English Language Literacy
Conference
Goshen College, Goshen Community
Schools and Educational Concepts
April 12, 2012
Getting started
• Education is a journey not a destination but
there are milestones along the way.
• The work is never done; but there are those from
whom we have received the work, and those
with whom we share the work, and those who
will continue the work when we no longer can.
• “It may be that when we no longer know what to
do, we have come to our real work, and when
we no longer know which way to go, we have
begun our real journey.” Wendell Berry (born 1934)Farmer, writer, academic
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Expectations for today:
Polishers and keepers
Implications and applications
Sowing seeds and transplanting ideas
Filling the empty places for re-growth and
rebirth
• Energize and equip all of us for tomorrow,
next week, next month and next year.
• Conference goals –
• Answer questions about EL and literacy
• Look at what data and research is telling
us about EL and literacy
• Implications for how we craft learning
opportunities for EL students
• Application for instructional practices in the
break out sessions.
• Questions??? Do students have to learn to
speak before they can read and write?
• What are reasonable benchmarks for my level
___ student at ___ time of the year?
• Why can my students “read” 3 levels above their
comprehension level?
• How do we move students to higher levels of
literacy?
• How do Indiana State standards and EL
standards and Common Core State Standards
all fit together?
• What we know about literacy in general –
5 key components - phonemic awareness,
phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text
comprehension identified by the National Reading Panel (NICHD,
2000)
• What does that mean for EL. Instruction that
provides substantial coverage in the key
components has clear benefits for languageminority students. Diane August and Tim Shanahan 2006
• Instruction in the key components of reading is
necessary—but not sufficient—for teaching
language-minority students to read and write
proficiently in English. Oral proficiency in English is
critical as well—but student performance suggests
that it is often overlooked in instruction.
• Word-level skills in literacy—such as decoding, word
recognition and spelling—are often taught well enough
to allow language-minority students to attain levels of
performance equal to those of native English speakers.
• This is not the case for text-level skills—reading
comprehension and writing.
• The difference is Oral Language
Proficiency.
• Not a strong predictor of word level skills.
• POP – cvc word. P…O…P POP
• Mario = Ma… ri…o
• Ma, La, Va, Ca, Ta, Ra,
• Vaca, Mata, Rata.
• La vaca mata la rata.
• “I like to drink pop and pop balloons,” said
Pop.
• Well-developed oral proficiency in English is
associated with English reading comprehension
and writing skills for EL students.
• Specifically, English vocabulary knowledge,
listening comprehension, syntactic skills, and the
ability to handle meta linguistic aspects of
language, such as providing definitions of words,
are linked to English reading and writing
proficiency.
• SO WHAT?????
• It is not enough to teach language-minority
students reading skills alone. Extensive oral
English development must be incorporated into
successful literacy instruction.
• Literacy programs that provide instructional
support of oral language development in
English, aligned with high-quality literacy
instruction are the most successful.
• Vocabulary and background knowledge, should
be targeted intensively.
• Claire E White presentation Create conference,
October 4, 2009 – Tier 2 or 3.
• Greater language demands of secondary texts,
particularly vocabulary, that occurs across
content area texts.
• Unfamiliarity with specific academic vocabulary - the words necessary to learn and talk about
academic subjects (analyze, refer, claim,
develop, interpret)
• Additional burden of acquiring English and
mastering grade level content.
• Proficiency can be obscured by the types of
activities and questions.
• EL can seem proficient if questions or activities
simply require them to “pluck from the text” a
satisfactory response.
• Background knowledge, vocabulary and real
comprehension must be checked by more
meaningful interactions with texts.
• Fast-paced, low-level question/answer routines
are the norm in most classrooms serving EL.
(Zang, Anderson, &Nguyen-Jahiel, 2009)
• We need to have EL talk more in ways that engage
them.
• How: Literature circles, Instructional conversations,
Collaborative reasoning, Book Clubs can be used.
• Zhang, Anderson, and Ngyuyen-Jahiel 2009 found that
over a 4 week period, 8 discussions in an open format
discussion approach resulted in improvements on
listening and reading comprehension measures as well
as in the production of more coherent narratives with
more diverse vocabulary and text evidence.
• Doubled the EL students’ rate of talk.
• IREAD Conferences.
• How do we teach vocabulary and for what purposes?
• Remember that vocabulary has 2 parts Label and
Concept.
• Isabel Beck's three tiers:
• Tier One: Basic words that rarely require instructional
focus (door, house, book).
• Tier Two: Words that appear with high frequency, across
a variety of domains, and are crucial when using mature,
academic language (coincidence, reluctant, analysis).
• Tier Three: Frequency of these words is quite low and
often limited to specific fields of study (isotope,
Reconstruction, Buddhism).
• For EL students, there are 4 tiers. Calderon, et al. 2003
• Tier 1 is basically the same as Becks, Words students
know in native language and just need an English label,
cognates, etc.
• Tier 2 – More troublesome: Tier 1 words for NE
speakers, high frequency but have multiple meanings,
e.g. pop, storm, point, Students mostly do not make
connections between different contexts.
• Tier 3 – Becks tier 2 words – not cognates – difficult to
recognize immediately e.g. performed, avoidance
• Tier 4 – limited domain, low frequency words e.g.
chlorophyll, lathe, alliteration.
• Tier 2 example – Point
• He sharpened the point of the knife (sharp end of)
• He wasn’t sure of the point of the story (purpose of)
• He made an interesting point in his argument. (an
important detail)
• He walked to a point 10 ft. from the outhouse. (specific
location)
• He made a point for his team (score) for
• The decimal point is in the wrong place (a is
mathematical punctuation)
• Record the color of the solution at each point. (step of a
process)
• Two additional areas to touch on – CCSS and family
involvement
• CCSS will require the teaching of literacy by all teachers
in all content areas including Speaking and listening
skills.
• An integrated model of literacy - Although the Standards
are divided into Reading, Writing, Speaking and
Listening, and Language strands for conceptual clarity,
the processes of communication are closely connected,
as reflected throughout this document. For example,
Writing standard 9 requires that students be able to write
about what they read. Likewise, Speaking and Listening
standard 4 sets the expectation that students will share
findings from their research.
• Grade 3 Speaking and Listening,
Comprehension and collaboration. ELA &
Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and
Technical subjects.
• 1. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative
discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher
led) with diverse partners on grade 3 topics and
texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing
their own clearly.s
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Parent and family support
Parents are a child’s first teacher.
Parents need to feel involved in school decisions
Parents need to be taught how to help their
children
• Parents need to know how school is both the
same and different from what they experienced
• Parents need good news communication with
school.
• Schools should see parents as partners.
• At the end of the day, I hope you will have
changed.
• The journey of 1000 miles starts with the
first step.
• Exit ticket: Because I now know ________
I will stop doing ___________ and I will
start doing ________________.
• Thanks for the day.