the students can see the text. Teachers track the text as they read, and students chime in on predictable repeated sections. Interactive reading and writing may be done with the teacher or with peers. For example, teachers may read a text and have students echo what they read. The teacher may stop at certain sections so a student can continue the reading, and then the teacher may come back in. Interactive reading is often done in bilingual pairs, with one student assisting the other during the reading. During interactive writing, the teacher may sit with the student and help as needed as the student writes, or two students may work together on developing a piece of writing.
For guided reading and writing, the teacher may begin by presenting a mini-lesson to illustrate a particular skill or strategy. In guided reading, the teacher sits with small groups of students who all have a copy of the text. Students take turns reading to practice certain skills, such as predicting or using context to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words. In guided writing, the teacher works with a small group to help with specific writing skills, such as writing a good lead or deciding where to break a text into paragraphs. During guided reading and writing, the students take responsibility to read and write, focusing on certain skills under the teacher’s guidance. The final step is for students to read and write independently. Teachers should allow time for independent reading and writing each day.
Wonderfilled Way of Learning
Choose a reading from your basal program and try out the gradual release model for that selection with a group of students. After you do this, answer the following questions based on the “Wonderfilled Way of Learning,” developed by Don Howard (Freeman & Freeman, 1992).
1 What do I know about my students’ reading abilities?
2 What do I wonder about which level of support I should offer to my English learners?
3 How can I find out about how they respond to the support?
4 Plan of Action: How will I proceed to apply the gradual release model effectively for my English learners?Standards based skills: draw on background knowledge, infer/predict, createClassroom activities for the “Wonderfilled Way of Learning”:1. This activity can be used to have students explore any topic using the four question starters listed above.
Drawing on Students’ Backgrounds and Cultures
It is important to draw on what students already know about topics they will be studying. Marzano (2004) has conducted research showing that drawing on or building background is one of the most important practices teachers can use. If students already have knowledge on a topic that they developed in their home language, they may be able to access the knowledge more effectively if they are encouraged to draw on their home language resources.
Different introductory activities are excellent for helping to activate students’ previous knowledge and to share with their peers knowledge they already have. Below we list a sampling of preview activities, activities students can use before reading that activate students’ background knowledge.
1. Graffiti Wall
Have students write or draw anything they know about a topic on a large piece of butcher paper or a section of the classroom whiteboard. They can add relevant words in their home language. Read and discuss the entries together as a class.
Standards based skills: draw on background knowledge, create, ask probing questions
2. Gallery Walk
Put pictures related to the unit to be studied around the room. For example, if the unit is on life cycles, put up pictures or charts of the life cycles of different animals, insects, plants, and humans. Have students walk around the room and write comments on a sheet of paper under each of the pictures. Students can add what they know about the picture or write questions they have. They may also use their home languages to do this.
Standards based skills: draw on background knowledge, ask probing questions
3. Four Corners
Put a different picture related to the unit readings in each corner of the classroom. If studying oceans, for example, pictures could show animals that live in the sea, a beach, a coral reef, and garbage floating in the ocean. Students go to the picture that most interests them. Next, each group talks about their pictures. After a certain amount of time, each group reports back to the class what they know about the subject of the picture and any questions they have about it.
Standards based skills: analyze, evaluate, formulate opinions, support ideas with evidence
4. Inquiry Charts
Ask students what they know about a topic and what they want to learn. Record students’ ideas and put their names after their responses. Revisit the chart throughout the unit. Students can add things they have learned and additional questions they have.
Standards based skills: draw on background knowledge, explain
Drawing on Students’ Home Languages—Translanguaging
The common-sense practice that has been widely used in both ESL and bilingual classrooms is to keep students’ home languages separate from instruction in English. During ESL classes, teachers and students only speak English. In many bilingual classes, only English is used in designated English time and Spanish or another language is used exclusively during the time designated for that language. Teachers have been encouraged not to mix languages as they teach. However, research supports the use of students’ home languages to help them learn English and to learn academic content in English (Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Cummins, 2007; García, 2009). The practice of using both languages in instruction is referred to as translanguaging.
Research in sociolinguistics has shown that in bilingual communities, people regularly use both their home language and the language of the country. In many communities in the United States, it is common to hear people speaking English and Spanish, English and Korean, English and Arabic, or English and Mandarin. In addition, research in neurolinguistics has shown that, in bilingual people, both (or all) their languages are always active, a bit like an application that continues to run in the background on a smartphone.
Based on extensive observations in classrooms with English learners, García, Johnson, and Seltzer (2017) have shown that teachers can make strategic use of students’ home languages as a scaffold to help them develop academic English proficiency. Based on this research, García and her colleagues have developed a theory of dynamic bilingualism. They explain:
We use the metaphor of the translanguaging corriente to refer to the current or flow of students’ dynamic bilingualism that runs through our classrooms and schools. Bilingual students make use of the translanguaging corriente either covertly or overtly to learn content and language in school and to make sense of their complex worlds and identities. (21)
Instead of looking at bilinguals as two monolinguals in one person, García (2009) argues that bilinguals have just one language repertoire, and the use of either language adds to this reservoir of language. Students can draw on this reservoir to make sense of instruction, read complex texts, and discuss and write about them.
Picture, then, a
