In a message dated 7/28/2007 12:10:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Is it more effective for ESL students to learn to read first and focus less on comprehension, or should ESL students focus more on comprehension and less on accuracy? ------------ I would agree that working on BOTH accuracy (decoding) and comprehension simultaneously is the key.
My first "pure" ESL student (not speaking one word of English) arrived in my 2nd grade classroom last year and she began to understand English more quickly than she could read English. I had my ESL in two groups. One group that read very emergent (F&P levels F-G) with a couple of my special ed cherubs and one group that read at grade level and then I would read TO/WITH her. However, after only a month or so, this little ESL soon became frustrated when meeting with the emergent group because of their special needs and needing to be constantly refocused on the discussion. So I moved her to an entirely different group with a couple of Title I Reading kids, just slightly below grade level. I had to work with her a lot in that group, so I finally decided just to take her one-on-one as often as I could for anywhere from 5-20 minutes. She progressed, but was not "catching up" as quickly as I would have liked. Thankfully at that point (February?), our Reading Recovery teacher found an open slot and took her for 30 minutes and worked through that program with her. WOW! I have always been a supporter of that program, but now I'm really a CHEERLEADER! I'm happy to say that she was reading orally AT GRADE LEVEL by the end of the year. She still had a BIG background knowledge and vocabulary deficit, but could decode 2nd grade material accurately and fluently. (Background knowledge is an entirely different thread as you all know.) At any rate, while the RR Teacher worked one-on-one with decoding and comp at the emergent level, I was able to place her in a group and work mainly on comprehension (and some decoding) at grade level. This "double-dipping" worked well and I was so pleased with her growth! I know this scenario will not work for everyone and it probably will not even be an option for me in the future (it just worked out this year). But if I have another pure ESL student like this one, you bet I'll be asking for advice from my RR teacher and simultaneously work on comprehension and decoding/accuracy. By the way, I also regularly ordered LOTS of Spanish and bilingual books from the "Club Leo" Spanish book orders from Scholastic last year so my ESL student could read those books as well during independent reading. Then I felt comfortable that she had plenty of material that she could actually read and comprehend. She was VERY excited when she saw the first few Spanish books come out of the box and devoured those books within days, reading them and talking about them with me in class, and taking them home to share with her family along with the English books that she read nightly. Good luck to you and your fellow students. I think you all are VERY lucky to have such an excellent instructor! Michelle TG/IA http://www.mrstg.com _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
