
Grouping
10 mins
Return to the retell created by the class. Determine how to help the
class push it’s understanding of the text more deeply (guide
students to go back into the text to answer one of the questions
below).
This will require that you have analyzed the text sufficiently prior to
the sessions and can teach and guide participants to a deeper
understanding of the meaning and craft of the text.
1. Use ‘two senses” in line 5. Draw participants attention to this
phrase and ask them to read the text to understand the two
senses of the word proposition and how they connect to an
understanding of the text.
2. How does the author feel about the ‘he’ referred to in the
text?
3. What does it refer to in the text?
4 mins
How does this method work to achieve the goals of the curriculum?
Builds conceptual knowledge connected to the discipline ELA
Develop Academic language and literacy
 Analyze craft
 Analyze how author uses language
8 mins
8 mins
Partners work to compare read retell and Close reading.
Share out
(you will compare with slide 37 and crosswalk handout)
Compare to participant responses
4
minutes
Distribute the crosswalk between read retell and close reading.
Section 6: Read Retell and Close Reading in the
Bridges Classroom
Time
3 mins
Slide #/Pic of Slide
Time: 60 minutes
Script/Activity directions
Show participants the book.
In order to see how these methods play out with Bridges students in
the context of a Bridges class we will take you through the Read
Retell protocol using a book from ELA Part 1 - Module 1, Unit 2.
Nasreen’s Secret School.
Materials
Copy of
Nasreen’s Secret
School
5 mins
Distribute handout of text (pages 1-9)
Distribute text
We’ve chunked the text to support. 1-3/4-6/7-9 (3 Read Retell and
then Close Read)
Cover the text with a post it.
Label the text on pages 2 and 3 using the word bank
With partner: What is it about? What happened?
Note: In the curriculum this lesson in preceded by 2 days of building
background knowledge about Afghanistan and the changes that
happened after the Taliban arrived.
8 mins
Distribute glossary
Assume you have worked to understand these words and translated
the meaning to English in a previous lesson.
 Review/Translate glossary words and record (or define)
 Read silently
4 mins


Annotate glossary words on page 2 and 3 (and any other
words that might support sense making)
Read silently
Page 2 and 3
glossary
Glossary Match
1 min
Share example of student annotation
4 mins
Read text on pages 2 and 3 aloud. This should be interactive and
dramatized to support comprehension.
Remind participants to put their fingers on the text and track the
print.
Guide participants to use the retell protocol (partner A and B) first
home language and then English
4 mins
Participants retell and facilitator charts.
Discuss ways you might do this to get more varied participation.
CHART
5 mins
Answer participant queries and clear up misconceptions.
~ Moves slowly but focuses on reading as sense making.
~ How do you chunk the text to support engagement? Provide
examples from the curriculum.
How might this work with other content areas?
8 mins
With group pair share? Look at the Learner profiles and think about
the skills that students bring.
Chart contributions
1. Create access: Word bank for labeling, partner with same
language partner that is more advanced, provide fewer pages
to target retell, work with a group that is new to print to guide
interaction and focus on pictures to create meaning. Develop
an LEA with this group.
2. Extend Understanding: More pages for the retell, write retell
in home language,
Use this chart to guide contributions for differentiation.
8 mins
If time allows, guide teachers to close read page 9 for Nasreen’s
actions, thoughts and feelings.
(see M1 U2 Lessons 21 or 25)
Share
Distribute
Bridges learner
profile chart
10 mins
Closing:
Direct participants to reflect on what they learned and what
they will take into their classroom
Turnkey Materials Provided
