ELLs Running Records/Miscue Analysis Results

Entry #7

I tested a Spanish speaking student who has just completed fourth grade.  I used a level M text which was above her independent reading level so to produce miscues. 

Her accuracy rate was 88%, error ratio was 1:9, and self-correction ratio was 1:5.

I noticed that her errors were predominately visual errors.  She used the graphophonic cueing system to guess words, and word similarities would usually match the beginning letter and often the end letter also.  She rarely used the syntactic or semantic cueing systems, but did show she could make self-corrections when there was a familiar word to her.  Her guesses were often non-words, for example:

            Book               Student

great                grote  

female              fleem

Native English speakers will also make visual errors, but they will be more likely to substitute a real word, or realize the word they have said is not a real word and try to work it out again.

Problematic areas she showed, that can be common to all readers, include not knowing the different ways that the vowel sounds are represented in words.  For example, she read por for pair, and read crals for crawls.  She consistently mixed up the words ‘for’ and ‘from’ because of the visual similarity.  She didn’t notice to pronounce the nasal /n/ in the words crunches, munches and hang.  In spelling, children often have difficulty hearing the nasal sound, so they don’t write the /n/ sound.  She also made many errors by either adding an ‘s’ to the end of a word to make a plural, or by not pronouncing the ‘s’ at the end of a word where there was one.  I tried to find out if Spanish speakers pronounce plurals differently, but I still don’t know if this is a factor special to ELLs.  Does anyone know? 

My reader made an error that I think was affected by her being a Spanish speaker.  On two occasions she read the word ‘happens’ as ‘open’, and this may be because in Spanish the letter h is silent. 

1) The main learning target I would have for this student would be to have her focus on making meaning from the text, and be taught to monitor her own reading for meaning.  She should be shown how to use context cues to help with unknown words.  I would use an exercise such as giving her a cloze passage which forces her to use the other words in a sentence to guess a suitable word to go in the blank.  Also use a maze exercise which is similar to the close passage, but this time the blank has three possible answers.  This way the student will be forced to think about grammar (the type of word needed), as well as focusing on building meaning. 

2) Focus on building spelling awareness for the different ways to make the vowel sounds.

Work on problem-solving spelling exercises such as searching a text to find words that show different ways to make the vowel sounds.  Add these words to class lists, as well as having the student keep her own personal list.  Words can be added to the lists as the student comes upon more words.  Freeman & Freeman (2004, p.112) recommend this method as being more effective than memorizing spellings.

3) Phonemic awareness listening exercises for hearing the /h/ sound in words.  For instance, listen to a list of words, when you hear a word that begins with an /h/ raise your hand.

4) Explicitly teach plurals, and being aware of noticing and pronouncing the ‘s’ and ‘es’ at the end of words.

The second student was a Nepali speaker who had also just completed fourth grade.  The Nepalese language has a different alphabet system to English.  This student read a level P text, which was above his independent reading level.  His accuracy rate was 91%, with an error rate of 1:11.  He made no self-corrections.

He actually read aloud very well and at a reasonable pace.  He had a good sight word recognition, and was able to read words like – ancestors, obey, and predator – without slowing down.  When he made an error, he used more of the semantic and syntactic cueing systems combined, compared to how often he used the graphophonic cueing system.  This shows that he is trying to make meaning as he reads and he is using context cues.  For instance he read:

                Text                             Student

            Live indoors                live in neighborhoods

            Human families           human female

As with the other student, he also made many errors with missing out the letter s at the end of plurals.  Whether this is affected from his first language, I was unable to find out.  He made five errors by simply reading over a word and missing it out, and also errors with reading small words incorrectly, such as saying ‘a’ for ‘an’. These errors are common with native English speaking readers too.

He did find new vocabulary difficult to remember how to pronounce, such as the word ‘instinct’ which was in the title.  Even when he was told the word by the teacher he would mispronounce it throughout the text.  He also found two western names difficult to decode and pronounce.

For this reader the main targets would be:

1) Focus on making meaning from the text, and be taught to monitor his own reading for meaning.  We want to encourage self-correction by realizing that a sentence did not sound right.

2) Explicitly teach plurals, and be aware of noticing and pronouncing the ‘s’ and ‘es’ at the end of words.

3) When student skips over simple words he knows, ask him to reread the sentence and point to each word so he notices all of the words, and explain that all words are important to read.

4) As with all ELLs, explain and discuss new vocabulary before reading.  Listen to and repeat pronunciations of new words.

References

Freeman D.E. & Freeman Y.S. (2004).  Essential linguistics: What you need to know to teach reading, ESL, spelling, phonics, grammar.  Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Learning View vs. Acquisition View

Entry #6

After reading chapter 2 of the Freeman text I sorted the activities from the end of the chapter under either the learning/word recognition or acquisition headings.  Here is what I decided upon.

Learning/Word Recognition

Students

·         look up words in the dictionary to write definitions

·         read in round-robin fashion

·         practice sounding out words

·         correct peers when they make a mistake during reading time

·         identify words on a big book page that start with the same sound

·         group cards with classmates’ names by a criterion on such as first or last letter

·         divide words into syllables

·         on a worksheet, draw a line from each word to the picture that starts with the same sound

·         make alphabet books on different topics

Teachers

·         preteaches vocabulary

·         makes sure that students only read books that fit their level

·         has students segment words into phonemes

·         asks students to look around the room and find words starting with a certain letter

·         uses decodable text

·         teaches Latin and Greek roots

·         conducts phonic drills

·         uses a variety of worksheets to teach different skills

I chose the above activities to go under this heading because they are associated with explicit teaching and learning of the skills for reading and writing.  Teachers who believe in the word recognition view of learning, focus primarily on systematically teaching phonics, sight words and the structural analysis of words, so that students can recode writing.  Many of the above activities focus on practice with identifying letters and sounds, blending and segmenting sounds.  The use of decodable texts also helps to practice phonics skills.  Reading focuses on reading accurately, and errors are corrected.  New vocabulary words are pretaught so that students will recognize the words when they come to them.  According to Freeman & Freeman (2004) teachers with the word recognition view of reading have the goal of helping students to identify words.  I see activities like phonics as the building bricks of language that students need to be taught to be able to recode writing.

Acquisition

Students

·         make a Venn diagram to compare two stories

·         write rhyming poetry and then discuss different spelling for the same sound

·         ask the teacher how to spell any word they don’t know

·         read a language experience story they have created with the teacher

·         work in pairs to arrange words from a familiar chant into sentences

Teachers

·         does a shared reading with a big book

·         writes words the students dictate for a story and has students help with the spelling of difficult words

·         sets aside time for SSR (sustained silent reading) each day

·         has students meet in literature circles

·         chooses predictable texts

·         teaches students different comprehension strategies

·         does a picture walk of a new book

These activities belong with the acquisition view because they all focus around the goal of making meaning from text.  Many of these activities involve discussion with either the teacher or other students, which is an important part of learning and making meaning.  Entering information on the Venn diagram creates a lot of discussion about stories, and arranging words into a sentence is problem solving to make meaning.  Literature circles will bring together different student ideas about a text, which creates a deeper understanding of text through the discussions.

The teacher does not inhibit student writing just because they don’t yet have all the skills to be accurate.  Rather the focus is on writing for a purpose, such as writing about an experience with the teacher, or writing the rhyming poem and looking at the way sounds are represented afterwards.  Freeman & Freeman (2004) explain the theory of acquisition as readers acquire literacy by focusing on meaning.  By giving students time to do sustained daily reading, readers pick up new meanings for words and learn new ways that language is used.  The acquisition view teaches other ways to make meaning, not just relying on decoding skills.  By choosing predictable texts, for instance, students will use their background knowledge to make predictions.  By doing a picture walk students will make inferences about what is happening, as well as using background knowledge.  I see the acquisition view as the mortar that makes the meaning stick.

I don’t know for sure if each one is in absolutely the correct place, so feel free to ask me about one if you have a different opinion, or if I need to be clearer.

Reference

Freeman D.E. & Freeman Y.S. (2004).  Essential linguistics: What you need to know to teach reading, ESL, spelling, phonics, grammar.  Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Cultural Aspects in Children's Books That May Affect Comprehension

‘Thanksgiving Day Thanks’ by Laura Malone Elliot

This book is a picture book with a fiction story for young children based around the Thanksgiving tradition.  Cultural aspects that would make it difficult for ELL children to gain a full understanding of this story would be:

1.      Lack of background knowledge of the Thanksgiving history, as the story mentions Pilgrims, native Americans and Wampanoag tribe.  Because this book would be read at Thanksgiving time, the teacher would need to show pictures and tell the history of the first Thanksgiving so that all children have background knowledge.

2.      Knowledge of contemporary Thanksgiving traditions.  The story mentions a feast, decorations, pumpkin pie and a parade – all of which may be unfamiliar to students of a different culture, and certainly the way the Americans do it.  The class could discuss these traditions, while the teacher shows pictures and a short video of an American parade.

3.      Understanding the big idea of the story which is giving thanks.  In the story the class had to think of their own reason to give thanks.  The story also mentioned a “Thanksgiving food drive for the needy.”  The purpose of Thanksgiving would be discussed in the class and children can talk about their own reasons to be thankful and share these.

4.      There is specific vocabulary in the book associated with the theme of Thanksgiving such as, donated, parade, harvest, celebrate, feast, Pilgrims, etc.  The meaning of these words would be discussed in the previous activities, and labels with pictures on the wall would help for reference.

‘Charlotte’s Web’ by E.B. White

1.      The farm setting would need discussion since this is the main setting in this story, and may be unfamiliar, even to city children with no experience of the country.  Show a short video of animals on a farm.  As an activity, give children pictures of animals and get them to sort them into sets of farm animals, domestic animals kept for pets, and wild animals.  This way they will become familiar with the names of the farm animals that are the main characters in this story.

2.      Another setting in the story is at the Fair.  The concept of a country fair would need to be seen in a video to show the different elements, such as the rides, food stalls, and competitions.

3.      This story has some higher level vocabulary.  The teacher can either transpose an easier word in while reading aloud, or quickly provide an easier word after the harder word, e.g. the tranquil days – the peaceful days.

4.      Some cultures do not have the same regard towards animals as we do.  It would need to be explained how people in America care for animals and have deep feelings for their pets, and how wild animals and farm animals are protected by laws.  Since caring for the pig is one of the central themes in the story, this concept may need to be explained.

Making Meaning from a Second Language

Trying to read a newspaper article in Portuguese was extremely challenging.  I was able to get the gist of the main idea from a few words, but certainly did not understand any of the details as I could not translate any of the sentences.  So what helped me was first of all noticing the photograph that accompanied the article, which was of broken ice floating on a river.  The caption read ‘Rio Chicago’ which is easy to translate into the Chicago River.  The title, ‘Homem morreu’, had two words that I used my knowledge of French to help translate, because I know homme is French for man and mort is French for dead.  So the title must begin with ‘man dead’ or ‘man died’.  In language, many words have an origin in either Latin or Greek, so there may be similarities with a first language and a second language, or as I did, I used a second language to help with the third language.  There were also cognates (words similar in both languages in L1 and L2), such as Americano (American), reportou (reported), hospitalizado (hospital).  I recognized the words ‘rio’ and ‘amigos’ because I knew them in Spanish.  If I knew enough nouns and verbs in one sentence, I would be able to use my knowledge of grammar to piece together the information, but my lack of knowledge of these nouns and verbs, which carry the bulk of the information, meant that I couldn’t build this meaning.  Having said that, grammar rules differ between some languages, so it becomes difficult to always make an accurate translation.  The most words that I could confidently translate were: ‘Um americano do Minnesota morreu’.  To get more meaning from the article I would have to use either an English/Portuguese dictionary or use a translation program for those key words that hold the meaning.  So I went to translate.google.com and it was simple to type in the Portuguese and the English translation was instantly provided.  It translates whole sentences.  So the rest of the headline read ‘when trying to take the mobile phone.’ So from there I guess that a man died in the Chicago River because he was trying to get his mobile phone?  By not being a native speaker there may often be some element of misinterpretation when trying to make a translation.  You have to use some guess work and your background knowledge to find the overall meaning.

Entry #1:  Philosophy on teaching literacy to English Language Learners

I interviewed our school SPED teacher who is also our school’s ELA teacher.  First of all I observed her teach an ELA class with a group of kindergarten, 1^st and 2^nd graders.  The lesson was about the topic of conflict, and I noticed how she drew out the language and context from the students, relating it to the playground to begin with.  She said this is very important so that they connect to the topic and talk from their own experiences.  She finds she has more success with getting them all to talk and share this way.  “I look at the advanced strand of language (from the ELA resource folder) and think about how it relates back to them.”   It’s important to keep it real.  Background knowledge is important so they have something to build on.

She always starts a unit with lessons on listening and talking so that she can see the vocabulary students are naturally using.  Then with further lessons, she plans to pull out and practice more related vocabulary.  They then progress to building sentence structures which she does through teacher modeling.  When students suggest other ways of saying the same thing, she accepts these as long as they are grammatically correct or works to get them that way.  Students then use oral rehearsal before producing a finished written product and also reading their own writing.  The end product is to promote vocabulary and grammar development.  Naturally she believes in differentiation within the mixed grade ELA groups, depending on the individual student’s ability. 

She supports a lot in the classroom, responding to what the teachers tell her about where a student has a specific need related to the curriculum.  She says this is a meaningful way to support and help fill in specific gaps that students have.  “We have to be thoughtful to allow them to access the curriculum the same way a native speaker could.”  “I always give them a language objective so that they are accountable.”

Entry #3:  Relationship between oral language and the reading process for ELL students

Oral language exercises are an important part of the learning process for English Language Learners.  Through talking with peers, they are able to listen to and use vocabulary, discuss background knowledge of a topic and also discuss how they understand new concepts.  Doing this prior to reading or during reading, aids the understanding of new texts.  Teachers in all content areas need to provide language support through oral opportunities, so that ELLs can access the same content as others at their grade level, by understanding content related texts.  “The development of the spoken forms of language are essential for second language learners as a bridge to the more academic language associated with learning in school, and with the development of literacy,” (Gibbons, 2002, p.14).  As students encounter academic language in school books and papers they will have more chance of recalling the meanings when they have been active participants in talking using the vocabulary, and hopefully being able to refer to key vocabulary displayed on anchor wall charts as an added support.  Allowing students to talk about texts in structured ways also encourages them to ask questions, clarify meanings and misconceptions, and reword.  Conferencing or talking with a teacher or proficient English speaker about texts, allows ELL students to pick up vocabulary and extend sentence structures through prompting and questioning.  “Producing language encourages learners to process the language more deeply than is required when they simply listen,” (Gibbons, 2002, p.15).  Without discussions, understanding and accessing texts would be much less comprehensible for our ELLs.

References   

Freeman D.E. & Freeman Y.S. (2004).  Essential linguistics: What you need to teach.  Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Gibbons P. (2002).  Scaffolding language scaffolding learning: Teaching second language learners in the mainstream classroom.  Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

My Writing Instruction Reflection

Entry #2  Writing Instruction Reflection

Although I cannot remember a great deal about my writing instruction at elementary school, I do remember working through a text book that gave short reading selections.  After reading the selection, there were a number of comprehension questions to answer, which you had to answer by writing full sentences.  We were also given formal grammar lessons using workbooks.  One project I remember well was when I got to write about my own topic of interest, plan out the page topics and build up my own book.  This would have stuck in my memory because I got to choose a topic that was motivating and meaningful for me.

Writing in high school was always something we did independently.  I cannot remember ever having to discuss ideas before or during writing, or reflecting on my work with others after writing.  I never had the sense that I ever understood what my teacher was looking for in my writing.  I never struggled with learning to write, but I cannot say that I ever enjoyed writing at school, and can’t remember any writing I did at high school, perhaps because I never bought into the way writing was taught.   

I would say my experiences followed the learning view (traditional writing classroom) because there was a main emphasis on correct writing conventions, and the teacher would always correct my work.  I can’t remember working with my peers to help develop and improve my writing.  I am sure I would have enjoyed the writing experience much more if I had been exposed to the opposing acquisition view of writing (the process writing classroom), which would have been much more meaningful.