Scaffolding Reading and Writing for ELLs

1. Principles of Scaffolding Learning

Adapted from EngageNY/Expeditionary Learning NTI, 2014

Scaffolding requires careful observation of our students as they work (Rodgers, 2004). As we learn about our needs, we can then guide them to what will help them build their capacity for learning, and to learn the material we planned for them to learn. Noting student behaviors on logs and through notes will aid us in the scaffolding process as we note the strengths, skills, and strategies they use to learn best with. If we see a student continually struggle with a concept we've taught repeatedly for example, this tells us they need additional support through scaffolding. Or that they simply need some guidance. Here are some principles of scaffolding:

• Monitor and observe student learning on a regular basis
• Base instruction on what the student can do, not what they could do last month or last week.
• Put the right book in the right student’s hand; guide him or her to an appropriate selection, potentially moving to a more independent appropriate selection of one's own material.
• Provide opportunities for students to work with texts that are neither too easy nor too challenging.
• Use graphic organizers to scaffold with, such as KWL charts, anticipation guides, devices that activate prior knowledge, make cognitive connections and aid in questioning.

Smith & Zygouris-Coe (2006)

2. Standards-Friendly Scaffolding Techniques and Routines

The EQuIP rubric for lessons and units provides criteria to determine the quality and alignment of curriculum to Common Core State Standards. It is a tool that also aids in implementing those key shifts in the Common Core that are responsive to ELL and struggling learner needs while ensuring that all students' needs are met with the standards.

The scaffolding techniques and routines used throughout the module lessons are based on a body of research taken from a number of sources, among them: the Institute of Education Sciences Practice Guide, Baker et al., 2014; August & Shanahan (2006) and Francis, Lesaux, & August (2006) on ELLs and home language instruction, the teaching of academic vocabulary, and content area literacy.

Oral and Written Language Instruction Integration Into Content Area Teaching

Oral and written language scaffolding and integration techniques include the research of August, Branum-Martin, Cardenas-Hagan, & Francis (2009), Brown, Ryoo, & Rodriquez (2010), Ryoo (2009), Silverman & Hines (2009), Vaughn et al. (2009). Short videos, visuals, and graphic organizers are among the strategic techniques used to anchor instruction and help students make sense of content. Equally important is the explicit teaching of content-specific academic vocabulary above-and-beyond ELA instruction, to include all content areas equally (Baker et al., 2014). Overarching questions are used to clarify and deepen understand as vocabulary applies to the text. All lessons include partner talk activities and constructed response to narrative, informational/explanatory, and arguments in text and anchor text.

Provide Regular, Structured Opportunities to Read for Multiple Purposes

As per the Common Core Standards, ELLs must read for multiple purposes. This is also research-supported practice (August & Shanahan, 2008) whereshort supplementary text is used to support cultural, historical, or thematic ideas in text in order to bring up their requisite background knowledge crucial for comprehension. As they read to answer questions about key ideas and detail, they reread for close reading, vocabulary, to analyze structure, deepen understanding or to clarify understanding (revisit any text not fully understood).

Provide Regular, Structured Opportunities to Write

In most lessons all writing is anchored in the text students are assigned to read, with an additional focus on academic language through the use of questions. Students speak to and engage with peers prior to writing to clarify understanding, brainstorm, answer questions, or collaborate on ideas prior to organizing their thoughts. All writing requires the use of scaffolds to include glossaries, word banks, sentence frames, sentence starters, and graphic organizers. The entire writing process is embraced, beginning with drafting, advancing to peer review, polishing of pieces, and publication. All lessons invoke the pre, during, and post-assignment process to aid in differentiating, scaffolding, and in drawing the data needed to continue planning and differentiating.

What follows are lesson examples that include all of the aforementioned scaffolding techniques, and more. The original lessons are posted on the Engage^NY website at www.engageny.org

Example: Background Knowledge (AIR New Activity 2 for Work Time)

3. List of Strategies That Scaffold

1. Use prereading activities to activate former knowledge.

2. Plan readings with repetitious text.

3. Use graphic organizers.

4. Use visual aids and teach students how to access them.

5. Check frequently for understanding.

6. Help students build vocabulary archives to resource as needed (picture dictionaries, etc.).

7. Share lesson outlines.

8. Write key words to be used in the lesson and discuss them in context prior to teaching them.

9. Encourage students to underline key words or important facts.

10. Use choral reading rather than individual oral reading.

11. Read to students frequently, no matter what age or grade.

12. Show the video of a text when possible, and/or act out the story through miming (have students act out stories).

13. Present material in chunks and small segments, especially with complex text.

14. Choose just one selection to teach a concept, with additional reading for advanced students.

15. Extend time for assignments to be read and shorten number of questions to only those absolutely necessary to be answered.

16. Provide repeated reviews.

17. Use mirroring strategies, such as allowing students to copy from prepared notes, copying the teacher modeling of highlighting, and so forth.

18. Make allowances for note-taking, allowing one word, short phrases, pictures, and graphs to replace extensive writing and copying of text.

19. Give open book tests for short answer and multiple choice tests using same or similar language and syntax/vocabulary as text.  Allow for shorter essay responses from ELLs throughout the language acquisition process.

20. Speak slower to ELLs and shorten sentences. Explain idioms and other concepts that might present a social or cultural challenge to understanding.

21. Use language experience approaches when possible.

22. Increase fluency with controlled writing patterns (sentence strips, sentence and paragraph prompts, organizational patterns, graphic organizers that spell out the order with prompts).

23. Allow students in the early stages to write essay response in the first language with intermittent translation scaffolded as language is mastered.

24. Organize small groups and partner/buddy work carefully and thoughtfully, pairing ELLs with native English speakers and jigsawing the groups when possible.

25. Provide highlighted texts and ancillary culturally friendly materials to emphasize important concepts.

26. Preview all text ahead of time to compensate for lack of cultural friendliness and differentiation (see Textbook Checklist in Course Objectives | Research | Materials folder)

Adapted from:

Ariza, E. N. (2010). What every classroom teacher needs to know about the linguistically, culturally, and ethnically diverse student (2^nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Chomsky, N. (1975). Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon.

Dulay, H., Burt, M. and Krashen, S. (1982). Language Two. Oxford: Oxford University Press.*

Ellis, R. (1990). Instructed Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Blackwell.  and (1994). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fletcher, P. and Garman, M. (eds) (1986). Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Fry, D. (1977). Homo loquens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Paradis, J. (2005). Grammatical morphology in children learning English as a second language: Implications of similarities with specific language impairment. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 36, 172-187.

Ramirez, M., & Castaneda, A. (1974). Cultural democracy, bicognitive development, and education. New York, NY: Academic Press.

Vogt, L. A., Jordan, C., & Tharp, R.G. (1987). Explaining school failure: Producing school success: Two cases. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 18, 276–286.

4. Scaffolding Resources

Using Scaffolded Instruction To Optimize Learning
http://www.vtaide.com/png/ERIC/Scaffolding.htm

Scaffolding
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/learning/lr1scaf.htm

WebQuests: A Strategy for Scaffolding Higher Level Learning
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/necc98.htm

Scaffolding Comprehension Strategies Using Graphic Organizers
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=95

Teaching Diverse Learners: Scaffolding Instruction
http://www.learner.org/channel/workshops/teachreading35/session7/sec4p3.html

Question the Author

References

August, D., & Shanahan, T. (Eds., 2006). Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on language-minority children and youth. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

August, D., & Shanahan, T. (Eds., 2008). Developing reading and writing in second-language learners. New York, NY: Routledge.

August, A., Branum-Martin, L., Cardenas-Hagan, E., & Francis, D. J. (2009). The impact of an instructional intervention on the science and language learning of middle grade English language learners. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2(4), 345–376. doi:10.1080/19345740903217623

Baker, S., Lesaux, N., Jayanthi, M., Dimino, J., Proctor, C. P., Morris, & J. Newman-Gonchar, R. (2014). Teaching academic content and literacy to English learners in elementary and middle school (NCEE 2014-4012). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute for Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.

Brown, B., Ryoo, K., & Rodriguez, J. (2010). Pathways towards fluency: Using “disaggregate instruction” to promote science literacy. International Journal of Science Education, 32(11), 1465–1493. doi:10.1080/09500690903117921

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Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English language arts & literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/

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Dressler, C., with Kamil, M. L. (2006). First- and second-language literacy. In D. August & T. Shanahan (Eds.), Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on language minority children and youth (pp. 197–238). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Lapp, D. (2012). Text complexity: Raising rigor in reading. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Francis, D., Lesaux, N., & August, D. (2006). Language of instruction. In D. August & T. Shanahan (Eds.), Developing literacy in second-language learners (pp. 365–414). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Kim, J., Olson, C. B., Scarcella, R., Kramer, J., Pearson, M., van Dyk, D.,…& Land, R. (2011). A randomized experiment of a cognitive strategies approach to text-based analytical writing for main-streamed Latino English language learners in grades 6 to 12. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 4(3), 231–263. doi:10.1080/19345747.2010.523513

Lesaux, N. K., Kieffer, M. J., Faller, S. E., & Kelley, J. G. (2010). The effectiveness and ease of implementation of an academic vocabulary intervention for linguistically diverse students in urban middle schools. Reading Research Quarterly, 45(2), 196–228. doi:10.1598/RRQ.45.2.3

Lesaux, N. K., Kieffer, M. J., Kelley, J. G., & Harris, J. R. (2014). Effects of academic vocabulary instruction for linguistically diverse adolescents: Evidence from a randomized field trial. American Educational Research Journal, 51(6), 1159-1194. doi:10.3102/0002831214532165

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