The ELL Teacher's Toolbox

Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students

Larry Ferlazzo, Katie Hull Sypnieski

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781119364955
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Practical strategies to support your English language learners

The ELL Teacher's Toolbox is a practical, valuable resource to be used by teachers of English Language Learners, in teacher education credential programs, and by staff development professionals and coaches. It provides hundreds of innovative and research-based instructional strategies you can use to support all levels of English Language Learners.

Written by proven authors in the field, the book is divided into two main sections: Reading/Writing and Speaking/Listening. Each of those sections includes "Top Ten" favorites and between 40 and 70 strategies that can be used as part of multiple lessons and across content areas.

• Contains 60% new strategies
• Features ready-to-use lesson plans
• Includes reproducible handouts
• Offers technology integration ideas

The percentage of public school students in the U.S. who are English language learners grows each year—and with this book, you'll get a ton of fresh, innovative strategies to add to your teaching arsenal.

PART I
Reading and Writing

STRATEGY 1
Independent Reading

What Is It?

Independent reading, also called free voluntary reading, extensive reading, leisure or pleasure reading, and silent sustained reading, is the instructional strategy of providing students with time in class on a regular basis to read books of their choice. Students are also encouraged to do the same at home. In addition, no formal responses or academic exercises are tied to this reading.

Why We Like It

We believe the best way for our ELL students to become more motivated to read and to increase their literacy skills is to give them time to read and to let them read what they like! That being said, we don't just stand back and watch them read. We do teach reading strategies, conduct read alouds to generate interest, take our classes to the school library, organize and maintain our classroom library, conference with students during reading time, and encourage our students to read outside the classroom, among other things. All of these activities contribute to a learning community in which literacy is valued and reading interest is high.

Supporting Research

Research shows there are many benefits of having students read self‐selected books during the school day (Ferlazzo, 2011, February 26; Miller, 2015). These benefits include enhancing students' comprehension, vocabulary, general knowledge, and empathy, as well as increasing their self‐confidence and motivation as readers. These benefits apply to English language learners who read in English and in their native languages (International Reading Association, 2014).

Encouraging students to read in their home language, as well as in English, can facilitate English language acquisition and build literacy skills in both languages (Ferlazzo, 2017, April 10). Extensive research has found that students increasing their first language (L1) abilities are able to transfer phonological and comprehension skills as well as background knowledge to second language (L2) acquisition (Genessee, n.d.).

Common Core Connections

According to the Common Core ELA Standards, “students must read widely and deeply from among a broad range of high‐quality, increasingly challenging literary and informational texts” in order to progress toward career and college readiness (Common Core State Standards Initiative, n.d.b). The lead authors of the Common Core advocate for daily student independent reading of self‐selected texts and specifically state that students should have access to materials that “aim to increase regular independent reading of texts that appeal to students' interests while developing their knowledge base and joy in reading” (Coleman & Pimentel, 2012, p. 4).

Application

Our students are allowed to choose whatever reading material they are currently interested in and are given time to read every day (depending on the day's schedule they spend anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes per day). Our students' use of digital reading materials in the classroom has dramatically increased in the past few years, and we discuss this in the Technology Connections section.

In order for this time to be effective—for our ELL students to experience the various benefits of independent reading discussed in the research section—we scaffold the independent reading process in several ways.

SELECTING BOOKS

At the beginning of the year, we familiarize our students with the way our classroom libraries are organized—ours are leveled (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and categorized (fiction, nonfiction, bilingual). We organize our books in this way so that students don't have to waste time looking through many books that are obviously not accessible to them. For example, a newcomer having to thumb through 10 intermediate or advanced books before he or she finds a readable one can easily lead to a feeling of frustration, not anticipation. Students, however, are free to choose a book from any section of the library, even if that means selecting a book at a higher reading level than we would select for them. That being said, we do our best to help students find books they are interested in that are also accessible to them.

We also teach our students how to identify whether a book is too hard, too easy, or just right by reading the first couple of pages and noticing if most of the words seem unfamiliar (too hard right now), if they know the majority of the words (too easy), or if some of the words are familiar and some are new (just right). We also emphasize to students the importance of challenging themselves to improve (using a sports analogy works well—if you want to get better at basketball, you don't just work on the same shot every day) by sometimes practicing a little out of their comfort zones. We do allow students to use their phones or classroom dictionaries to look up words, but we also explain that having to look up every word usually indicates a book is too hard for now.

If you are facing a situation‐like we have at times‐when your new ELL student knows no English, doesn't have a cell phone, you don't have a peer tutor to help him or her read, there's no computer available in the classroom, and no bilingual book using that student's home language, then we make sure to get a bilingual dictionary (ideally, with pictures) that students can read. These can easily be found online for most languages, though they can be expensive. It's not ideal, but it's something.

STUDENT‐TEACHER CHECK‐INS

We use independent reading time to check in with individual students about their engagement, comprehension, and future reading interests. These are not formal assessments but are brief, natural conversations about reading (“Why did you choose this book? What is your favorite part so far? Which part is most confusing? How are you feeling about reading in English?”). We may also use the time to help students find new books, listen to students practice reading aloud, talk about new words they are learning, discuss which reading strategies they are using (see Strategy 10: Reading Comprehension), and ...