Page Contents
Questioning Strategies
- Check for comprehension: No matter what subject or level of ELD, effective questioning is crucial. Never say, “Do you understand?” because you will more than likely get a positive nod. Or the student might say, “No, I don’t get it” which won’t help you or the student at all. So be specific with your questions, and be aware of the level of thinking you are evaluating. Require students to respond in a complete sentence. “I don’t understand (what, why, how) ______.” See sample questions and activities and DOK (Depth of Knowledge) Question Stems.
- Teach students how to create questions: Use this Question Creation Chart.
- The Art of Questioning: The Teacher’s Role by Heather Clayton Whit
Active Listening Strategies
- Teach and model what active listening looks and sounds like. Try this simple Active Listening T-chart or follow this more detailed I Can Listen Attentively lesson plan drafted by Columbia, MO school district.
- Use signals to encourage active listening: Thumbs Up! (video)
- Listen and learn with Learning Positions (video)
Vocabulary and Academic Language
- Which words matter most? This excellent article by Erick Hermann is an excellent overview on picking vocabulary for English learners.
- Identify important words in text, by typing in up to 65,000 text characters into WordSift and get the 50 most frequent words in the selection, excluding function words, in a tag cloud.
- Determine which academic words to teach. This academic vocabulary list from Iredell-Statesville schools in NC lists academic vocabulary by grade levels K-English II. Here’s another academic vocabulary list from Berkeley for grades K-12.
- Teach word parts – roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Here’s a quick list of 100 from UCLA.
- Cognates are words that are spelled similarly or identically in Spanish and English and have the same or similar meanings. They are found at all frequency levels from the simple (car-carro) to the complex (analogy-analogía). You can use the free online Find A Cognate database to find if a cognate exists by either typing in an English word or a Spanish word. Or try this site for more cognate searches by subject area or by ending, or for a list of false cognates that confuse Spanish speaking students.
- Unlocking Language for English-Learners: Excellent article on how to teach the “mortar” words, those tricky words that connect the “bricks.”
- Pre-Teach academic vocabulary: Use these 7 steps for pre-teaching vocabulary by Margarita Calderon as a framework for your vocabulary lessons. Stay on target while you customize it with your favorite activities.
- 10 Principles for Effective Vocabulary Instruction (and 10 Things to Avoid!)
- Introduce new words in context, by theme:
- Word Generation Free. Designed for middle and high school, weekly units introduce 5 high utility academic vocabulary words in brief passages on controversial subjects currently under debate in this country. For example, “Should students be paid to do well in school?” introduces implement, motivate,undertake, incentive, and enables in a short passage about a program in New York City public schools which paid students who did well!
- Spelling City: Free (more activities available for a $50 annual fee). Lists by grade level or subject – from Dolch words to science or math vocabulary lists from K through high school – with dictated quizzes, printable quizzes, games, handwriting sheets, flash cards, and more.
- Have fun with words!
- Vocabulary Password Game: A customizable vocabulary practice game in PowerPoint. One student stands with his back to the screen where a word is projected. The class gives the student clues.
- Inside Story Flash Cards: Build vocabulary using these stunning photographs with concise definitions and illustrative sentences. Random selections are categorized as “basic (tiger, flowerpot, eighty), easy (meager, underhanded, subterranean), medium (incompliant, domicile, expire), or hard (fugacious, legerdemain, notation).” Excellent resource for explicit teaching of root words, suffixes, and prefixes! NOTE: words are in miscellaneous order, so prepare yourself and your students for random investigations.
- Video clips for vocabulary of the week: Entertaining video clips from a teacher named “Devin” illustrate words from ambivalent to supercilious.
- More vocabulary games from the UK
- Identify which words need to be taught. Cutting to the Common Core: Making Vocabulary Number One. This excellent article by Dr. Kate Kinsella shows how and why academic language must be taught across the curriculum in order for ELLs to successfully meet the higher demands of the Common Core Standards. She offers strategies for prioritizing vocabulary for competent text analysis, discussion, and constructed response. Teaching Language, August 23, 2013
- Academic Word Finder. Use this free tool from Achieve the Core to locate Tier 2 academic vocabulary in any text. Copy and paste your chosen text and select your grade level. The Tier 2 words will be highlighted in the text and you will get a list of the words plus definitions. It will also show you how many of the Tier 2 words are on your selected grade level, above it, and below it.
Reading Strategies
- Teach common/sight/frequency words in context. It is difficult for ELLs to hear or understand the difference between “in” and “on,” for example, if they are not used in a sentence. I make cards based on Fry words in groups of 100, selecting 10 at a time to put on a ring for the student to practice. Each word is used in a sentence for clarification. This works from grades K on up, as initial instruction or as intervention for struggling readers. Sight word cards: 1-100 101-200 201-300 301-400 401-500 Easy to use Fry assessment sheets
- Practice identifying, forming, and writing with color-coded sight words. Kindergartenkindergarten.com by Kathryn Warner
- Teach phonics and comprehension at the same time. This video of Steve Krashen, an expert on second language acquisition, outlines the pitfalls of an over reliance on phonics instruction.
- Empower students to teach each other with Reciprocal Teaching. In Reciprocal Teaching with ELLs students form and respond to their own questions, so they are practicing reading, listening, and speaking AND building higher level thinking skills. More Reciprocal Teaching Resources (courtesy of Jennifer C. Walts at Taylors Creek Elementary, Hinesville, GA): RT Implementation Guide RT Planning Sheet RT Teams 4 to 7 members RT Process Poster RT Student Worksheet RT Question prompts RT Student Response Sheet RT Literature Response Sheet RT Poster Predicting RT Poster Questioning RT Poster Visualizing RT Poster Summarizing RT Assessment Checklist
- Explicitly teach how to skim, scan, and read for detail. 3 Most Essential Reading Skills (adapted from busyteacher.org)
- Teach students how to navigate informative text. This article gives many strategies and resources to help students access new nonfiction content.
- Use graphic organizers to plan writing or to comprehend reading. Interactive Graphic Organizers: A wide variety of templates with text boxes you can download, fill in online, and print. More Interactive Graphic Organizers from Action Learning Systems.
- Readers Theater gives students multiple opportunities to practice. See also the Resources page on this site for more on Readers Theater.
- Predict as a pre-reading group activity. Quotation Cafe shows you how to make prediction fun, while supporting and building oral skills and learning about text elements
- Focus on short texts. 40 Ways to Read like a Detective, created by the ELA division of NCDPI, provides excellent examples of text centered instruction, correlated to the Common Core, outlining Strategy, Description, Instructional Activity, and Research/Resources. (I added my own page on How to Write Language and Content Objectives .)
- Plus many more strategies – before, during, and after reading – Reading Rockets
Visual Literacy – Diagrams
- Don’t assume that diagrams or illustrations are self-explanatory. There is so much emphasis on “providing visuals” that we take it for granted our students can read and use the diagrams in texts such as tables, maps, scientific illustrations, or timelines. Unfortunately, they often skip over the illustrations and captions without comprehending what they add to the “big picture.”
- For specific suggestions, read this article on Science Visual Literacy: Learners’ Perceptions and Knowledge of Diagrams.
- Poster Analysis Worksheet: Have students research posters online and analyze their message.
- Use art to build literacy. Over 1200 art-based lesson plans from Crayola, searchable by subject matter and grade level.
Writing Strategies
- Use the WIDA writing rubric to evaluate student writing.
- Collect information or organize notes on a Master Grid: This is a simple graphic organizer that you set up specifically for each class or subject. Select the column and row headings in advance. Fill in one for yourself as a reminder of the key concepts and vocabulary you want the students to master. You can model this technique with the whole class, and even post a large version you create together on newsprint. Remember to only use phrases or key words and not complete sentences. Students then pull the information from the grid to use in their sentences, paragraphs, or even essays. The students process the language and the concepts twice and are precluded from copying from the text or other resources since they have to fill in the grid first. These incomplete sample grids are just intended to get you started. Some have two boxes at the bottom, one for academic language (the Tier III words in bold print words in texts) and one for language usage (the Tier II words that they also need to master): Master Grid Branches of Government Master Grid Branches of Government without word bank Master Grid Romeo and Juliet Master Grid Symbiotic Algae
- Teach students how to write a Powerful Sentence. If they can’t write a sentence, they certainly can’t write a paragraph! Download, print, and laminate these cards: Starters/Transitions Adjective Noun Verb Adverb How Why When Where To model this strategy to the class for the first time, choose a topic they can all talk about such as “penguins.” (Begin with plural nouns so you can avoid entanglements with irregular verbs.) Then elicit suggestions from the class for each category. Never use “are” as the verb – that’s NOT powerful! Also, the verb can also include the object or be a verb phrase, such as “eat fish” or “play jump rope” or “throw the ball.” The first time you do this, your starter will be “the” with a lower case “t” and you will only use a couple of the green cards. Write their suggestions on the appropriate card with a dry erase marker. Then hand out the cards in random order to the students and ask them to arrange themselves into a sentence. (Or you can attach the cards to the board with magnets and move them around.) Read the sentence out loud with the class; let them make any adjustments to the word order. The first time around, they will probably have the green cards at the end. Show them how they can rearrange the sentence by beginning with a green card. Then ask them again if they want to make additional changes. They will soon see a variety of options. You can project or print out this Powerful Sentences Patterning Chart for the students to use independently. If they write their words on post-its, they can move them around.
- Word Bank Suggestions for Powerful Sentences Patterning Chart Transition words for sequence, compare and contrast, opinion and point of view, cause and effect, and fact or reference; and suggested “travelers.”
- More Tips on How to Use Powerful Sentences Patterning Chart and Cards
- This is a rubric created by fourth graders, Check to see if your sentence is powerful. Have your students create their own rubric so they “own” it.
- Use graphic organizers to plan writing or to comprehend reading. Interactive Graphic Organizers: A wide variety of templates with text boxes you can download, fill in online, and print. More Interactive Graphic Organizers from Action Learning Systems.
Math Strategies
- Tips for Teaching Math to ELLs
- Check out the Math Resources on this page.
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Students learn math differently in Latin America. This paper compares operations and notations from subtraction to algebra.
Science Strategies
- Writing in science class is part of cross curricular emphasis. This article gives specific suggestions on how to generate meaningful writing in science class
- Teach students how to read diagrams. This article gives specific suggestions on Science Visual Literacy: Learners’ Perceptions and Knowledge of Diagrams.
Social Studies Strategies (for Science, too)
- Identify key vocabulary and academic vocabulary. See vocabulary section above.
- Preview the text with the students. Try BIG FOX to map out chapters in advance.
- Prepare multimedia, visuals, and related readings: photos, videos, podcasts. Keep visuals posted!
- Include group work throughout the unit: Reciprocal Teaching,Think-Pair-Share.
- Show students how to use graphic organizers, flash cards, sticky notes, and highlighters.
- Provide models and sentence frames for writing assignments.
- Adapt homework and assessment so ELLs can show what they have learned.
- How to Make texts accessible (article from Colorín Colorado).
Resources by Content Area
Contact me
I welcome suggestions for other resources to be included in this site. Please use my contact form or email me directly at jessicaloose.obx@gmail.com.
