English as a Second Language

“The Updated & Revised Teacher Resource Guide

for

English as a Second Language Instruction”

Acronyms

ESL – English as a Second Language

LEP – Limited English Proficient

PHLOTE – Primary language is other than English

Identification Process

English as a Second Language (ESL) programs are be based upon four areas identified in testing for whom English is not their primary language. The four areas are oral language, oral expression, broad reading, and written language. An ESL program is designed to provide instruction that meets each student’s individual needs based upon the assessment of English proficiency in listening, speaking, and reading.

When the student appears at the school as a resident, if from the Home Language Survey the student is identified as LEP, the SMASD will administer approved tests. From this testing, an aggregate score based upon performance will be used to establish the amount of additional instruction in English that may be required.

An ESL planning meeting which includes parents/guardians is scheduled upon the completion of the evaluation process. Adequate content area support will be provided while the student is learning English to assure achievement of the academic standards. The amount of time in class will vary from student to student depending upon scores received on testing in oral language, oral expression, broad reading, and written language. A program outline is developed dependent upon individual need.

Learning Strategies

Child specific data is shared with the educational team working with an individual ESL student.

The Woodcock-Johnson III: Reports, Recommendations, and Strategies manual provides a listing of a multitude of learning strategies that may be beneficial to the development of oral language (expressive and receptive),broad reading, and written language. Selected strategies from this manual are provided below.

GENERAL STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP ORAL LANGUAGE

Seat the student near the teacher and away from environmental noises.
When teaching or speaking to the student, face him, pause between phrases for processing time, limit sentence or clause length, and use simple vocabulary. Give the student an opportunity to request repetition or clarification.
Limit sentence length and complexity when speaking to the student.
Be aware of the linguistic complexity of the language you use in instructions, questions, and test items. Encourage the student to ask you to restate difficult instructions or questions using simpler vocabulary.
Be aware of when the student has become inattentive or looks confused. Repeat what you have said or otherwise reinforce the message.
Directly teach the student to request repetition or rephrasing of instructions, questions, or statements when necessary.
Allow the student to ask you to paraphrase test questions. Frequently the student may know the content but not understand the question.
If, when called on, the student does not appear to know the answer to a question, repeat it verbatim. If the student still does not appear to know the answer, rephrase the question in simpler terms.
Call on the student soon after posing a question. In a long wait period, the student is likely to forget the question and/or the answer he had wanted to give.
When calling on the student tin class, provide him with as much time as necessary to organize his thoughts and formulate a response. He may know the answer but need extra time to find the words. Privately, alert the student to this plan so that he does not feel pressured to come up with an answer quickly.
As the student’s word-retrieval problem interferes with the fluency of his oral reading, do not require the student to real aloud in the classroom. Call on the student if he volunteers.
Never assume that the student has prior knowledge or previous experience of the words or information you are using to teach new concepts.
Modify assignments to accommodate the student’s language impairment. For example, to accommodate a weakness in formulating sentences, reduce the length of an assigned report.
When grading the student’s papers, make allowances for the effect of his specific language difficulties. For example, overlook grammatical errors in a paper with good conceptual content.
Waive foreign language requirements for the student.
Encourage the use of newly learned language skills in the classroom. Structure situations that require the student to use the skills he is working to develop. Reinforce the student for use of new language skills by recognizing the value of the information he has offered or the clarity with which it was stated.

TEACHING PRINCIPLES TO DEVELOP ORAL LANGUAGE

Introduce activities and tasks by explicitly stating the focus and purpose – what the student is meant to learn and why.
Provide ample examples of a new concept or skill that relate the new information to what is already known.
Help the student organize and relate new and known content area information and skills by using metacognitive strategies such as the K-W-L-S (Know, Want to Find Out, Learned, Still Need to Learn) Strategy.
Begin language remediation for the student in contextualized language (speaking about things in the immediate environment and pertaining to the current situation) and move gradually into de-contextualized language.
Use reading and writing as models for oral language skills as well as for reinforcement.
Integrate oral language, reading, and writing for all language skills taught. When presenting any new skill or concept, move from pictorial stimuli to print (reading/writing) and oral language (listening/speaking). For example, when teaching cause/effect terms, use pictures that clearly depict the relationship, then offer printed sentences that denote the relationship. Move into oral comprehension, oral expression, and writing.
When teaching any new process or skill, provide slow, step-by-sep instruction.
When introducing a new concept, skill, or language pattern, use simple sentence structures and familiar, concrete vocabulary so that the focus of attention is on the new information.
Draw the student’s attention to new concepts, words, or constructs by placing vocal stress on them when speaking.
When initially introducing a new concept, present the information more slowly than you would when speaking about a familiar concept.
Provide redundancy and repetition in teaching any new concept. Repeat important statements verbatim and explain the concept in a variety of ways.
Teach new concepts and skills within thematic units so that all new learning is interrelated conceptually. The thematic unit provides a consistent framework and familiar context to facilitate the introduction of new concepts and skills.
Within thematic units, use many contexts to highlight the concept or skill you are introducing. For example, if teaching temporal relationships in social studies, you might read about how ancient people using interesting rock formations and discuss the sequence of events in the story. For science, you might do experiments with different types of rocks, using the specific temporal terms you are teaching in your instructions as well as in class discussions after the experiment.
Encourage reading in the classroom. Use incentives for the student if necessary. Reading will help the student improve their vocabulary and syntactical knowledge.
Do not exclusively use reading materials that are highly dependent on word families and specific phonic elements. The necessity of maintaining particular word forms restricts the use of meaningful, familiar language, making it difficult for the student to predict upcoming words and syntactic forms.

Multimodality Instruction to Support Oral Language

Present all types of verbal information accompanied by visual stimuli that clearly illustrates the concept being taught. Examples are pictures, charts, graphs, semantic maps, and videotapes. Simultaneous visual-verbal presentation is necessary for the student’s comprehension and retention of the information.
Teach the student to create a visual image of what is heard or read so that they can produce a visual input to supplement verbal information.
If the student is unable to take in auditory and visual information simultaneously, direct the student to look at the complete visual display, and then direct them to the portion of it about which you will be speaking. When he has had adequate time to look at the illustration, give a brief oral explanation. Then, direct the student to look at the visual again.
When possible, involve the student in concept or skill learning tactile-kinesthetically or experientially.
Be aware that the student’s ability to benefit from any activity that is purely auditory, such as round-robin reading, is extremely limited.

Lecture Strategies to Support Oral Language

When lecturing, present ideas in an organized and logical sequence. Keep the points as simple as possible and group related information.
When presenting lectures, use an overhead projector to highlight the important points.
Prior to beginning a lecture, write on the board the important points to be covered and review the major points at the end of the lecture. This will help the student recognize and retain the critical information.
Provide the student with an outline of questions to follow during a lecture. Go over the questions before beginning the lecture and guide a discussion of the answers after the lecture.
For increased comprehension of lectures, provide the student with a study guide that identifies the critical information. Encourage the student to complete the study guide and then use it to study for exams.

Strategies for Teaching Students to Follow Instructions & Support Oral Language

Use barrier games to develop the awareness that careful listening is necessary for following instructions.
Teach the student to monitor his understanding of instructions so that he recognizes when there is the need to ask for clarification. Some techniques for this purpose are barrier games and giving instructions that have ambiguous or nonsense statements in them.
In order to teach the student when to recognize the need for clarification of instructions, present instructions in which information is either missing, unclear or incompatible with another statement. Teach the student how to ask specific questions for clarification.
Teach the student to comprehend the sequence of instructions, the terms used to denote sequence, and a strategy to remember more than two steps.
Use barrier games to practice following directions using spatial terms, such as right top, below, and center. Tape-record the instructions given by the teacher and the student. In the case of a disagreement about the wording of instructions given, the tape may be played back.
Once the student has learned basic spatial terms, teach him to follow spatial directions on a map. Start with maps of familiar areas, such as the student’s house.
Teach the student to write lists of things he has to do or remember.

Vocabulary Building Strategies to Support Oral Language

To increase vocabulary, emphasize building general knowledge.
Directly work on vocabulary development in reading, writing, and oral discussion. Ensure that oral vocabulary continues to develop and that new words are pronounced and used correctly.
Correct mispronunciations by teaching the student the correct spelling of a word.
Expose the student to multiple repetitions of new words in many different contexts and settings.
When teaching vocabulary, do not use passive learning activities such as looking works up in the dictionary and memorizing their definitions.
When teaching vocabulary, activate the student’s awareness of his familiarity or lack of familiarity with the words.
Teach all new vocabulary by association with known concepts.
Focus on building receptive and expressive vocabulary skills through vocabulary games based on any unfamiliar words the student finds in his reading or hears during the day.
Introduce new vocabulary by expanding the student’s statements. For example, if the student says, “The house is old and ugly,” the teacher might say, “Yes, that house looks dilapidated.”
Use interesting pictures to foster and reinforce vocabulary development. The book Animalia (Base, 1986) present numerous objects and activities in detailed pictures. Each page represents a letter; all of the pictures on the page begin with that letter.
Read stories to the student that are on or slightly above his language level. Discuss any unknown words using pictures or known synonyms. Provide ample practice in using the new words.
Directly teach the student that words can have more than one meaning. Teach multiple meanings and provide practice in using them.
Teach the student to use a thesaurus for writing.

Concept Building Strategies to Support Oral Language

Play games that focus on word meanings. These include thinking of words that go together, making collages of pictures that go together, and discussing how the words or pictures are related. Later, incorporate the concept of opposites.
Play games with the student while driving in the car or when taking a walk that will require him to categorize words. For example, you may say, “Tell me everything you see that looks like a circle” or, “Tell me everything you see that is a machine.”
Play games in which the student tells how two or more objects or groups of objects are similar.
Teach the student the meaning of question words (e.g. what, when, where, why, and how). During play activities, ask questions using these words and guide the student to the appropriate answer. Later, use the question words in less experiential settings, such as before, during, or after a story is read (e.g. “Look at the picture. What is happening? Why do you think the boy is doing that?”)
Devise activities to develop the idea of sequence in daily events, in the different parts of one event, and in the events within the story. Use sequence words (e.g. “first,” “second,” and “finally”) to describe the events and set up situations in which the student demonstrates comprehension of these words (e.g. “What did we do second?”)
Plan experiences with the student in which he helps to decide the necessary sequence of activities. Within these situations, teach comprehension and expression of temporal and sequence words (e.g. “first,” “before,” “later,” “last”).
Teach/reinforce positional (e.g. first/last), directional (e.g. right/left) and quantitative (e.g. more, fewer) concepts by using them in a variety of experiential contexts.
Directly teach the concepts antonyms and synonyms and provide many activities for practice in finding antonyms and synonyms for given words.
Use all possible situations to teach the student words for feelings. Ask what he is feeling during or after specific activities and conflicts.
Teach the student to comprehend the linguistic relationships signaled by temporal, spatial, cause/effect, analogous, exceptional, and comparative terms. Teach the student a variety of specific terms for each of these concepts.

Word Retrieval Strategies to Support Oral Language

Ensure that all new words presented are well integrated into a conceptual framework and firmly understood.
Provide activities to reinforce integration of recently learned and familiar words within a strong conceptual framework. Strong associations with known words and concepts might help to prevent word-retrieval difficulties.
Teach the student to recognize when he is having difficulty retrieving a word so that he may use a retrieval strategy.
Teach the student to visualize the object or the spelling of the word to prompt recall of the verbal label.
Teach the student to think of a category for the target word and mentally list associated objects to try and prompt recall.
Teach the student to visualize a different context for the word and mentally describe it with a sentence.
To facilitate word retrieval, encourage the student to try to recall and say the first sound of the word.
To facilitate word retrieval, teach the student to “talk around the word,” describing its appearance, function, and/or category.
If the student cannot recall a word, encourage him to use a synonym.

Organizational Structures for Narrative and Expository Writing Strategies in Support of Oral Language

Teach the student to use a story grammar for following, retelling, and generating narratives.
Until the student becomes more familiar with expository structure, present informational material in narrative structure.
Select reading and listening materials with clear organizational structures. For example, it may be easier for a student to understand and recall a story containing all the elements of a story grammar (e.g. setting, problem, internal response, attempt at resolution, consequence, ending) than to infer those elements from a story written in repeated language such as “The House that Jack Built.”
Teach the student to recognize the structure of the type of discourse and text you are using in the classroom. For example, if working with stories in a narrative structure, teach the student to recognize the elements of a story grammar. For expository discourse or text, teach structures such as comparison/contrast and enumeration.
Teach the student the differences between narrative and expository styles. As a basis for discussion, give the student a paragraph written in narrative style and another written in expository style, but with similar information. Discuss with the student the stylistic differences.
Directly teach the student to understand the organizational structure of expository material. Examples of expository paragraph structures include: sequence (main idea and details which must be given in a specific order), enumerative (topic sentence and supportive examples), cause/effect (topic sentence and details telling why), descriptive (topic sentence and description of attributes), problem solving (statement of problem followed by description, causes, solutions), and comparison/contrast (statements of differences and similarities).
Teach the student different ways information might be organized and draw a visual pattern to illustrate that type of organization. For example, contrast might be depicted as a divided square with two subheadings and blocks down the side for categories; description might be depicted as a tree with small branches coming off each major limb; and cause/effect might be depicted as a circle or number of circles with an arrow leading from one circle to another; chronological sequence might be depicted as a timeline. Subsequently, teach the student to recognize these patterns in reading material and orally presented information and to use these patterns to organize information for writing.
Use simple semantic mapping to help the student organize information for a short oral report. First the student can base the report on notes written from the semantic map; later he should learn to organize thoughts into a mental semantic map to guide expression of ideas.
Ensure than any strategy the student learns for oral comprehension is generalized to speaking and writing.

Generation of Ideas through Strategies to Support Oral Language

Facilitate the student’s ability to generate ideas by using a variety of techniques including: (a) story starters, (b) expansion of one sentence by using reporter questions (e.g. who, what, when, where, why, how), (c) story structures with specific questions to facilitate each element, and (d) brainstorming with retention of only those sentences that can be related to each other, adding details or story elements as needed.
Use story or movie retellings to facilitate generation of ideas for speaking or writing.
To facilitate generation of ideas, provide the student with an outline of a story or report on a familiar topic. Have the student fill in missing information. Gradually decrease the amount of information given in the outline.
Teach the student elaborate on explanations and information he gives to others by recognizing the extent of or lack of shared knowledge and providing more detail accordingly.

Sentence Structure Strategies to Support Oral Language

Provide visual cues for teaching morphological markers. For example, to highlight the concept of plural s, you could use a picture of two cats with an s after the second cat. To illustrate the concept of er, use a picture of a can of paint with er written after it followed by an equal sign and a picture of a person painting a house.
When correcting the student’s syntactic errors and modeling correct word order, speak slowly and change as little as necessary to make the sentence correct. Write the sentence and have him read it or say the sentence correctly and ask him to repeat it.
Use pictures to accompany activities in oral sentence comprehension.
Use written sentences or phrases to accompany activities in oral sentence comprehension.
Repeatedly expose the student to complex sentence structures in stories before introducing these sentence structures out of context for remediation activities.
Teach the student strategies for interpreting complex sentence structures.
Specifically teach the student the meaning of transition words and how they signal the relationship between dominant and subordinate clauses. Teach the student to write complex sentences and then to use them in his expressive language.
When teaching the meanings of and providing practice in the use of specific connecting words, maintain awareness of the difficulty of complex sentence structures, probable versus non-probable event sequences, and the level of vocabulary and concepts.
Provide a variety of activities in which the student combines given phrases and selected transition words into complex sentences.
Provide extensive oral practice with sentence combining exercises. Present the student with several clauses or short sentences and have him generate as many sentence patterns as he can by using a variety of connecting words. As an alternative activity, provide the student with a specific word or words to use in joining several clauses or sentences.
Once the student is proficient with a basic level of complex sentences, teach him to understand and use sentences containing relative clauses (e.g. clauses embedded in a sentence that begin with the words such as who, what, where, that).
Teach the student to comprehend passive voice by constructing active sentences out of word cards. Show the student how to re-sequence them, adding cards for was and by to create passive sentences or omitting was and by to create active sentences.
Due to the student’s dependence on using an “order of mention” strategy to interpret sentences, teach the student that word order does not necessarily imply sentence meaning. Provide training to move the student from semantically oriented comprehension to syntactically oriented comprehension.
Teach the student to interpret sentences in which the order of mention does not match the order of events.

Sentence Formulation Strategies to Support Oral Language

Teach the student how to sequence his ideas mentally so that he can state them in an organized fashion. For example, before speaking, he should ask, “What is the beginning of what I want to say? The middle? The end?”
Use elaboration to model how the student might add details and information to his statements.

Inference Strategies to Support Oral Language

Guide the student to infer the feelings of classmates and characters in stories and movies.
Give the student practice in determining what materials, tools, or pieces of information are missing in given situations. First, use actual situations. Later, have the student consider situations that are familiar but are not actually happening. Finally, use situations that are less familiar, requiring more generalization from what he already knows.
Use pictures and devise activities to given the student practice in interpolative thinking – inferring the middle event when told the first and last event.
Teach the student to infer information that is not given in instructions and stories.
While reading stories, watching videotapes, and conducting simple science experiments, encourage the student to predict the outcome. Afterwards, ask him to evaluate the prediction.
Provide activities to help the student develop an “inferential mind set,” the understanding that inferences based on prior knowledge are necessary for understanding of reading/listening material. These activities are often best done in a small group.
Use techniques to activate prior knowledge before introducing new concepts, reading material, or oral information. Directly teach the student the necessity of using his own prior knowledge and experience to help understand the information.
Use predicting strategies in listening and reading activities to increase the student’s comprehension and retention of implied information.
Teach the student how to recognize when information is missing from discourse or text and the type of information that needs to be inferred.
Teach the student how to make inferences within sentences before teaching inferencing across sentences.

Strategies to Teach Figurative Language while Supporting Oral Language

Teach the student to understand and use figurative language such as metaphors (e.g. the teacher watched him with an eagle eye), similes (e.g. the teacher watched him like a hawk), idioms (e.g. he threw away a wonderful opportunity), and proverbs (e.g. necessity is the mother of invention).
Teach the student to understand humor such as jokes and riddles. Use direct explanation, many examples, and pictures, where appropriate.
Teach the student to recognize the humor in intentional ambiguity (e.g. won’t you join me in a cup of tea?).
Teach the student to recognize ambiguity in his own sentences and provide clarification, or, in someone else’s sentences, ask for clarification.

Teaching Elements of Style in Support of Oral Language

Teach the student to write in a more literate style. Use practice in literate writing as a basis for practicing a literate style of speaking.
To facilitate writing and speaking in a more literate style, teach the student to differentiate between oral and literate language. A sequence of activities requiring increasing skill may include: (a) dividing pairs of sentences into categories of style (oral and literate), (b) labeling a given sentence as oral or literate in style, (c) rewriting sentence from oral to literate style based on previous practice in complex sentence structures and cohesive devices, and (d) rewriting passages in a variety of styles.

Strategies to Build Pragmatics in the Support of Oral Language

Provide situations in which pretend play and role playing are encouraged.
To teach pragmatic language skills, use a combination of modeling, direct teaching, and videotaping.
Teach the student how to take the existence or lack of a shared context into account when speaking to someone else.
Develop awareness in the student of the need to provide the listener with sufficient information when introducing and discussing experiences.
Teach the student to be aware of what information the listener could be expected to have. Teach him to explain people and places he discusses in narratives.
Teach the student to be sure that the referent for each pronoun and deictic term he uses (e.g. here, there, this, that) is clear.

Strategies to Build Social Language in the Support of Oral Language

Teach the student how to change his manner of speech depending upon to whom he is speaking.
Teach the student to interpret the social language of his peers and how to use social language in a variety of situations.
Teach the student how to take turns in a game, discussion or conversation.
Teach the student how to maintain the topic in a conversation.

GENERAL STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP BROAD READING SKILLS

Provide the student with as much individualized instruction as possible. Elicit the help of volunteer, peer or cross-age tutors.
To help in transfer of any newly learned skill or strategy, secure agreement from the regular classroom teacher to remind the student to use the skill/strategy when appropriate. Devise a method for monitoring the frequency and accuracy of his use of the skill.
Directly teach the student to generalize each new reading skill he learns to functional reading in other areas of the curriculum.
Place the student in reading materials at the ___ grade level. Use of a reading text to support the classroom series may be utilized.

Homework/Assignment Strategies to Develop Broad Reading Skills

Reduce the length of the student’s reading assignments so that he can complete them in the allotted time.
When assigning reading to the student, base the number of pages on his reading rate and skill.
Assign the student short passages at his reading level so that he can complete his reading without difficulty.
As an alternative to assigning the student a specific number of pages to read in class or for homework, specify a certain amount of time for the student to read. Have the student keep a record of the number of pages completed within the time period.
Teach the student to see his reading assignments in smaller, more manageable units of text (e.g. one chapter, sections within a chapter or paragraphs within a section).

Coding Strategies to Develop Broad Reading Skills

Before the student reads a textbook, color-code with a yellow highlighter the sections that are most important for him to read.
Using a yellow highlighter, underline the main ideas and concepts in the text so that the student will know what is important.
Using a dark felt-tip pen, delete all materials from the text that are not considered critical for the student to read.
Using different color markers, highlight specific types of information in the text that the student should know. For example, highlight important vocabulary words in pink, important concepts in yellow, and important names and dates in green.

Utilization of Taped Books to Develop Broad Reading Skills

If a reading selection is too difficult for the student to read independently, have a peer read it with him or have the student listen to a tape of the book as he follows along with the print.
Since his listening comprehension is at approximately a higher grade level, but his reading comprehension is at a lower grade level, allow the student to listen to taped content area textbooks and to take oral examinations.
Give the student a study guide or a cloze passage to complete as he listens to the text. Have him hit the pause button or turn off the tape recorder whenever he needs to write in information. Encourage him to rewind the tape as needed.

Motivational Strategies to Develop Broad Reading Skills

For independent reading activities, provide the student with a selection of high-interest, low-vocabulary readers so that he will discover that reading is enjoyable.
Read and discuss high-interest materials with the student to increase his willingness to spend time reading.
Select or have the student choose materials to read that are directly related to his interests.
Encourage the student to discuss with others the materials that he has read. Provide structured activities for these types of discussions within the classroom.
Have the student share with the class or a small group something interesting she he has learned from a book.
Set aside a certain amount of time each day for recreational reading.
Do not ask the student to read aloud in class unless he volunteers.
Inform the student of the passage that he will be asked to read aloud in class. Have the student practice the material several times, before he is asked to read to the group.
Encourage and reinforce independent reading.
Discuss with the student how daily silent reading will help him improve reading skill.
Establish a system using reinforcers to increase the amount of time the student spends in daily reading.
Establish a contract with the student that identifies the minimum number of pages he will read in a day.
Increase the student’s exposure to literature and nonfiction books.
Use a variety of reading materials in the classroom to help the student recognize the need for reading in daily life (e.g. cookbooks, board games, magazines, newpapers, menus, directions on food and medicine packages, game instructions, catalogues, the Yellow pages, a TV schedule, or a driver’s manual).
Provide the student with reading materials directly related to his career or vocational goals.

Learning Basic Skills for the Development of Broad Reading Skills

Before and as you teach the student any skill, build in an understanding of why the skill is important(e.g. how punctuation may change the meaning of a sentence, how a sequence of letters changes how a word is pronounced) and how the skill is applied.
Help the student learn common reading terminology such as: letter name, letter sound, word, syllable, sentence, and paragraph.
Provide ample practice with basic reading skills in context. Directly teach the student to recognize when and how to apply the skills he is mastering.
Provide the student with systematic instruction in basic skills, as well as extensive opportunities to read meaningful texts.
Provide the student with the opportunity to teach any reading skill that is close to mastery to a peer or younger student who needs that skill.
Simultaneously teach recognizing, naming, and writing of letters.
When teaching the student the alphabet, introduce a few letters at a time. Once he has mastered these letters, introduce a few more.
Do not teach the student upper and lowercase letter simultaneously. Introduce the other letter form after one form is mastered.
Discuss with the student that some words are not consistent in sound-symbol correspondence and that these irregular words must be memorized or learned as sight words.
Teach sight words from one of the lists of words most frequently used in reading materials, such as the 220 words of the Dolch Basic Sight Word List or 1,000 Instant Words.
Have the student develop a word box. He may use a recipe box with letter tabs or a shoe box with envelopes to file the words alphabetically. Have the student add only words that he knows to the box.
Have the student write the words that he is learning on index cards. On the other side, have him put a picture or a phrase that will help him remember the word. Have him file the words in a word box.
Provide the student with many and varied opportunities for review of the sight words in his word box. Fox example, have the student each his words to another student, write a story using the words or sort them into categories.
Teach the student to classify words from his sight word box into a variety of categories, such as grouping all the words that relate to action, all the words that are used to describe, or all the words for animals or colors.
Create modified cloze exercises. Have the student fill in the blanks in sentences using the words from his word box.
Teach the student survival sight words, such as exit, entrance, danger, men, women, and yield.
Provide the student with practice reading informational signs in the environment.
For independent reading, provide the student with an electronic speaking dictionary with translation capability.

Learning Letter-Sound Associations for the Development of Broad Reading Skills

Help the student understand the reason for learning letter sound associations and how these skills are applied in beginning reading to determine unfamiliar words.
When introducing letter-sound instruction, use pictures that will help the student remember the letter, shape, and sound.
Play games with the student to help him activate, organize, and develop his knowledge of the relationship between letters and words.
When the student is familiar with many of the consonants and vowels, point out to him how the letters are put together to make up words and how the words go together to make sentences. Build in the concept that letters and words are the building blocks of written language.
When teaching the student the sound of each letter of the alphabet, think up a word that he knows that begins with the letter. This may help the student recall the letter through association with a word.
Have the student create his own set of alphabet cards. On each card have him write a letter and then draw a picture of a word that begins with that letter.
When practicing with alphabet cards, have the student say the letter name and then identify the sound and associated word.
Use language clues for teaching the sounds of frequently confused letters, such as m and n. For example, a short verbal cue could be: M has many mountains and N does not.
If the student has difficulty retaining new phonic elements, add a tactile component, such as tracing the new letter-sound combinations as they are learned. Reinforce the element by having him say the sound while he writes the letter(s) from memory.
Provide daily drill and review of the common phonic elements that the student is learning by selecting a list of words from his reading material.
Ask the student to find and attempt to pronounce words in his reading materials that include one or two of the phonics elements he is learning.
Use letter tiles to teach the concept of sound sequencing and blending. Arrange a given set of tiles and have the student attempt to pronounce real or nonsense words. Re-sequence, omit, add or substitute one letter at a time and have the student pronounce the new word. For a change of activity, pronounce a word and have the student arrange the letters to match the sequence of sounds. Modify the pronunciation slightly and have the student rearrange the letter tiles.
Use high-interest books with few pictures so the student will pay more attention to graphophonic clues.
To help the student improve his ability to use graphophonic information, discourage reliance on pictures as aids for word recognition.
Since students tend to overrely on the use of context clues for word recognition, directly teach him to use graphophonic information.
Praise the student for any attempts he makes at pronouncing unknown words when reading aloud. Encourage him to try and identify the word rather than guessing or skipping over the word.
When the student is reading independently, do no encourage him to skip words. Instead, teach the student to examine the word carefully and then reread the sentence in which the word appears. Discuss with the student how attempting to pronounce unknown words, when he is reading independently, will improve his word attack skills.
Provide the student with practice in word attack skills using high interest reading materials. When the student comes to a word that he does not know, provide phonic clues to help him identify the word.
When you are working with the student on one particular morpheme, such as ing or ed, color code it each time it appears in the text prior to reading the passage.
When teaching the student phonic skills, be sure to focus also on time for activities involving language and reading comprehension.

Improving Fluency for the Development of Broad Reading Skills

Have the student listen to a taped passage or a short book over and over as he reads along with the tape. When he has mastered the passage or book, have him read it to someone else.
Have the student listen to taped books as he reads along with a copy of the book.
Provide the student with taped copies of all his textbooks.
Have him listen to his tapes with headsets as he reads along during all independent reading times.
Provide the student with information on how to obtain taped books. Many public libraries also have a selection of taped books.

Improving Comprehension Skills for the Development of Broad Reading Skills

When providing instruction in reading comprehension, make sure that the student’s instructional materials are at the independent reading level in word recognition. Materials at the independent level will allow the student to devote attention to the comprehension activities.
Place a student in a reading group based on his present performance level in language and reading comprehension, rather than his performance in word identification skills.
Praise the student for independently using any new skills and strategies in his reading.
Present purposeful reading assignments. For example, within text have the student locate and take notes on information that he will use to lead a discussion or provide information to his cooperative learning group.
Ensure that any selected comprehension strategies for the student involve active participation. This will help the student pay attention and increase understanding of the material.
Before the student reads a chapter or a book, let him know that you will have a conference after he is finished to discuss his reaction to the material.
Use the language experience approach to reading instruction with the student and place an emphasis on comprehension activities, such as forming questions, paraphrasing the story, or using context clues to identify words.
Teach the student the importance of punctuation for understanding the meaning of a passage.
Teach the student critical reading skills such as recognition of fact vs. opinion, objective vs. persuasive language, supported vs. unsupported generalizations, and valid vs. invalid arguments.
Help the student improve his reading comprehension skills using texts that will be required or similar to the types required in his courses.

Accessing Background Knowledge for the Development of Broad Reading Skills

Before assigning a reading selection to the student, find out what he already knows about the topic. If he lacks the knowledge necessary to understand the selection, preteach the necessary background information.
Before assigning independent reading, make sure that the student has the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to understand the story or chapter. Help the student relate any new information to his own experiences.
When teaching the student new concepts, attempt to relate them to ideas that he already understands by using analogies from his own experience.
Prior to or after reading with the student, try to relate an event or character in the story to your own lives.
Teach the student to read actively for meaning, attempting to associate the meaning of the passage with his own knowledge or experience.
Help the student understand the meaning of concepts in his texts with which he has not had direct experience.
Read a selection with the student before asking him to read it independently. Make sure that he understands all new concepts and vocabulary.
Before assigning independent reading, provide a preview of all new concepts and vocabulary in the assignments. List them on the board and provide ample opportunities for discussion.
Use a K-W-L-S strategy to help the student organize his knowledge of a topic both before and after reading a passage.
When eliciting background knowledge from the student, try to organize the information in a semantic map. The final diagram should visually present the information in such a way that the relationships are evident. Seeing his own information organized in this way will help him create a framework to accommodate new information.
As a prereading activity to set a purpose for content area reading, create a Semantic Feature Analysis chart. This chart will help the student activate prior knowledge about the topic, note key vocabulary and concepts, and think about the relationships among them. Have the student fill out as much of the chart as he can prior to reading the selection and then correct or confirm his predictions after reading the selection. This procedure is particularly effective in a group setting as students discuss their reasons for choices both before and after reading.
Follow these guidelines to help the student develop prior knowledge: (a) build upon what the student already knows, (b) provide much of the background information through discussion, (c) provide real-life experiences, (d) explain parts of the passage before the student reads it, (e) help the student develop expand his knowledge, and (f) encourage wide reading.

Accessing Vocabulary for the Development of Broad Reading Skills

Do not teach vocabulary from lists unrelated to classroom context. Select new vocabulary directly from the student’s reading, your lecture or classroom projects. Ensure his ability to understand and use these words in context before presenting new words.
Teach new vocabulary in the student’s reading selections by using synonyms or short phrases. Simplify dictionary definitions.
Help the student relate new vocabulary words and their meanings to his own experiences. Elicit from the student any associated words that he knows. This will aid in retention and alert you to misinterpretations of word meaning.

Using Context Clues in the Development of Broad Reading Skills

Teach the student additional ways to use his good reasoning and language skills to identify unfamiliar words. One suggestions is to have him look at the first few letters or any part of the word that he recognizes, read to the end of the sentence for clues about what word makes sense, and then go back and identify the unknown word.
In reading, encourage the student to use context clues and directly teach a variety of ways to do so (e.g. reading to the end of a sentence, recognizing definitions, monitoring whether or not what he is reading makes sense).
Teach the student how to monitor his reading for meaning, as well as how to use specific strategies when what he has read did not make sense (e.g. use context clues, reread, ask someone).
Teach the student how to recognize and use a variety of context clues within the text. Examples include: direct explanation (within an appositive, signaled by “that is,” or explained later in the paragraph); explanation through example; synonym or restatement; summary; comparison or contrast; words in a series; and inference.

Using Cloze Procedures for the Development of Broad Reading Skills

Use the cloze procedure to increase the student’s ability to use syntactic and semantic information. Systematically delete keywords that can be identified using the context.