A Reading Teacher's Blog
As you have probably noticed with your ELLs, there is quite a difference in an ELLs’ conversational vocabulary compared to their academic vocabulary. According to Jim Cummins (1984), BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) refers to ELLs’ conversational, or social vocabulary, whereas CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) refers to academic, content specific vocabulary. BICS generally takes…
So often, students just tell about the large picture of an experience. They get so caught up in listing all of the “moments” of the experience that they forget to really hone in on each part of it with vivid details for their readers. This is why one of my favorite writing strategies to teach…
It can be very overwhelming, especially for my struggling readers, to focus on using multiple reading comprehension strategies with a piece of text. For this reason, I always take time in at least the first quarter of the school year to teach and review them individually. This way students have the academic language and practice…
As you have probably noticed with your ELLs, there is quite a difference in an ELLs' conversational ...
So often, students just tell about the large picture of an experience. They get so caught up in ...
Between teaching routines, testing, testing and more testing, it is also important to have fun and ...
Entering a brand-new classroom is nerve-wracking for most of our English speaking students. For our ...
Are you struggling to make content area instruction accessible to your ELLs? Here are five tips to ...
I have been meaning to start a blog for quite a while (like 2+ years a while!), but life is just so ...
It can be very overwhelming, especially for my struggling readers, to focus on using multiple reading comprehension strategies with a piece of text. For this reason, I always take time in at least the first quarter of the school year to teach and review them individually. This way students have the academic language and practice…
I have been meaning to start a blog for quite a while (like 2+ years a while!), but life is just so busy! With the new school year rolling around, I decided now is a good time to get a fresh start. I’m really excited to take the plunge into the teacher blogosphere! A little…
Visualizing the text is such an important strategy used for building your students’ reading comprehension. It is very versatile as it can be used in different ways with students of all ages and reading levels. I follow the 7 Keys to Comprehension (Zimmerman and Hutchins, 2003) in my classroom. Of the seven reading strategies (Visualize,…
So often, students just tell about the large picture of an experience. They get so caught up in listing all of the “moments” of the experience that they forget to really hone in on each part of it with vivid details for their readers. This is why one of my favorite writing strategies to teach…
