Working with English Learners and Culturally and

Linguistically Diverse Students

Presented by Marie Flood and Amy Pope

Getting the Best Out of Students

AGENDA

How Much Do You Really Need To Know? LTLL’s (Another Acronym)

Biggest Bang For Our Buck Vocabulary Context Clues

Learning, as a language based activity, is fundamentally and profoundly dependent on vocabulary knowledge (Baker, Simmons, & Kame’enui, 1998).

Vocabulary Knowledge

How Many Words Do Students Need to Know to Understand Content?

Please read the passage from Harris, C. H. Curriculum Based Assessment: A Primer

Vocabulary

Possessing the capacity to learn unfamiliar words requires a student to know almost all the other words in the text.

Indeed, if students don’t know at least 95% of the words in a text, comprehension of the main points is likely to be inadequate (Strategic Education Research Partnership, 2008).

Surprising Facts about Vocabulary

How The Brain Acquires Language

Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=qRRiWg6wYXw#t=98

Brain Overload

Brain has an intrinsic mechanism for shutting down input when it needs to (Eric Jensen 2008)

Teaching is not easy!!!!!Not only that our students forget information….

Using textbook material in a study of 3,605 6th grade students, H. Spitzer found that the rate of forgetting:

o After one day 46% forgotteno After seven days 65% forgotteno After 14 days 79% forgotteno After 21 days 82% forgotten

Memory Research

Students need processing time. Teaching new content may require processing time of 2-5 minutes every 10-15 minutes.

10:2 Lecture (Brechtel, 2001)After every ten minutes of instruction students

spend two minutes discussing what they have learned.

Implications

Elbow Up!Tell us What You have Learned So Far-

How We Teach Student Survival Skills

What happens first in a period of time and what happens last are usually the longest remembered.

What happens just past the middle is often the 1st to be forgotten.

BeginningEnd

Research for Better Teaching – www.rbteach.com

At the beginning of class, review important ideas.

Get students actively involved in the middle.

Select important ideas from the middle of the period and include them in the summarizing at the end.

Research for Better Teaching – www.rbteach.com

Memory Research

This passage has 16 occurrences of six unknown words, or 93% known words, making it impossible to comprehend. Therefore, teaching unknown vocabulary to students is imperative!

93%

7%

Known Words Unknown Words

Why 95% Vocabulary Accuracy?

Vocabulary is essential to students’ academic success but what words should we choose and what

strategies should we use to teach them?

Vocabulary

Shift 1: Balancing Informational & Literary Text

Shift 2: Knowledge in the Disciplines Shift 3: Staircase of Complexity Shift 4: Text-based Answers Shift 5: Writing from Sources Shift 6: Academic Vocabulary

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for

Language L.CCR.4: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and

multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.

L.CCR.5: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language,

word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for

Language L.CCR.6: Acquire and use accurately a range of general

academic and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word of phrase important to comprehension or expression.

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for

Language L.CCR.4: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and

multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.

Context Clues

Match the Clue

Please read your cards and decide what type of context clue helped you to understand the meaning of the underlined word.

Place the cards under the appropriate headers: Definition, Synonym, Antonym, Example, General, or NCAA (No Clue At All).

Adapted from the Florida Center for Reading Research, 2007

Answers

Definition: 6 Synonyms: 3 Antonyms: 4 Example: 5 General: 2 NCAA: 1

Students work with partners or small groups

They arrange words with similar meaning in a continuum from least to most

Students share their final results with the class and explain their reasoning

Least

Most

Degrees of Meaning

Sand

Boulder

Clay

Granule

Cobble

Silt Pebble

Sediment (Particle) Sizes

Boulder

Cobble

Pebble

Granule

Sand

Silt

Clay

Answers

Calm

Strong Winds

Moderate Winds

Fresh Winds

Violent Storm

Gale

Storm

Near Gale

Strong Gale

Hurricane

Light Winds

Winds

Hurricane

Violent Storm

Storm

Strong Gale

Gale

Near Gale

Strong Winds

Fresh Winds

Moderate Winds

Light Winds

Calm

Answers

http://vimeo.com/27077248

http://www.schooltube.com/video/f5579f0c03224cc487b7/

Vocabulary

According to Isabelle Beck, words may be categorized

into three levels:

Tier 1: High Frequency

Tier 2: General Academic - frequently

occurring words across a variety of domains

Tier 3: Domain Specific - specialized

vocabulary

Vocabulary Instruction

Most commonly used words:

Tier 1: High Frequency Words

Tier 2: General

Academic - frequently occurring words across a variety of domains:

complex identify coincidence absurd

Tier 3: Domain Specific -

specialized vocabulary. Words typically associated with a content area or topic:

evaporation peninsula isotope refinery

Tier 2 and Tier 3

Sorting Activity

With your partner, please place the following words under the appropriate Tier:

come analyze could

relative lava expectation

impressionism there circumference

itemize photosynthesis book

legislature vary establish

Answers

Tier 1: come, there, book, could

Tier 2: relative, analyze, establish, expectation, vary, itemize

Tier 3: impressionism, lava, photosynthesis, legislature, circumference

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for

Language L.CCR.6: Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic

and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word of phrase important to comprehension or expression.

General academic: Tier 2 words Vessel: a ship or large boat (Social Studies) a hollow container, esp. one used to hold liquid (Science)

Domain – specific: Tier 3 words photosynthesis peninsula

Give One, Get One, Move On

A sheet of paper is divided into a given number of boxes.

Students individually fill in two or three of the boxes with ideas they want to remember, key points, etc.

Afterwards, they get out of their seats and walk up to someone to “give an idea away” and get an idea.

After the exchange, students move on to another partner to share their idea and to collect a new one.

Students return to their desks for a whole class discussion.

Vocabulary

Students need repeated exposures and repeated opportunities to connect and authentically use the new words over time – in writing, in reading, and in talking and listening. Lasting learning needs cohesion and reinforcement. As a student once asked, “Once you know a word, then what?” We must teach students how to use the word (Zwiers and Crawford, 2011).

Most typically developing children need to encounter a word about 12 times before they know it well enough to improve comprehension (Biemiller; Nagy, & Anderson).

How much do students retain from instruction?

Average Retention Percent after 24 hoursLecture 5%

Reading 10%

Audio-Visual 20%

Demonstrations 30%

Discussion Groups 50%

Practice by Doing 75%

Teach Others 90%

How the Brain Learns, Dr. David A. Sousa

Brain Research