Poster from Kate Snyder's 2nd Grade class at Ascend Elementary in Oakland
Category of Inquiry: Matching Students with Text
Post Written by: Michael Ray, Bilingual and English Learner Specialist at Leadership, Curriculum and Instruction in Oakland Unified School District
Source: Joyanne Mcclamroch and Megan Hatschek, TCN, Spring, 2013, in conversation after an observation of Joyanne's class.
Problem of Practice: Often ELLs seem to not comprehend, be able to accurately decode or read at basic rate the books they choose even when they are within their identified independent level as measured by a running record.
Essential Question: How do you make sure ELL students are matched with a just right book?
Instructional Strategy: Begin the year with four to six weeks of conferences focused on "just right books."
Rationale: The main justification for this strategy is that the Reading Workshop depends on students having access to and knowledge about how to choose a "just right" book. All the richer conversations and conferencing that you might focus on later depends on this as well. In particular for ELLs, they need to gain an awareness of what gets in their way as they read and what helps them, and then become proficient at getting a book that works for them. It is a responsibility that they will have to assume if they are to build an independent reading life, and knowing that the teacher is going to be focusing on just right books will hold them accountable. In addition, exploring with ELLs why a book feels just right or not to them will provide a more complete picture of what they need to take into account to get a really strong match with a book, and this in turn will lead to important mini-lesson and focuses for conferencing. On-the-go running records (or RALLI one-minute tallies, see P 31 of RALLI binder) during the research phase of conferencing before the teaching point can add important data to conferencing about just right books.
Tensions and Areas for Further Inquiry: There are a lot of other things to work on early in a Reading Workshop, so it might be hard to dedicated the kind of focus to this instructional strategy called for in this description.
Tensions and Areas for Further Inquiry: There are a lot of other things to work on early in a Reading Workshop, so it might be hard to dedicated the kind of focus to this instructional strategy called for in this description.
This is a really interesting blog!
ReplyDeleteGail Boushey and Joan Moser have some good lessons about selecting a "just right" book in The Daily 5, Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades.
ReplyDeleteThank you for starting this! What is the RALLI binder, and is it online?
ReplyDeleteRALLI stands for Results: Academic Language and Literacy Instruction K-6, with a focus on creating successful encounters with complex/grade level text for all students with specific scaffolds for ELLs. It's from the California Reading and Literature Project, and the binder is NOT online. In any case, a one-minute tally is a quick little sort of running record to gather information about how well a student is matched with a text, among other things.
ReplyDeleteThanks you for your comment.