Final+Project+paper

  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. Initially 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. Even if students produce a nonsense word, they should still be praised for showing their rhyming skill.  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.  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.

It is essential that phonics instruction be direct and systematic for all ESL students. Even though ESL students may have  some phonics knowledge from their primary language, they still need to learn how to break the English "code." Because English spellings are so complicated (and often not phonetic), it is essential that all ESL students receive systematic phonics instruction. This instruction should begin with the letter names and sounds, and extensive Phonemic Awareness instruction. This is usually 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 problematic because ELLs often have difficulty discriminating between similar sounds, and because the English language does not have a regular system of correspondence between letters and sounds. Here are some issues related to phonics instruction for ELLs, with discussion of their implications:  Vocabulary development for ELL's is essential to language growth, and has to be taught in each area of the curriculum at each grade level. This is something that is important to all teachers who come into contact with ESL students. Whether its the English teacher who is teaching homophones and homographs, or the Science teacher who wants students to learn about protons, neutrons, and electrons.  Reading fluency is something that might be difficult for many ESL students, because they are going to have to read aloud. Many times, students are self-conscious of how they sound, their accent, and their mistakes. It is very helpful to have a positive and encouraging attitude towards students during this time. This will be one of the most difficult areas for them, especially if they are pre-emergent or emergent. The anxiety about reading orally should decrease as students move through the levels of ESL development. However, depending on the child's personality, they may be "shy" about reading aloud throughout the various levels.  Reading fluency should be measured through ongoing Running Record assessments and other Informal Reading Inventories, such as the Qualitative Reading Assessment, Fontas and Pinell Assessment, the Developmental Reading Assessment, and other ongoing fluency measures. However, the Running Record is the basic informal assessment that will be used to measure fluency with everyday classroom materials.  These can be used as a Curriculum Based Assessment to see how students read orally in content area text. For example, if a Running Record is completed on a student for a Social Studies text, and they are reading with 75% accuracy, then the teacher knows that this text is too hard for the student. This is why it is so important to teach specialized vocabulary as many ways and times as possible.  The Running Record is also a great tool to show growth over time. There is a Daily Running Record sheet that can be used to track accuracy percentages over time at the various levels. This is a great tool for showing parents how their child's oral fluency is progressing. The DRA also has many varying levels in the primary grades to show growth over time in grades K-3. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> One implication for ESL students is that grammatical errors should not count when counting miscues on a Running Record. After errors are documented on a Running Record sheet, miscues are then analyzed for meaning, sytax, visual errors. However, ESL students should not have grammatical and syntax errors count against them as long as they do not affect meaning. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> Reading comprehension is essential for learning to love to read. Just as we enjoy movies, because we understand what is happening, students need to understand what they are reading to enjoy the story! These skills can be taught in isolation and also with literature, and are essential to helping students think about the story and make meaning while they are reading. These skills fall along a continuum, and Bloom's Taxonomy model is the best way to explain the various reading comprehension skills. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> Literacy for the English Language Learner is more difficult than native speakers. However, the instruction for ELL's should parallel that of students who are fluent in the native language. While there may be adaptations made to teach and acquire these skills, they are still the essential building blocks of reading, whether the student is bilingual or not. Good reading practices should be employed in all classrooms, but even more in the class where there are English Language Learners. This will require skilled teachers, who are not afraid to sail amid the murky ESL waters at times, but we all know the challenge will be rewarding when the student is able to apply these skills and feel successful. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Resource Websites []
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Systematic phonics instruction can be very effective in helping ELLs, even those at fairly low levels of language proficiency, learn to decode words. However, this skill does not facilitate reading comprehension if students' oral language proficiency is not developed to the level of the texts they are expected to read. For this reason, reading instruction should be combined with intensive development of the oral language needed to understand the text.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">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 embedded in meaningful texts helps ensure that decoding skills don't progress beyond students' ability to comprehend the text.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Many of the components of phonics instruction need to be modified to meet the particular needs of ELLs. For example:
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Before phonics instruction begins, students must have the phonemic awareness skills they need in order to perceive individual sounds in words. This is particularly important for sounds that are problematic because of the native language.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Teachers must be aware of whether a students' native language uses a non-Roman alphabet or is non-alphabetic. Even if ELLs have had no instruction in reading in the native language, environmental exposure to a different writing system can negatively affect the ease with which they learn to recognize the letters of the English alphabet.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">ELLs must be able to hear and reproduce English sounds with a degree of accuracy commensurate with their pronunciation abilities, before they are taught to make associations between those sounds and particular letters.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">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 for ELLs, particularly if they have had some reading instruction in a language such as Spanish, which has almost completely regular sound-symbol correspondences.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">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 reinforces the idea that "reading" is pronouncing sounds out loud rather than creating meaning.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Automatic recognition of frequent words is very important for ELLs, whether the words follow phonics rules or not. Although ELLs may develop good decoding skills, their lack of total proficiency in the English language will always slow them down somewhat. Automatic recognition of words can help mitigate this difficulty.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">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.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">ESL students struggle in this area more with Science and Social Studies than other subjects, because these subjects both have highly specialized vocabulary. Students also encounter a much higher rate of new words in these areas than any other. While Math also has specialized vocabulary, students are always able to use their background knowledge of numbers to help. Also, Math has very defined steps that are modeled repeatedly which increases chances of retention.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Stages
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Students must first notice a word, then recognize the word (with teacher support), then recognize the word on their own, and then they must recognize it and produce it orally.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">In addition to these skills, the student then has to learn the meaning of the word and how it fits into the context of the lesson.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">There are many ways to teach vocabulary to ESL students. For the students to notice the word, pictures or flashcards are suitable. To help students recognize the words, teachers can use multiple-choice assessments, matching activities, or games (such as BINGO). To help students be able to say the word, teachers can have students practice using the words in context, or have them say the word with him/her, they can also play games where the words are used orally such as "I spy."
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Because vocabulary is learned through context, it is important that all content area teachers work together to ensure that vocabulary is introduced in as many settings as possible. This would require some collaboration at the upper level grades or if elementary teachers exchange ability groups for content areas. However, it will also ensure repeated exposure to words that are necessary. For example, Math problem solving questions could use vocabulary being learned in other classes.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">In addition to specialized vocabulary, this area of teaching should also include areas such as homophones/homographs, sight words (for pre-emergent and emergent students), idioms, etc. This also leads us into other literary devices such as symbolism, metaphors, similes, etc.

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