#10 - Homework and Independent Work

Purpose/Rationale for Giving Homework – Homework is assigned to “give students the opportunity to practice skills, review, prepare for new information, and apply what they have learned” (Hill & Flynn, 2006).  Parents and students may feel like students already devote a large portion of their day to school, but Hill and Flynn (2006) report that “school only occupies about 13 percent of the waking hours in the first 18 years of life” (p. 77).  That is not to give schools or teachers the go ahead to assign homework at will – it still must serve a purpose and cannot be overdone.  For high school students, much of the homework given is to practice skills learned in class and to prepare for the next class session. It also teaches students the study skills they will need should they plan on attending college.  This is often the justification some teachers give for assigning an hour of homework each night – that very quickly adds up when a student is taking 8 classes, at least 4 of which are core classes.  Teachers must judiciously assign homework, especially for ELL students, with clear outcomes so that students know they are not being assigned homework just for the sake of homework.

Homework Objectives – The objective for a homework assignment varies with the assignment.  At times, students simply need more practice to gain mastery of a skill or concept.  An English-dominant student needs to practice a skill 24 times to obtain 80 percent proficiency (Hill & Flynn, 2006).  Additionally, this practice not only helps the student gain mastery, it also reinforces that it is through effort that students achieve and succeed.  Homework can also serve the purpose of preparing students for the next day’s lesson by doing something like reading an article.

Providing Specific Feedback – Homework cannot be done and then just forgotten about.  It should be returned promptly to students with feedback.  Rubrics are a good way of quickly providing specific feedback to students, and they provide a way for students to know exactly what they need to do going into an assignment.  Not everything can or should be graded on a rubric, however.  Students also need individualized feedback on assignments.  Written comments and notes do much to address individual needs and provide encouragement.  They help to build rapport between student and teacher.

Role of Technology – Homework assignments can be communicated to students and parents in advance through a class website.  This website can also contain the homework policy for the class to reinforce expectations for students and parents.  Because many gradebooks are electronic now, it is possible that a student can see a grade for a homework assignment before they even get to class the next day.  Email works great here as students or parents can ask questions about assignments and get clarifications.  Some helpful introductory information for teachers about incorporating technology via a website or blog (if not made available through their school) can be found at this website: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/05/8-ways-to-build-websites-not-blogs-for.html

References

Hill, J., & Flynn, K. (2006). Classroom Instruction That Works With English Language Learners. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

#9 - Fiction and Nonfiction Text Features

Fiction reading may be easier at time for students because it often mirrors the way stories are related orally.  The challenges of the genre for students can lie in the way that as students get older, stories often stop following a predictable arc, they do not include pictures, the vocabulary is challenging and the language is often filled with metaphors, idioms and other difficulties. 
            Nonfiction can be overwhelming for students because of the sheer volume of information contained on each page. They need guidance and instruction on how to approach each text feature to use it for maximum learning.  Students also need to be taught that they don’t have to read every single word or begin from the beginning of a nonfiction text book, as they might a novel.  Because of the way the content is segmented, nonfiction may actually be easier for ELL students, but they need instruction on how to access the information in an effective manner.
            Graphic organizers like the one used to relate the differences between fiction and nonfiction above can do a lot to aid students as they read both fiction and nonfiction texts.  Venn diagrams, for example, are great for nonfiction texts.  A plot diagram is helpful for guiding students through short fiction stories.  The following two websites provide many free graphic organizers that are great for use in the classroom:
http://freeology.com/graphicorgs/
http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/



#8 - Sheltered Instruction

In watching this lesson given by Miss Kraus, I saw a lot of great instruction happening.  The prereading portion of the video went into setting goals/explaining objectives of the day, previewing key vocab (her use of pictures for each vocabulary word was a really great idea), previewing the story, using graphic organizers, activating background knowledge, and making predictions (not all of this was done by Miss Kraus, but was mentioned in the voiceover for the segment as a part of good sheltered instruction).  Using Post-it notes is a great strategy as is modeling the thinking that adult readers to as they read.  Special care was made to point out wait time, as it’s just important for ELL students to be using language as it is for them to be hearing it. It takes ELL students longer to process English because they are still learning it.

I feel that most if not all of the strategies and techniques shown in the videos are ones I use with students whether they are acquiring English as a second language or not.  I think the real difference lies in the pacing of the lesson, the accounting for cultural differences, and the awareness that these students may need more time to process or that these students might be used to receiving information a different way than they currently are.  Using active reading strategies like those shown in the video are especially important with ELL students and the time spent on them in the classroom is absolutely crucial. I don’t feel you can skip over them with any group of students, but I think the videos made it very clear how explicit the instruction should be on using those strategies with ELL students.

 I think another big aspect of the sheltered instruction was insuring that ELL students feel safe in the classroom – the students shown seemed very willing to jump into the conversation with their teacher, which is a great sign that they feel like their contributions will be valued and that they won’t be ridiculed if their language skills are not exactly like those of a native speaker.  The interactions between the teacher and the students were good and the pacing of the lesson seemed very well done, though that feeling may have been contributed to by the fact that the video was broken into parts/interrupted the classroom parts several times.  But it really did seem as though Miss Kraus had a very relaxed pace set and that she was not hurrying the students through any part of the lesson.  She also did a great job of scaffolding them along, based on how many of her questions were stems that her students were able to fill in for her.

Overall, I feel like this sort of sheltered lesson would be really successful in any classroom of struggling readers, because it would incorporate both ELL students and native speakers. 

#7 - Running Record and Miscue Analysis

“Ellis” is a 9^th grade student.  His first language is Spanish, and Spanish is the language spoken exclusively at home.  I tested him on a 6^th grade passage on earthquakes on which he scored at a instructional level. The 5^th grade passage called “Shark Facts” was at his independent level.  He had 20 errors out of 467 words, making his accuracy rate 95 percent.  Three of his errors were self-corrected quickly – he read 30,000 as 3,000, “their” as “the”, and omitted “with” – and omitted three other words.  None of these omissions interfered with meaning.  He inserted “the” into the sentence “there are sharks in all the four oceans”. 

Most of his miscues were visual – he tried to look at the words and either come up with a word that either contained similar sounds or just attempted to sound the word out, whether it ended up as a word he knew or not.

-          “own-nee-kay” for “unique”

-          “sar-ing” for “surroundings”

-          “equality” for “actually”

-          “unlike” for “unique”

-          “quality” for “actually”

-          “granitely” for “gradually”

-          “especial” for “species”

-          “plant” for “plankton”

-          “ground” for “around”

He also made two structure miscues – “special” for “typical” and “have” for “are”.

It is interesting to note that Ellis did not make any meaning miscues, other than those that he self-corrected.  It seems that Ellis is not making use of context clues as he reads, but is more likely reading word by word.  I find it interesting that he didn’t know the word “actually”, since “actualmente” is a Spanish word that is similar in appearance and meaning (though the meaning is not identical).  I have not ever received a straight answer on how proficient Ellis is in reading/writing Spanish (though I have asked many times), but this may provide a clue.  Very few of his errors seem to reflect his first language, such as inserting the definite article before “all four oceans”, which I think indicates that he really does read pretty much word by word.  His reading was slow and fairly halting in places, but would pick up in others.  It took him seven minutes to read the passage.  A huge thing Ellis seems to be lacking is vocabulary. 

Ellis moved to the school district from Mexico in the fall of 2008, and his speaking skills reflect that he is still learning to speak the language, so it is not surprising that he struggles in his reading.  He needs a lot of help in expanding his vocabulary, as the several of the words he read were unfamiliar to him. In teaching him this vocabulary, he should also be taught how to use context clues to help him figure out unfamiliar words, since he did not do so in his readings.  He also needs work and instruction in fluency.