1. SIOP Model Making Content Comprehensible for English Language Learners
Building Background
SIOP Model
Making Content Comprehensible for English Language Learners

2. Content Objectives
Identify techniques for connecting student’s personal experiences and past learning to lesson concepts
Define the key elements of academic language (content words, process/function words, and words to teach English structure) and tell why it is important to teach them to English Learners (ELs)

3. Language Objectives
Identify the academic language in a SIOP lesson and select key vocabulary words to emphasize.
Write a lesson plan incorporating activities that build background and provide explicit links to students’ backgrounds, experiences, and past learning

4. Why is it important to connect learning to student’s personal experiences?

5. What kinds of activities effectively do this?

6. 4- Corners Vocabulary page 40 in 99 Go to Corner page 32 in 99
As a group create a 4- corners vocabulary diagram for “Globe”.

7. Building Background
Vocabulary knowledge correlates strongly with academic achievement and reading comprehension
Limited vocabularies prevent students from comprehending content texts, instructions, directions for completing assignments and overall academic achievement
addition, subtraction, continent, sentence, classify, summarize, identify, beaker, compare, paragraph

8. Personal Dictionaries: page 35 in 99
Use vocabulary created in first section.
Organize the words.
Write definitions of words you now know. Add illustrations or realia.
Help your partners.

9. Building Background
Poor readers read less often because reading may be difficult and frustrating for them. Therefore, they don’t read enough to improve their vocabularies, and continue to find reading difficult.

10. The Insert Method page 33 in 99.
With a partner read pages in Making Content Comprehensible.
Insert the following codes directly onto the pages.
√ indicates a fact that is already known.
? Indicates a concept or fact that is confusing or not understood.
! Indicates something that is new, unusual, or surprising.
+Indicates an idea or concept that is new to the reader.
Share with another set of partners.
Change ? to * .
The text then will be discussed with me.

11. “The Matthew Effect” The rich get richer, the poor get poorer
Stanovich, 1986

12. Building Background At home kids do not say, “Please pass the beaker.”
“Let’s compare and contrast the vegetables.”
Teaching specific vocabulary and practicing it’s usage in the classroom is vital to academic success
Word and word parts are powerful tools of knowledge for learning the English language

13. Building Background
Taking a few minutes to “jump start” students’ schemata and past learning, to explicitly find out what they know or have experienced about a topic will result in greater understanding and engagement

14. Sample SIOP lesson plans
Look at the lesson plans provided.
Highlight key vocabulary or academic language.
Pass lesson to the next person to your right.
Continue

15. Building Background Component & Protocol Features
When planning lessons, please begin to consider the Building Background features of the
Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol
Concepts explicitly linked to students’ background experiences
Links explicitly made between past learning and new concepts
Key vocabulary emphasized (e.g., introduced, written, repeated, and highlighted for students to see)
See page 109 of Implementing The SIOP Model through Effective Professional Development and Coaching.

16. Lesson plans
Find the area of the room that best describes what you teach.
With your group decide on a topic for a lesson plan.
Using the SIOP lesson plan model create a lesson plan.
Share with the class.