Keep ‘Em Reading

Rita & John Rita Platt is a Nationally Board Certified teacher. Her experience includes teaching learners of all levels from kindergarten to graduate student. She currently is a Library Media & Reading Specialist for the St. Croix Falls SD in Wisconsin, teaches graduate courses for the Professional Development Institute, and consults with local school districts. John Wolfe is a teacher on special assignment for the Multilingual Department at the Minneapolis Public School District. He has worked with students at all levels as well as provided professional development to fellow teachers. His areas of expertise include English Language Learners, literacy, and integrated technology.

Relax … Everything (and more) is on The Wiki

Key Idea: EL’s must read content texts

1. What’s the role of reading in English Learners’ academic success – and failure? Margarita Calderón Johns Hopkins University

Why aren’t they reading?

Too HarD!

Readable vs. Unreadable (Technical Definitions)

WIDA Standards

Data Tells Us …

A closer look at Factor #1 1.Independent Reading. Teachers do most of the reading for ELs. If ELs rarely get to read during the early stages of language development, their exposure to academic language and subject matter concepts is delayed.

The Solution: Content-Related, Level-Appropriate Reading Circles Grade 7 Social Studies Standard: Regional tensions around economic development, slavery, territorial expansion and governance resulted in a Civil War and a period of Reconstruction that led to the abolition of slavery, a more powerful federal government, a renewed push into indigenous nations’ territory and continuing conflict over racial relations. (Civil War and Reconstruction: )

The Textbook? Page 278 My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed when I could be a slave in fact. I did not hesitate to let it be known of me, that the white man who expected to succeed in whipping, must also succeed in killing me. Covey knew this and never laid a hand on Douglass again. Running Away Some slaves tried to escape by running away to freedom in the North. The risks were enormous. Slaveholders hired professional slave catchers and their packs of howling bloodhounds to hunt down runaway slaves. If caught, a runaway risked being mauled by dogs, brutally whipped, or even killed. Still, Douglass and countless other slaves took the risk. Slaves found many ways to escape bondage. Some walked to freedom in the North, hiding by day and traveling at night when they could follow the North Star. Others traveled north by boat or train, using forged identity cards and clever disguises to get past watchful slave patrols. A few runaways mailed themselves to freedom in boxes or coffins. Thousands of runaways escaped to free states and to Canada with the help of the Underground Railroad, a secret network of free blacks and sympathetic whites. The members of the Underground Railroad provided transportation and ―safe houses ‖ where runaways could hide. A number of guides, or ―conductors, ‖ risked their lives to help escaping slaves travel the ―freedom train. ‖ One of the most successful was Harriet Tubman. Having escaped slavery herself, Tubman courageously returned to the South more than a dozen times between 1850 and 1860, guiding more than 200 men, women, and children to freedom. Rebellion At times, resistance erupted into violent rebellion. Slave revolts occurred in cities, on plantations, and even on ships at sea. Fear of slave uprisings haunted slaveholders. Planters, wrote one visitor to the South, ―never lie down to sleep without…loaded pistols at their sides. ‖ In 1822 authorities in Charleston, South Carolina, learned that Denmark Vesey, a free black, was preparing to lead a sizable revolt of slaves. Vesey, along with more than 30 slaves, was arrested and hanged. Nine years later, in 1831, a slave named Nat Turner led a bloody uprising in Virginia. Armed with axes and guns, Turner and his followers set out to kill every white person they could find. Before their reign of terror ended two days later, at least 57 people had been hacked to death. Denmark Vesey‘s and Nat Turner‘s rebellions panicked white southerners. In response, southern states passed strict slave codes that tightened owners‘ control of their slaves and provided for harsher punishment of slaves by authorities. As one frightened Virginian remarked, ―A Nat Turner might be in any family. ‖

Flesch Kinkaid Grade Level: 9.66 SMOG Level: 11.45

Keep ‘Em Reading

They can’t all read the textbook … but they can all read about slavery. Grade Lvl 4 Grade Lvl 2 Grade Lvl 3.6

Grade Lvl 4 Grade Lvl 2 Grade Lvl 3.6 Each text tells how slaves were mistreated. Be ready to explain that. Each text describes how a slave resisted. Be ready to explain that.

Each member of the group takes notes on what they hear … with the expectations for notes differentiated by literacy & language levels.

Benefits. Every students gets … a steady diet of “easy texts” daily success as a reader interactive support from near peers for reading comprehension an ideal situation for cooperative effort since comprehension problems will tend to be at or above each group member’s ZPD. experience reading in the history/social studies genre background and general knowledge about the time and topic being studied vocabulary development related to the topic a chance to speak about the reading and to listen to others talking about texts on the same topic

From the “reading workshop,” students develop vocabulary & background knowledge, become familiar with how texts are structured in a specific subject, and get the daily, successful reading that will drive their growth as readers. From the “precision teaching,” students receive “comprehensible input” in the form of proficiency- appropriate teacher language combined with paraverbal support for understanding develop the key conceptual understandings identified by the curriculum standards exercise their brains

The Goal: To Share FIVE Resources To Help You Support ELL Academic Language Development by Developing Resource Expertise

Resource 1: ReadingA-Z.com We have a District license for this! We paid $2,798 for the year (so you might as well use it all you can).

Click on “All Books”

Use a Correlation Chart

Find a related book at an appropriate reading level. For example, imagine you’ve got a kid in a Human Geography class. the class is reading from a grade-level textbook about the environments humans live in… the kid’s ELL Level 2, reading at around a 2 nd (or even 3 rd - grade) reading level … Question: Could a scenario like this happen in MPS District?

Resource 2: This costs either $20 a year or about $40 a year … depending on whether you want the super- deluxe access (cp., the VIP Lounge) or the pretty- good-but-every- so-often-you- feel-excluded- from-the-cool- stuff membership (cp., the Cinnabon counter)

Same Deal … 2.6 grade level Information embedded in story format … so easier

Resource 3: Buy Books. Ask your school/ librarian/ department to order books to support the content taught.

Subject: Electricity

Resource 4: Your Librarian/Media Specialist

Resource 5: Think CERCA & NewsELA

So …  Is this ideal?  Is the kid participating in the lesson?  Is the kid doing school-type (informational) reading related to the lesson?  Is the kid reading at an i or i+1 reading level?  If he’s involved in constructing meaning from an information text, is the kid developing his academic literacy?

Can you follow-up with all the activating strategies? From Language-Rich Classroom, Ch. 6 Pair share? Quick write? Quick draw? Hold ups? Networking session? 4 Corners? Likert Scale? Explain it to your neighbor? Transparencies?