Get Ready to Huddle!Reading Horizons (4th-12th Grade & SPED) Huddle

2nd Tuesday of each month at 2 pm MT

Please Call 1-888-848-0190 Passcode 8768292#

Presented by: Shantell Berrett

What About ESOL Students?

Even though we are all unique, having a different genetic make-up and coming from different backgrounds and cultures, we do have similarities as a human race.

What is ESOL and ELL?

• “ESL” (English as a Second Language) is learning English in a country where English is dominantly spoken, or where English is the official language.

• “EFL” (English as a Foreign Language), then, is learning English in a non-English-speaking country. 

• “ESOL” (English Speakers of Other Languages), then, is when someone is learning English and it is their 3rd or 4th language. This is a more generic term and can be applied to EFL and ESL.

• “ELL” (English Language Learners), deals mostly with those learning English in a K-12 environment.  

What Approach is Best?

• The strategies that can be applied to effectively work with language are termed Top-down and Bottom-up.

• Research has shown that English Language Learners (ELLs) greatly benefit from using both a top-down approach and a bottom-up approach when dealing with language.

• All readers approaching language have been shown to benefit from having both types of strategies to work with text.

• “The best readers in any language are those who use interactive reading, which integrates elements of both bottom-up and top-down reading. In the development of a reading syllabus, it is important to consider the balance that you will give to these processes.”

Anderson, N. J. (2008). Practical English language teaching: Reading (p. 28). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Why Phonics for ESOL Students?

Reading Strategies

Top-down Strategies

Examples:

• using background knowledge

• previewing and predicting

• guessing the meaning of unknown words from context

• skimming/scanning

Bottom-up Strategies

Examples:

• decoding

• encoding

• using capitalization to infer proper nouns

• pattern recognition

• graded reader approach

How Much?

• “A guideline that you could follow in preparing a syllabus for beginning level readers is allocating 50 percent of your syllabus to teaching bottom-up skills, 30 percent to top-down skills, and 20 percent to interactive skills. With a strong foundation in bottom-up skills, beginning level readers will become more proficient readers more quickly.” --Anderson, N. J. (2008). Practical English language teaching: Reading. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Why Decoding Strategies?

• “…The lack of attention to decoding problems has, I think, produced a somewhat distorted picture of the true range of problems second language readers face” (95).

Eskey, D. (1993). Holding in the bottom: An interactive approach to the language problems of second language readers. In P. Carrell, J. Devine, & D. Eskey (Eds.), Interactive approaches to second language reading (pp. 93-100). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Why Decoding Strategies?

• “In practical terms, my concern is thus to keep the language in the teaching of second language reading. That may not sound very controversial, but I think that in promoting higher-level strategies--like predicting from context or the use of schemata and other kinds of background knowledge--some researchers have been sending a message to teachers that the teaching of reading to second language readers is mostly just a matter of providing them with the right background knowledge for any texts they must read, and encouraging them to make full use of that knowledge in decoding those texts…

Why Decoding Strategies?

• (continued)

• “Though that is certainly important, it is also, I think, potentially misleading as a total approach…We must not, I believe, lose sight of the fact that language is a major problem in second language reading, and that even educated guessing at meaning is not a substitute for accurate decoding” (97).

Eskey, D. (1993). Holding in the bottom: An interactive approach to the language problems of second language readers. In P. Carrell, J. Devine, & D. Eskey (Eds.), Interactive approaches to second language reading (pp. 93-100). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Stumbling Blocks

There are a few reasons as to why decoding and phonics instruction may be being neglected:

• Poor phonics instruction in the past.• Misunderstanding the structure of the

English language.• Belief that phonics is boring.• Unsure of the benefits.

What Are the Benefits?

• There is overwhelming evidence from research that native English speakers with language difficulties must have systematic, explicit phonics instruction.

• “ELLs with word reading difficulties have the same profile as English L1 students with difficulties—poor phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge, vocabulary, etc.” 

Granite High School Salt Lake City, Utah

Charlene Koplin

Reading: A Complex Process

Processing Strategies Knowledge Base

Cognitive Processing StrategiesMaking InferencesPredictingProblem SolvingConstructing Meaning

Language Processing StrategiesChunking into phrasesAccessing word meaningWord IdentificationLetter Recognition

World KnowledgePeoplePlacesEvents

Activities

Language KnowledgeSentencesPhrasesWordsLettersSounds

Benefits

• #1 When ESL students learn the meaning of the word along with the sound of the word simultaneously, it “sticks” better. Students are able to remember the word more effectively when they associate the meaning and the sound with the written word.

Benefits cont.

• #2 How many times do our ESL students ask, “Teacher, how do you say this word?” We tell our students how to say the word, but we don’t often know why we say it that way. We need to help our students develop autonomy by teaching them strategies to learn how to pronounce words on their own. This approach better prepares them for “real-world” experiences.

Benefits cont.

• #3 An extra bonus of incorporating phonics instruction in ESL students' classrooms is that their pronunciation improves. I incorporate phonics training in both my ESL reading classes and my ESL speaking classes since phonics incorporates both skills.  In addition, since phonics helps with spelling, phonics instruction has a place in an ESL writing class as well. 

Final Benefit

• #4 ESL students’ confidence increases when they are empowered with skills that help them successfully read and pronounce and spell English independently. 

Get Ready for the next Reading Horizons Huddle!

“Tracking Problems for Struggling Readers”

Tuesday, May 12th at 2:00pm MT