Week 7-Assignment 1

 

What texts and materials do teachers have in their classrooms that support students' development of fluent reading?

I am apart of a group of teachers that teach English to children in Israel. We follow a curriculum written by a professional educator with a lot of experience in teaching ESL, especially to Israeli children with unique backgrounds. Since the students that we teach come from ultra-orthodox homes, what they are allowed to read is limited. Students are not allowed to read books with magic, secular concepts, social interactions between girls and boys etc. Despite the restrictions, the head of our program provides an array of books from religious sources. She has around four books per reading level. This is a good amount for the weak readers, but for strong readers, they run out of reading material quite rapidly. Easy novels as well as religious readers are used to support students development of fluent reading.

 

How do they select vocabulary to teach in all areas of your curriculum?

Since these teachers are teaching English as a second language to younger children, they focus the most on letter recognition, reading then writing. These teachers main priority is not necessarily that these students should be on the same grade level as children the same age in America. Rather these teachers job is to equip their students with the tools to read and write English on a basic level. Therefore, the teachers try to chose the most practical vocabulary to help their students gain a basic hold of the language.  However, with children who are more advanced, vocabulary building is done through writing activities. Teachers give students vocabulary lists to learn and build on these lists through exciting writing activities. In addition learning units in grammar such as synonyms and antonyms also build students vocabulary since they learn new ways to say words that they already know.

 

 

  How much time do they allocate to word study?

The English classes that I am discussing take place between once to twice a week for forty-five minute sessions. Of these forty-five minute sessions two thirds are dedicated to word study. First the students review their sight words. Next students study their vocabulary words that fall under different rules, for instance the long a rules etc.

 

What word study routines do they teach and encourage their students to use?

The word study routines as mentioned above is that each lesson begins with a sight word test. Next  students are tested on vocabulary learned in previous classes. Following learning a new set of vocabulary words students usually complete a writing assignment having to do with the new set of words. Finally, students read from a book selected by the teacher. While reading students are encouraged to identify words and the rule they fall under. This way students are applying previous knowledge and hopefully building their vocabulary.

 

How do they differentiate instruction and tasks based on their students' needs?

The level of the words are based on the learning level of each child as a way of catering to each individual student's needs. Furthermore, if a student is weak reader, the teacher will allocate more time for reading practice to improve his fluency. Students will also do more exercises to  review their vocabulary if needed.

Fluency and Word Study Chart

Reading Element	Instruction	Opportunities for Practice	Text/Materials
Fluency	Teacher read-aloud	Reader’s Theater	Plays, scripts
Vocabulary	Vocabulary word tests, learning “rules” in the English language i.e.-long a	At the beginning of every class, while reading	Vocabulary lists, rule lists, readers
Decoding	While reading students need to decode unknown words	At the end of every lesson, and for homework	Readers, books