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Ingrid HeidrickKeymaster
Savannah, thank you for this very insightful post. I think teachers instinctively know how to help their students, but often are simply prevented from doing it. We can talk more about this if you like – but for now, I want you to frame essential comprehension and background knowledge of the text as “Main idea and details” (Standards 1 and 2). If your admin asks, you might say “We’re doing main idea and details first, then practicing character traits.” Maybe you could divide a Guided Reading lesson over 2 days, main idea on Day 1 and character traits on Day 2, after the children have a better handle on the story.
Guided Reading is done so differently across schools – it could be an excellent opportunity to work in Close Groups with students for essential comprehension, vocab, and fluency; on the other hand, it can be ineffective – there is no real empirical evidence that Guided Reading is one concept, and that it even works.
I’m going to encourage you to work under the radar as much as you can – activate knowledge, pre teach vocabulary, read aloud, practice on sounding out CVC words, and focus on Big Picture concepts – then target “the skills” by asking text dependent questions around those skills. Focus on the Wh question words and what connection they could have to the skills. Let’s talk more about this when you have a chance!
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterYes! Oral Reading works. You mentioned something really important: feeling successful reading out loud, even if you didn’t understand every single word. And, getting the gist of the text even if you didn’t know all the details.
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterYes, one of the major things missing from instruction is knowledge of sound-symbol correspondences. If we can incorporate that into our teaching practice, students will be much stronger decoders.
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterMorphological awareness IS incredible – and it’s your #1 ticket to enlarging your students vocabulary size. When they can apply the principles of word segmentation to content work, that’s when it really sinks in!!
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterYes- there are and should be different ways of accessing the vocabulary. Remember, students need multiple exposures to words! So, English Learners benefit from explicitly taught vocabulary pre-reading, but then they need to have those words recycled during the unit. Think: bilingual student created glossaries, reference word walls, assignments having to use the vocab to fill in definitions or create sentences.
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterGreat to meet you Savannah! I will check in with you over email to see how you’re doing.
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterJessica, if you ever teach the older grades again I know you will do an awesome job with phonics and spelling! Right now with your preschoolers, any sound symbol correspondence work you can do is a major benefit to them.
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterYou made my day Bienvenida! Spelling IS fun – and students gain self confidence when they can use explicit spelling instruction to decode and spell.
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterI’m so glad the article was valuable to you. I just want teachers to walk away with a comprehensive understanding of the science of reading and the politics behind what kinds of reading instruction is being promoted.
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterJessica, I love your insights! Yes, syntactic awareness should always be taught in context. It is truly a powerful tool to teach comprehension of story telling. Building children’s oral language is the foundation of literacy, so any work you can do with your little ones on their syntactic awareness orally will benefit their reading later on. Good work!
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterAbsolutely – conjunctions can be modeled orally in the context of reading comprehension so young students can simply gain awareness around them. This will help them later on down the road to be able to use them in written language!
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterJessica, you sound like an awesome teacher! Being a Pre-K educator, you understand first hand what it means to learn through oral language development. I’m glad the article solidified your understanding of what you’ve already been doing. And getting the parents involved is KEY. Most language is acquired in the HOME and kids who are exposed to literacy at home, no matter in what language, do better than kids who don’t. Keep up the good work!
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterYes! We definitely want to explicitly plan and teach some central vocabulary, but also leave room for discussion, so students can be exposed to many more words in context. There are some situations, like phonics lessons, in which it’s OK to teach a sound-spelling concept using vocabulary in isolation, but with all students, we always want the majority of vocabulary instruction to take place while learning content.
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterWelcome Bienvenida! Yay!! A dual language teacher! You are so much of what NYC and other students across the country need right now. If we had more bilingual education, students would be doing better. As a bilingual teacher, you are in a unique position to develop not only their academic English, but also academic Spanish.
Yes, our ELs come from rich and diverse backgrounds and have so much to offer in a learning environment. They just need help tapping into their knowledge, and applying it to learning new topics.
Ingrid HeidrickKeymasterHi Jessica,
Welcome! And thanks for your thoughtful post. You hit upon an important point: our English Learners are often shocked to be in a new system and not sure what’s expected of them. It’s confusing and emotional. Many end up acting out and oftentimes are labeled as disabled when in fact, the school needs to provide or get more training in how to culturally relate to students. It’s wonderful that you can communicate in Chinese and make the process easier for them and their parents. Your work is important.
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