Assignment 3
US History Lession
If you were preparing a US History lesson for ELL, (1) how would you develop their background knowledge, vocabulary, and approaches to reading a history text? (2) What strategies from the book or that you have observed in the classroom seem most useful? (3) How would you teach students to become expert questioners of text they are reading? (4) How would you develop their confidence as readers? (5) How do you use interactive read alouds as explained in the video, Rick’s Reading Workshop? Post your response to your reading circle. Please state your responses 1-5.
1. Background knowledge, vocabulary, approaches to reading
For background knowledge, I would use an anticipation guide to see what concepts or content the students already know or are familiar with. One vocabulary strategy is to have students select words they are not familiar with and use the Frayer model to gain a better understanding of the word. Lastly, when approaching text, I would have the students preview the text and look for heading, subheadings and bolded words. We would have a class discussion previewing the ideas in the text.
2. Strategies
Some useful strategies from the book are the looking for the cohesive ties in text and discussion of story elements. Cohesive ties are also known as transitions. Discussing transitions with students can help with reading and writing. The student can read text with transitions and then model it in their writing. Also, it is important to discuss and/or review story elements with the students before reading literature. Students can look for cues to the elements as they read and or listening to the text.
3. Expert Questioners
As a teacher, I introduce DOK questions with the students. The goal is for the students to write and answer their own level 2 and level 3 questions. This strategy requires the I do, we do, you do modeling technique. It will not happen with one text, it has to be done over and over again, so students learn to write better questions each time.
4. Readers
There has to a sense of trust in the classroom. Once again this trust takes time to build. The students have to feel the classroom is a safe place to read and to talk. The teacher should also be positive with the students and not do a lot of corrections.
5. Read Alouds
Read Alouds like the one in Rick's video are important so student see and model the thinking process as they read. These types of activity can aid in comprehension. It can also help students with higher level thinking and analyzing of the text. On a more basic level, it allows students to hear the vocabulary and how it is used in the text.