THE+FINAL+PROJECT+PAGE

Assessment Group Project February, 2011 Andrea Murray, Eric Mandell, and Stephanie Brandt ||
 * Five Reading Blocks for English Language Learners

The National Reading Panel produced a Reading First Publication in 2000 that has become the building blocks of most reading instruction around the nation. The Department of Education along with several other organizations, had a goal of defining best reading instruction that was research based. The pendulum on teaching practices had swung long enough, and this publication has defined the best reading practices for the last several years. The five reading instruction components from the Reading First publication included instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. Systematic instruction in these areas has proven to be effective for traditional and non-traditional students. While instruction in these areas is necessary for English speaking students, it is even more imperative for non-English speaking students. Because of the great need of good research for English Language Learners, the NRP went on to create another publication for ELL students. In the article "What Does Research Tell Us About Teaching Reading to English Language Learners?", Suzanne Irujo conveys four important aspects of the NRP publication for English Language Learners. Her articles states, "In 2002, the U.S. Department of Education funded the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority and Youth to survey, select, and synthesize research on teaching language-minority students to read and write. Their report was published recently (August & Shanahan, 2006)." From this article, she gleaned four essential components for ELL's. She stated that literacy in the native language is effective, but not helpful when students are unable to be instructed in their native language. However, it was imperative to instruct them in the five reading components mentioned before. Her article also focused on how students need to be instructed in language skills and literacy skills. However, all of this was under the assumption that instruction needed to be adapted for ESL students. Many ELLs have difficulties with phonic awareness. They often do not have enough English experience to separate out sounds that are different from those in their native language. There are three important things to incorporate into the phonics instruction for an ELL. One: the ELL needs to be familiar with how English sounds. These children should be given experiences where they can both hear and repeat English sound patterns. Two: practice sounds that cause confusion or that don't exist int he native language. Three: Foster the transferring of sounds from the native language to English so that new or unfamiliar sounds in English can be developed. Phonemic awareness activities should include rhyming, blending, segmenting, substitution, and deletion. These games can be played orally without visual cues, or visual aids can be used if they are needed. For example, the teacher shows the class a picture of a ball. Students are asked to think of a word that rhymes with ball. Blending is a skill where students are asked to blend sounds together. Initially this is done completely orally. For example, the teacher will say three sounds such as c-a-t. The students are then asked to blend the word back together to make the word "cat." Segmentation involves breaking the sounds in words, which would be the exact opposite of blending. The teacher would say the word "cat," and the students would be expected to break it into the sounds c-a-t. Deletion involves taking a sound off of a word. For example, the teacher might ask the students to take the word "map" and break off the front sound. The correct response would be "ap." Substitution is when a letter in the sequence is changed. For example, the word "map" is changed into "cap." Students would supply the new letter, and sounds can be deleted at the beginning, middle, or end or words. These skills would be essential for an emergent ESL student, because it would help them break apart the sounds in language, and have practice producing various sounds. This would be extremely beneficial for them in reading, writing, and speaking. (Irujo,2007)

Phonics can be very difficult for an ELL because there is an irregular match up of letters and how those letters sound. Systematic phonics instruction can help an ELL learn to decode words. This approach needs to be at the level of the texts the learner will be expected to read. Phonics instruction needs to be direct and systematic for all ESL students. They need to learn how to break the English "code" even though students may have some phonics knowledge from their primary language. English spellings are so complicated and often not phonetic so nstruction should begin with the letter names and sounds and progress through Phonemic Awareness. Letter names and sounds should be followed by short vowels words, blends and digraphs, long vowels, ending, special vowel sounds, r-controlled vowels, and then prefixes, suffixes, and multi-syllabic words. In addition to these skills, students will need instruction in homophones, homographs, and other vocabulary. Phonics can be difficult because ELLs often have trouble discriminating between similar sounds and because the English language does not have a regular system of correspondence between letters and sounds. Systematic phonics instruction can be very effective in helping ELLs learn to decode words even if the student has limited procifiency. Phonics instruction does not increase a student's reading comprehension if the student's language proficiency is not at the same level of the texts they are expected to read. The most effective reading programs for ELLs combine systematic phonics instruction with a print-rich environment that provides exposure to appealing reading materials in varied genres. Skills practice that is uses meaningful texts helps built that decoding skills match the student's ability to comprehend the text.

Many of the components of phonics instruction need to be modified to meet the particular needs of ELLs. Students must have the phonemic awareness skills before phonics instruction begins so that they can learn individual sounds in words. This is very important for sounds that are difficlut because of the native language. ELLs must be able to hear and reproduce English sounds with a degree of accuracy before they are taught to make associations between those sounds and particular letters. It is helpful to explicitly point out different letter combinations that have the same sound, and provide extra practice with them. Multiple spellings of the same sound can be very confusing. Teachers must pay attention to the meanings of the words used to teach phonics skills. Teaching students to decode words they don't know only leads the ELL to learn that "reading" is pronouncing sounds out loud rather than creating understanding. Automatic recognition of frequent words is very important for ELLs, whether the words follow phonics rules or not. "Most ELLs will need additional time to master phonics. Given the need for extra practice to learn to hear and produce the sounds of English, to learn the meanings of the words used in phonics instruction, to learn the multiple combinations of letters that make the same sound, and to learn many more sight words than English speakers need, additional time for phonics instruction should be built into reading programs for ELLs" (Irjuo,2007).

Teaching phonics to middle and high school English language learners (ELLs) poses the following challenges: curriculum, the student may have limited skills in their native language, unfamiliar vocabulary words and instructional materials for phonics may not be age appropriate. If an ELL starts their education in the U.S. after 4th grade, this can be an issue because the phonetic instruction they need is unlikely to be a part of their daily curriculum. Phonics becomes a minimal part of the Language Arts curriculum for students in intermediate grades.It is assumed that students have learned the sound/symbol correspondence necessary to read by the upper elementary grades. Students who have not learned to read in their native language or whose native languare does not use a phonetic alphabet may struggle to grasp the concept of phonetic relationships between sound and letters. Phonics instruction may also be tied to vocabulary words that are unfamiliar to ELLs. Worksheets with "fat, cat, mat, hat" are not always meaningful with older learners because of there is no context and meaning. ELLs may not recognize all of the words used in these drills, and they will not necessarily apply the sounds learned in the drills when they encounter new words in their reading text if they don't see a connection from one exercise to the other. Lastly, materials for phonics instruction are often targeted towards much younger children. Some materials can be adapted for use by older students, but most will probably not be appealing for middle and high school ELLs. They may feel embarrassed at using "childish" materials, and they will quickly get bored.

Older ELLs in 4th grade and above who need further instruction on phonics will be most helped by intensive intervention. Ideally, they should attend a remediation class or receive support to continue phonics instruction from a reading specialist. If such support is not available, your school's reading specialist and principal can help find a research-based intervention program that you can use with the student. Use hands on activities to help buid letter-sound relationships. These can include using manipulatives such as sound boxes, magnetic letters, or Scrabble tiles. Students may also be interested in creating their own materials on the computer or through an art project. If the ELL comes from a non-alphabetic language they may need extra support in learning how to read from left to right and top to bottom. They may also need more practice matching sounds and letters. Train students to listen for the individual sounds in words and represent them phonetically in their writing saying a short sentence that includes one or more words that include the target phonics(s). Explain some letters may make the same or similar sounds in both languages. Knowing this can help Spanish-dominant students, for example, as they learn to decode words in English. Try activities as simple as looking for a particular sound on the page, or reciting words and having students hold up a sign with the correct sound on it after each word. You may also want to try short games of Scrabble, Hangman, and Memory. These are quick activities but they can effectively reinforce the targeted phonetic concept. Find poems, chants, and songs that relate to students' interests, or ask them to bring some of their favorites in that can be included in the lesson. Recite the text aloud, and then give students time to practice reading aloud as well.

. Resource Websites []

[]

[]

[] []

[]

[]

[] (scroll down to the phonics section)

[]

[|http://www.coursecrafters.com/ELL-Outlook/2007/jan_feb/ELLOutlookITIArticle1.htm,]