Building Bridges of Talk: Supporting English Language Learners in Reading Recovery

by Michelle Sharratt and Briare Wynn

Learning to read and write is a highly complex, intricate process. Imagine what this would be like if you were learning the English language at the same time as learning how to read and write. That’s what it’s like for many of the English language learners in our district.

We work in a very large and diverse school district that has full implementation of Reading Recovery. Almost half of our Reading Recovery students are at various points along the continuum of learning the English language, while also learning to read and write in English. Even though our English language learners generally achieve grade one standards in reading and writing and successfully discontinue from Reading Recovery, they still face many barriers as they take on the English language. We need to think carefully about the specific supports and ‘bridges’ needed to overcome these barriers.

Clay states that “above all, through all the detail of these early intervention procedures, teachers must remember that the child’s ultimate resource for learning to read and write is spoken language: all his new learning becomes linked in his brain with what he has already learned about the language he speaks” (Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals, Second Edition, p.24). Clay reminds us that oral language is the foundation of literacy and that it truly is a child’s first self-extending system.

By supporting the development of talk, Reading Recovery teachers can help English language learners build strong bridges to overcome some of the barriers they face when learning to read and write. The following key ideas are critical to oral language development of all children:

• Know and observe the learner’s current oral language structures. Know what structures are already known by the learner, in order to lift a child’s language within the cusp of his/her learning.
• Learn about their home language. Knowing the variation between a child’s home language and the English language (eg: structure, directionality, alphabet, intonation, etc.) can help you anticipate possible confusions or barriers.
• Have true conversations throughout the entire lesson. Active participation by both teacher and student in authentic, meaningful conversation should happen throughout the entire lesson, not just before the writing component. Research has shown that children learn language through conversations with literate adults so we need to arrange for this to happen across all lesson components.
• Reformulate and rephrase within genuine conversation. This is key to lifting a child’s oral language. Within genuine conversation, the teacher listens, takes on and reformulates, rephrases or extends the child’s ideas and language. The child then takes in the teacher’s language and continues the conversation. He may or may not take on the new language structures, but the more conversations that occur, the more possibility there is for lifting the child’s language.
• Find shared territories to discuss. Pursue common topics that allow for a shared understanding between teacher and child in order to continue to build complexity within the conversation. Conversations about shared books and experiences allow for a common vocabulary, structure and topic.

There are many more strategies and ideas to support English language learners, (which we will be exploring in our RRCNA Conference session) however; it must be noted that oral language is the foundational cornerstone over which the rest of the structure will be laid. As Clay brilliantly reminds us, let’s all “put our ears closer, concentrate more sharply, smile more rewardingly and spend more time in genuine conversation, difficult though it is. To foster children’s language development, create opportunities for them to talk, and then talk with them (not at them)” (Becoming Literate, p. 69).

Additional resources:
Clay, M.M. (2015). Becoming Literate: The Construction of Inner Control (Rev ed). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 
Clay, M.M. (2016). Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals. Second edition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Engaging Parents and Families: The Importance of Relationships in Reading Recovery

As we begin our school year and start working with our Reading Recovery students, we not only start to establish and foster relationships with our students, but also with their families. As we consider those initial conversations and meetings with our families, we invite you to think about how we build relationships of reciprocity and trust. Research demonstrates that when strong, consistent, and reciprocal linkages exist between home and school, it has a positive impact on the developing student’s well-being and subsequent academic achievement (Garbarino: 1992, 27). Furthermore, when we reach out to our students’ families we learn so much more about the little person who is sitting beside us for 30 minutes every day!

 Debbie Pushor, Professor from the University of Saskatchewan, considers the optimal relationship between home and school to be bidirectional; she considers it to be mutually beneficial and for information and communication to flow freely between home and school. In her article, “Looking In, Looking Out,”  Pushor discourages educators from adopting the stance of “If only these parents would…..” or “These parents just don't care enough” (Pushor: 2011, 1) Instead of “looking out” and focusing on the challenges in our families and communities, Pushor encourages us to be “looking in” and to learn about our families and community and appreciate the “richness and complexity” of their daily lives (2). Therefore, when you meet with your Reading Recovery families, it is helpful to not only share information about Reading Recovery and how they can support home learning, but to also learn about what home literacy practices their family might engage in at home and about their child’s strengths and interests. For example, by communicating closely with families, the Reading Recovery teacher might learn that the family approaches literacy by engaging in an oral tradition of story-telling rather than a traditional format of reading story books aloud. This discovery allows teachers to recognize the rich resource that the student can draw from.  We can celebrate and honour the student’s sense of story and oral language as a starting point to build upon.

Accessing parent knowledge and getting to know children and families at the onset of the lesson series further supports a successful Roaming Around the Known period during which the teacher and student transition into lessons and “get to know one another and develop useful ways of interacting” (Clay: 2005a, 32). This will support the development of what Clay refers to as the “keynote” of Roaming Around the Known: “confidence, ease, flexibility, and with luck, discovery (32).”  Parent knowledge is such rich resource for us to help us glean more information about our students while fostering that relationship between home and school!

What  might  we do to foster parent engagement and support our Reading Recovery families?

Oftentimes, we become frustrated when we learn that families aren’t engaging in the home-school practice as we had hoped. Instead of  considering this as a contributing factor to the student’s lack of accelerated progress, we might consider thinking outside the box to encourage other ways in which to support families for whom home practice is a challenge. When Clay talks about home and school practice, she states that “[s]chools may sometimes need to ensure in some way that someone listens to the Reading Recovery child read his take-home book, even providing for this to happen at school” (Clay; 2005b, 99).  Perhaps we can take Clay’s statement as an invitation to set up alternate supports for children at school such as reading with an older student, a support staff member, or perhaps a volunteer. Questioning children if they have read their stories at home when we suspect they have not, may cause undue stress for students that will get in the way of their learning. The reason for which home practice is not occurring is oftentimes outside the control of the family and we need to support families rather than contribute to their stress.

Comparably, some families may find it difficult to come into the school to observe a Reading Recovery lessons during the instructional day. This might present another opportunity to think outside the box and think of alternate ways for a parent to view a lesson. Instead, a lesson observation might occur after school, or during a Meet the Family Evening, or perhaps the Reading Recovery teacher might videotape a lesson to share with the family.

Thinking about this important topic and writing this post has helped me consider the importance of what we can learn from families, and not just what we can “teach” them. It is my hope that you might be inspired to consider parent engagement through this revised lens in order to best support our learners and their families.

References:

Clay, Marie. (2005a) Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals: Part One, Why? When? And How? Heinemann, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

 

Clay, Marie. (2005b) Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals: Part Two, Teaching Procedures. Heinemann, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

 

Garbarino, James. (1992) Children and Families in the Social Environment. Hawthorne, NY Walter de Gruyter Inc. 1992.

 

Pushor, Debbie. (Sept 2011) Looking Out, Looking In. Educational Leadership. Vol 69, Issue 1, pp. 65-68.

 

Further Reading:

 

http://www.etfo.ca/Resources/ForTeachers/Documents/Research%20for%20Teachers%20-%20Number%201%20-%20Parent%20Engagement.pdf

The New Book: Careful Selection and Thoughtful Planning Required

Book introductions are an important scaffold for preparing students to read new material with success.  Through conversation, teachers help students to prime their thinking by connecting to their experiences and engaging their curiosity around the big ideas embedded in the text.  In By Different Paths to Common Outcomes, Marie Clay clarifies that book introductions do not involve simply telling children what to expect.  Instead, book introductions, explore, test out and draw on children’s knowledge and allow the teacher to provide novel information that would support reading with meaning (Clay, 2014).  In this way, book introductions ensure that students are actively thinking about the meanings embedded in a text so that they are able to use meaning as a source of information to draw on while reading.  

 

Some considerations for planning:

-        What in this text appeals to the reader? 

-        How does this text offer support for constructing meaning (e. g., predicting, making inferences)?   How might I engage the reader in these activities? Might I need to model some of these behaviours?

-        What kinds of input am I hoping to get from the reader? 

-        What print features support reading for meaning?  Are there any print features that make reading for meaning difficult?  If yes, how will I prepare the reader for a successful first reading?

-        How accessible is the language in this text?  Are there any unusual language structures that I might need to work into the conversation?

-        Do I need to provide support around the text structure (sequence, cause/effect, etc.)?  

-        How do the illustrations help the reader construct meaning? Might there be something in the illustrations that needs clarification?

 

Further reading:

Clay, Marie M. (2014). Introducing Storybooks to Young Readers. In By Different Paths to

Common Outcomes (pp 186-199).  New Zealand: Global Education Systems Ltd.

Downend, Cindy and Sisk, Helen (2015). Thinking about Text Choices for Readers who Struggle.

Retrieved from: https://lesleyuniversitycrrlc.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/thinking-about-text-choices-for-readers-who-struggle-2/

 

“I regard meaning as the ‘given’ in all reading—the source of anticipation, the guide to being on track, and the outcome and reward of the effort.” (Clay, 1991)

Interrupting the Possibility of Summer Reading Loss - an idea from the latest research!

As summer holidays approach, you may be thinking about how to help sustain your students’ literacy gains.  Perhaps some students started the school year struggling with reading and now they have discovered the joy and wonder of becoming ever more literate.  Then comes the summer that for some children seems to ‘undo’ some of their gains…
 

Richard Allington, through his latest research, offers us some compelling ideas to think about.  He notes that the Phillips and Chin (2004) study found that children who read at least 30 minutes daily during the summer months had significant higher reading gains during the summer than those who read less, even when holding demographic factors constant.   In addition, throughout the last century, study after study has noted that the proximity of libraries to homes, the number of books available in the home, and the supply, affordability and accessibility of printed materials available in communities were all related and helped to facilitate voluntary reading activity. 

So how did Allington et al’s most recent research address the possibility of summer reading loss?  Book fairs were offered in 17 high-need elementary schools.  Beginning in grades 1 and 2, randomly selected children attended the book fair and selected the books they wanted from about 500 titles.  On the last day of school the self-selected summer books were distributed to the ‘summer books’ children.  After three summers of receiving the self-selected trade books, the ‘summer books’ children had reading achievement significantly better than the control group from their schools who did not receive any summer books.  It was the most at-risk, neediest children who benefitted the most!    The question becomes:  how can we insure that these books get into children’s hands?  Perhaps also a shout- out to our educational partners – funding for initiatives of this kind would go a very long way.

What was unique about Allington’s approach?  The students were the neediest beginning readers in grades 1 and 2 when the research began.  Secondly, the students self-selected 15 books each summer that appealed to them – they were not based on reading level or someone else’s idea of what would interest the children. 

In summary, even if summer reading loss is deemed to be small each year, cumulatively it has an impact.  Cooper at al. (1996) did the math:  if summer reading loss equates to two months over the summer for the neediest at-risk students, and the most proficient students gain one month, this accumulation of smaller annual losses can translate into a four-year reading achievement gap by the end of grade 12.  The evidence is clear – improving children’s access to books they actually want to read during the summer months early on in their school career can largely disrupt summer reading loss and greatly impact student achievement and well-being over the longer term. 

By supplying at-risk children, beginning in grades 1 and 2 with 15 self-selected trade books each year at the beginning of the summer, summer reading loss was largely solved. 

He Knew it Yesterday ~ When it is Hard to Remember

In February, several of the Teacher Leaders were fortunate to be able to attend the RRCNA National Reading Recovery conference in Ohio. One of the sessions that we attended was called He Knew it Yesterday ~ When it is Hard to Remember  presented by Pamela Grayson, a Reading Recovery Teacher Leader.

Grayson shared some thought-provoking quotes, anecdotal stories and numerous video clips to push our thinking about students who seem to find it hard to remember. Grayson helped us to think about the role that attention plays in remembering and defined attention as:

·        The ability to focus the mind

·        The foundation of learning

·        A prerequisite to motivation, memory and self-regulation

According to Carol Lyons in Teaching Struggling Readers, there are 4 components of the attention system:  Arousal, motor orientation, novelty detection & reward, and executive organization.

Arousal is said to be key in becoming literate as emerging readers and writers must learn what they need to focus their attention on and how to select relevant information from irrelevant information. However, before they are able to do this, they must be aroused and actively engaged in the process.

Motor orientation facilitates and maintains arousal and enables us to direct our senses and attention. It is critical to learning anything (Lyons, p.29). 

Novelty detection and reward provide emotional overtones and motivation for learning, which are essential for focusing and sustaining attention. The processing system can shut down if it fails to find some kind of challenge or personal and emotional connection (p. 30).

Executive organization directs our attention determining which information should be dealt with and if it should be ‘mulled over or forgotten’ (p. 32).

Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals Part Two opens with a quote from Dr. Larry Squires:

               You relate what you hear or see to things you already understand

               The moment of truth is the moment of input,

·        how you attend

·        how much you care,

·        how you encode,

·        what you do with it

·        and how you organize it

 

             How well you accessed it depends on how well you stored it in the first place.
             How do you become more savvy about the way you remember things? Have a good system.
             Notice your errors and try to fix them.

The above helps us to think about the important role of attention, motivation and student connection when it comes to remembering. Are we ensuring that new information that we are presenting to our students is settling into what is already known?  Are we involving several modes of learning to aid in the storage of this new information? Movement is crucial for every brain function including memory and language. Are we ensuring that our student is actively involved and attending to the task? The session with Pamela Grayson has helped us to reflect on the critical components of attention and learning. For additional information, please refer to section 19 When it is hard to remember in Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals Part Two.

English Language Learners are Successful in Reading Recovery Lessons

English Language Learners are Successful in Reading Recovery Lessons

Longitudinal research from a variety of countries shows that ELLs consistently perform well in Reading Recovery. Our data in YRDSB confirms these results with 86% of our ELLs achieve grade one standards in reading and writing and successfully discontinue from Reading Recovery. These positive results are consistent from year to year. In order support our ELLs, it is essential to:

• Increase the time that the student spends talking when in lessons (Literacy Lessons Part 1, p. 183)
• Be aware of the complexity of English language structures that you can expect of him in writing, at this moment in time (Literacy Lessons Part 2, p. 68)
• Choose books carefully to provide opportunities for extending language (Literacy Lessons Part 2, p. 51)
• Support the student with any particular features or structures (book language) that are likely to cause him difficulty (Literacy Lessons Part 2 p. 93)
• Share ideas and experiences using sentences only a little more complex than the ones the student is using (Record of Oral Language, p.31)

Caution:  Sometimes it is necessary for a child to gain control over a particular language structure first ( saying it aloud) before he returns to using the visual information ( Literacy Lessons Part 2, p. 112).

Finally, when the decision is made to discontinue lessons for an ELL student, it is important for the school team to recognize that the student will continue to require appropriate  scaffolding across the content areas:

At the conclusion of the lesson series the child is still in need of rich opportunities for further development in the language of instruction. …..After the a series of Reading Recovery lessons the child then has three complementary routes to further language learning, via oral language, writing and reading ( Literacy Lessons Part 2 p. 183).

The following resources are available to York Region teachers to support the planning of instruction for ELLs:

• English Language Learner Profiles: https://bww.yrdsb.ca/services/cis/englishlanguage/Documents/ELL%20Documents/English%20Language%20Learner%20(ELL%20007)%20Profiles%20Revised%20Feb%202008.pdf
• ELL Accommodations for Running Records: https://bww.yrdsb.ca/services/cis/kinliteracy/prolearning/Pages/Observation-Survey-Tasks.aspx&AuthResend1908BC2350124b5095AB75012FA405BA#running
• Ministry Resources: https://bww.yrdsb.ca/services/cis/englishlanguage/Pages/Ministry-Resources.aspx

The following resources are available to all teachers to support the planning of instruction for ELLs:

• ELL Monograph: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/Cummins.pdf

Article: Unlocking Language for English Learners: http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2014/11/04/ctq_minkel_esl.html

Daily Instruction - An Essential Element for Accelerated Learning and Effective Implementation of Reading Recovery

Daily Instruction—An Essential Element 

for Accelerated Learning 

and Effective Implementation of Reading Recovery   

“It makes a difference if you get a lesson every day and make a rapid progression up through the book levels—the pace with which your learning accelerates is somehow advantageous.

If the child moves forward slowly, possibly missing lessons here and there, the end result is not as satisfactory as speedy progress through the book levels.  It is as if the brain cells need to be involved tomorrow in what they explored today to consolidate some permanent change in their structure.” (Clay, p. 151 LL2)

Consider the following chart:

WEEK	# of Lessons per Week
	If 3 lessons per week	If 4 lessons per week	If 5 lessons per week
1	3	4	5
2	6	8	10
3	9	12	15
4	12	16	20
5	15	20	25
6	18	24	30
7	21	28	35
8	24	32	40
9	27	36	45*
10	30	40	50
11	33	44*	55
12	36	48	60
13	39	52	65
14	42	56	70
15	45*	60	75

* a child who has had 5 lessons per week will have received 45 lesson over the span of 9 weeks whereas a child who has received 3 lessons per week will take 6 additional weeks in order to have completed 45 lessons

Reflect:

~ How might you use this chart along with individual attendance registers to monitor daily lessons?   

~ How might the school team ensure a minimum of interruptions to the daily delivery of lessons?

~ How might the school team promote regular attendance by children?

~ If professional learning from the other part of your role involves a full day session, how might the school team work to ensure that missed Reading Recovery lessons are made up?

Please share some of the creative ways that your school team has ensured that intensive daily lessons occur.