This chapter is about reading activities that teachers can use to teach reading to ELLs.
3 Types of activites:
- Traditional/ Bottom-up Approach - This approach is phonics based and it is mostly decoding and segmenting words but does not concentrate on meaning of the text. Students learn to read by using individual sounds and letters to make simple words and move onto reading simple sentences. However, ELL are unfamiliar with the sounds of letters because the sounds do not match their first language.
- Whole Language/ Top Down Approach - "Reading for Meaning" Fluent readers use different knowledges to get the meaning of a text. Semantic Knowledge - knowledge about the world around them Syntactic Knowledge - knowledge about the structure of the English language Graphophonic Knowledge - Knowledge of sound and letter recognition
- Critical and Social Approach - Students need to critique and question text depending on their experiences and events. Interaction with reading depends on the students' experiences and knowledge.
Teachers need to figure out what works for her students and try a variety of strategies to teach ELLs to read and comprehend. Once the students become fluent readers they will need to take on the 4 roles:
- Reader as a code breaker
- Reader as a text participant
- Reader as a text user
- Reader as text analyst
My book also talked about whole language/top down learning, they were not very nice about it, they felt that even a student who could 'read' hard and in depth texts they were not really comprehending what was being said. I know that my book was biased against this type of learning How do you feel it will work in the classroom? Will it work for older students, ell students?
ReplyDeleteIt depends on the teacher- some like the whole language approach while others prefer traditional but I use both with the lower elementary students. The book I am reading is geared to middle school students and Gibbons says that these strategies work but to try different ones.
DeleteI haven't really thought about teaching ELL students. I actually originally was going for an endorsement in math and blingual education. I changed my mind due to wanting to get done. I learned spanish throughout school and am really proud of that. It was a hard task but I had great teachers. Even though it's not the same as ELL, I can relate in that way since I learned a second language. Reading your blog post, there are a lot of things that I can remember doing in class.
ReplyDeleteThis goes back to getting to know your students. I think that you can take on these different approaches with your students. If one student is struggling with one approach, then you can try another one.
ReplyDelete