Sheltered literacy video evaluation.
What does the teacher do?
Explicitly explains the lesson in kid friendly language (verbally and visually)
Creates a comfortable environment. One where risk is valued and accepted.
Reviews all reading strategies
Previews vocabulary
Uses pictures to help cue context
Involves spelling within the lesson
Creates relevant stories to promote relationship to text
Previews the text
Saves time at the end of lesson for reviewing materials
Front loads students with knowledge necessary for reading text
Models reading AND thinking while reading a text
What do students do?
Recall prior learning from earlier lessons
Interact verbally with teacher as well as other students by building upon input
Compare background experiences to main concepts
Predict text
Use images to help clarify comprehension
Contribute to group work
Works independently with the text
Provides input via post-it notes process proposed by Tovani
Students use planned strategies to enhance comprehension of text
Reading Strategies used:
Visualization
"I Wonder ..."
Student development of questions
Inference
Summary of learning (non-fiction and historical biography)
Diary Board
"I'm confused"
Connections to culture
General observations:
Many of the sheltering processes are the same for struggling readers and writers. The major difference between how ELLs use the process is the pace of learning that occurs. ELLs need time to process lessons and cannot be rushed to go through the 3 phases of sheltering too quickly. There needs to more conscious effort by the teacher to cycle through the phases throughout each chapter or section of a text.
ELL students require the opportunity to scaffold their comprehension. Not all reading strategies are appropriate for all student levels at the same time. Therefore there needs to be a utilization of multiple strategies at each of the 3 phases.
Teacher reinforced contributions of students quite often even if not directly on target. By doing this, there is a promotion of students wanting to contribute within the lessons. It is something very subtle, but can make all the difference for struggling students to feel accepted and willing to take risks.
Hi Matthew,
ReplyDeletePosting your notes before your narrative was a very thorough way to cover all of the points. I'll remember that as a strategy for myself, but I also think it would be a good strategy for ELL writers, maybe.
Thank you for mentioning the Diary Board. I think the Diary Board is a strategy that I would like to start in my classroom. We keep a Unit board going, but I'd like to keep all of the strategies we are using more visible--for myself as much as for the kids. It seems that it would benefit any age level or language skill level. Do you think the students would look at it independently?
Hi Matt,
ReplyDeleteI too saw how similar these sheltering strategies are to the typical strategies I would use with struggling readers. After viewing the video, I tried to use these ideas much more (and more consciously) within my own classroom. Something that these videos can't show you is the long-term positive effects of strategies as simple as reiforcing students' and their contributions. As simple as it is, it might have been my greatest take-away. :)