Sunday, February 17, 2013
If they can do it, WE CAN too!!!
Watch this engaging video of Common Core Literacy: Close Reading Strategies with Informational Text by Expeditionary Learning. Students in Andrew Hossack's 5th grade class use close reading strategies to determine the main idea and important details from a newspaper article about the Seneca people.
Play some On-line Games about the Main Idea
The children read some sentences and identify which would be the Main Idea. If they're correct, a hamburger magically appears!
Follow this link to another game...
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/samoset/rcmi1.htm
Follow this link to another game...
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/samoset/rcmi1.htm
Main Idea and Manipulatives???
Give the students a short story of sentences strips. They label the Main Idea with the blue bag and the details with the red ones. This includes TPR and color clues that are
so useful to ELLs. It's a good center activity.
Summarize to the Main Idea
After reading a story, the students can start summarizing the events. Then, do it again, but with fewer words. In the end, find one phrase that captures the Main Idea and they have a visual reminder of the selective process.
Hook the Attention with Realia!
This activity involves giving groups of students a bag of related items and they have to identify the details and determine the main idea for each bag.
From realia, the students relate to their background knowledge and determine what is the Main Idea and the Supporting Details and then complete a Graphic Organizer.
From realia, the students relate to their background knowledge and determine what is the Main Idea and the Supporting Details and then complete a Graphic Organizer.
Higher Level of Graphic Organizer
Instead, the student who is more proficient, is ready for a Higher Order of Thinking task, with less support. With this activity, the student applies everything: it's student produced, they have to write something on all of the elements, definitions are included, key words are highlighted, a title and a visual clue connect to realia. So with these choices, everyone can map out the Main Idea with supporting details and find success on their own level of proficiency.
Graphic Organizers for Main Idea
Graphic Organizers serve several purposes in the learning process.
They ease the collection of data management by visually representing relationships between facts and specific learning tasks or goals. They help the student plan what they'll write. They learn to condense their thoughts in a few words. *** ELLs often only HAVE a few words on any given topic!
Once they’ve learned how to use them and check off the info as they write, they can take ownership and produce their own.
Here are some examples...
For the student who needs more scaffolding, this G.O. is great. If an item is left blank they see they’re missing a detail. The G.O. speaks for itself.
They ease the collection of data management by visually representing relationships between facts and specific learning tasks or goals. They help the student plan what they'll write. They learn to condense their thoughts in a few words. *** ELLs often only HAVE a few words on any given topic!
Once they’ve learned how to use them and check off the info as they write, they can take ownership and produce their own.
Here are some examples...
For the student who needs more scaffolding, this G.O. is great. If an item is left blank they see they’re missing a detail. The G.O. speaks for itself.
Quick and to the Point Anchor Chart for Main Idea
This one supports the students by offering some sentence structure.
Begin with clear & visible daily objectives
Some thoughts to keep in mind...
Choose images that symbolize the different subjects. Note the key vocabulary lists below. They can be kept in a binder for future reference. When you have them write the date, be sure they always write the day and month.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Common Core State Standards and WIDA Standards
State Standards and Curriculum Guide instruction
ELL strategies offer visual and concrete
support
encouraging a CAN DO Philosophy.
Once a child masters a skill, he records
it on his “can.”
Our Objective for this period will be to instruct the students so the ycan claim,
"I can understand what is the Main Idea of something."
About Our School
bilingual Elementary school. In addition, there are more ELLs of other languages and as a result the ELLs represent a high percentage of the student population. The Simultaneous Bilingual teaching method applied in the K-5 bilingual classes is proving to be quite successful evidenced by the 5th Grade class where all but a handful of students have exited out of ESL demonstrating to be readers and writers in both languages. Despite this progress, the WKCE results indicate, in general, that there is a dire need to reduce the gaps. As a result, one of the Title One Goals this year is to introduce more ELL strategies in the mainstream classroom. As a staff, we will use the blog The ELL Compass Rose as a place for us to house resources and exchange strategies and comments that could prove to be useful
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Deb Roy: The Birth of a Word
Deb Roy: The Birth of a Word
As a first entry on our new ELL Compass Rose blog, I find it fitting to begin with a link to a TED Talk by Deb Roy from MIT, explaining a recent research he conducted to trace the birth of a word. We've all experienced it, but never before has it been so graphically recorded so that we can begin to understand when that magical moment occurs that a word is captured and expressed. As ESL teachers, we are interested in recreating that environment to help our students learn another language just as naturally they did with their primary caregivers. I think this will be instrumental in encouraging us to dip and scaffold our language pattern down to the correct level for each of our students for them to capture the needed vocabulary and structures and then gradually build them up again to a more complex level where they can compete with their classmates' academic language.
As a first entry on our new ELL Compass Rose blog, I find it fitting to begin with a link to a TED Talk by Deb Roy from MIT, explaining a recent research he conducted to trace the birth of a word. We've all experienced it, but never before has it been so graphically recorded so that we can begin to understand when that magical moment occurs that a word is captured and expressed. As ESL teachers, we are interested in recreating that environment to help our students learn another language just as naturally they did with their primary caregivers. I think this will be instrumental in encouraging us to dip and scaffold our language pattern down to the correct level for each of our students for them to capture the needed vocabulary and structures and then gradually build them up again to a more complex level where they can compete with their classmates' academic language.
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