Let me first start by saying, these strategies are good for
everyone in all ages. I wrote this specifically with secondary teachers in mind
because these are often overlooked. Innumerable times I have seen teachers just
pass out something to read with questions, and then act baffled as to why
students struggle, much less English language learners. I also get asked all of the time by secondary teachers how they can improve reading comprehension with their English language learners.
1. Building Background
English language learners, especially recent immigrants, are
often at a disadvantage because of a gap in background knowledge. This can be
because of a variety of things such as cultural differences, differences in
schooling – for example things taught nationalistically, or differences in the
way different countries write numbers – and just differences in experiences.
Our job as teachers is to fill in the gaps to lay a foundation for new
learning.
One thing that we can do is incorporating visuals. Visuals
reinforce vocabulary knowledge and learning, and provide clues about the text
that can support struggling readers. I even go as far as adapting texts and
glossaries with visuals. Teachers ask me all of the time why not just give them
a dictionary, but looking up a word you do not know in a language you do not
understand is little help, if they happen to have bilingual dictionaries, they
still may be lacking sufficient academic vocabulary to understand the
definition.
2. Vocabulary Instruction
The heart of the English language learners struggles is a
gap in vocabulary knowledge. Native speakers have much more exposure to words,
and their variations, this creates another disadvantage for English language
learners, because the ability to maneuver within the language with finesse -
for example knowing that encourage is a verb and encouragement is its noun form
– is often taken for granted. Because of this, English language learners need
explicit vocabulary instruction and practice.
But which words to choose?
Tier 1: early reader, basic, sight words
Tier 2: high-utility, words frequently used in many
different contexts
Tier 3: content area vocabulary, academic vocabulary
Tier 2 words are the most bang for your buck. An English
language learner (who need it) will often have support with Tier 1 words from
their ESL teacher, and Tier 3 words are the heavy focus of content area
classes. Instruction in Tier 2 words is often an afterthought, or neglected all
together, but these words often carry a lot of meaning in discourse and texts.
Because Tier 2 words appear in a variety of contexts they are more likely to be
encountered in different situations and will be the most useful for students to
learn.
Often you will encounter more words that an English language
learner will need in a particular context, but it is not helpful to overwhelm
them either. I limit explicit in depth vocabulary instruction to five words per
lesson. This does not mean that they are not exposed to more words, and that I
do not explain more words than that, this is instead how many words they are
working towards mastery of at one time.
After I have incorporated visuals and given vocabulary
instruction, I ask students to describe or tell about the pictures using their
new vocabulary words. This is helping to make connections to the content and
giving them practice in using their new vocabulary in context.
3. Read-Alouds
When I walk down the halls of secondary schools, I so often see teachers had out reading assignments and questions to answer at the end, or instructions for what students should do with it, but students are left alone to tackle the reading and are alone in comprehension. When I talk to high school teachers in particular, I tell them I read to my students every day, and they say and you taught 12th grade? and your students enjoyed it? Not only did they enjoy it, they understood more for it.
There are a lot of missed opportunities with read-alouds
with older students, but it is one of the most powerful things we can do. Yes,
our students do need to read to themselves. Yes, for most of our students no
one will read the “test” to them – but then again is that all we are after? If
we know they struggle as readers, we can model good reading and fluency for
them. We can share our joy of reading with them, if it is not something we are willing to do, or even want to do, can we expect them to want to?
Additionally, often with English learners, listening and speaking skills develop
earlier than reading and writing. This means we can use read-alouds as an excellent
support for fluency and ultimately comprehension.
4. Chunk and Chew
Chunk and chew is what it sounds like - it is breaking the content up into smaller more manageable chunks. I like to follow the 10:2 rule. For every ten minutes of input for students they should have two minutes of "output." That is, they should have two minutes to digest the information. This could be questions/discussion, turn and talk with a partner, drawing, summarizing.
Another important aspect of this is to be able to clarify concepts early and frequently. There is nothing worse than when a reader works through an entire passage and understands nothing because of confusion at the start.
This rule does not apply just to reading, I used it to guide all aspects of my class, after all brain research says that a teenagers working memory has limits and if we want to them to commit something to memory, we cannot max that out.
5. Questioning
So often in the classroom, English language learners are asked few questions and even less ever go beyond a literal, recall of knowledge level. English language learners need to have the same challenging questions to push their thinking and learning. The goal should be higher order questions with a low linguistic demand.
Take this question for instance: Are seeds carried by the wind? This is low level recall, and can be answered with a simple yes or no. But with a little forethought and preparation instead we could ask this question: (holding up pictures) Which of these seeds would be carried more easily by the wind? In this case we are asking students to think critically about the different features of the seeds and how they might interact with the wind blowing. The linguistic demand is still incredibly low. Students can point and use high frequency or recently taught vocabulary to answer. Even a student going through the silent period can answer it by pointing, and another student justifying the response.
Another aspect of questioning is to give students a variety of ways to show what they know. Giving only essay tests, or only multiple choice tests, misses out on a number of other assessment types that might better highlight what a student really does know. So often traditional tests are designed to highlight what a student doesn't know more than what they do, so why not give alternative ways to demonstrate knowledge.
6. Summarizing
This is not so much of a reading strategy, but an important skill to work on with English learners that is coupled well with reading strategies. Summarizing is difficult for English language learners because of the vocabulary gap, and lack of mastery of various sentence structures that I have talked about previously. Seeing information in one way, and then having to break it down and put it into new words is challenging. Being able to summarize and paraphrase is an invaluable skill for language development. If you are struggling with reading comprehension it can be difficult to determine what is important and what is not, so this is a skill that needs explicit teaching and practicing.
It is important to emphasize that when summarizing:
- keep it short, and only tell what was read
- use key words from the text
- include only important information
- leave out less important details
