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 Literacy Development 

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Reading

For Emergent Bilinguals to be successful in learning to read, they need a balanced approach to literacy instruction that integrates reading, writing, listening, and speaking (Wright, P. 192). Teachers need to have clear expectations of what it is their students should know how to do. The context and communication needs to be differentiated, authentic, and meaningful for students so that each child has a chance to be equally successful in learning to read.

Five Pillars of Literacy Instruction

Phonemic Awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate phonemes (the smallest units of sound) in spoken words. 

For example, rhyming and repetition would represent phonemic awareness. 

Considerations: 

  • When working with emergent bilinguals it is important to consider that a phoneme may not be present in their home language. For example, Spanish only has five vowel phonemes whereas English has more than five. 

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Phonics is the relationship between letters and sounds to create spoken words. This helps the reader to recognize familiar words and decode unfamiliar ones (Anonymous, 2015).

Considerations: 

  • Students may be familiar with some words and sounds in their native written language but this may be different from the function of their new written language. For example, English Language vs. Chinese Language.

  • Some students who know how to read and write in Spanish may easily transfer over their skills to English with consonants but may need work with vowel sounds due to the varying vowel sounds.

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Fluency is the ability to read words accurately and quickly. Two instructional approaches to literacy are guided repeated oral reading and independent silent reading (Anonymous, 2015).

Considerations:

  • Emergent bilinguals should be encouraged to start out reading in their first language.

  • Fluency is not the same thing as accent.

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Vocabulary is the interpretation of words (meanings and pronunciations) that are necessary for communication. Vocabulary is learned over time and is eventually stored into the brain. Vocabulary is key to making meaning of the content.

Considerations: 

  • Context is important with learning vocabulary, thus making learning vocabulary quite challenging for emergent bilinguals.

  • Scientific Research shows that children indirectly learn vocabulary through:

    • Conversations (mostly with adults)

    • Listening to adults read to them

    • Reading extensively on their own (CIERA, 2001). ​

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Comprehension is the acquisition of all reading skills and the ultimate goal of learning to read. Reading Comprehension relies on the mastery of the four other pillars (Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, and Fluency. 

Considerations: 

  • Encourage students to scan texts beforehand so they get an idea of what they may be reading. 

  • Teachers should expose students to higher order thinking texts and skills as they may not be as exposed to these at home.

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Role of home language on English Literacy Learning

Even though the student's home language might be different than what the targeted language is, it is a great asset and has such an important job in English Literacy Learning. It is important for students to understand that print carries meaning and that the direction of print is usually left to right. â€‹â€‹â€‹

Three activities to support students in reading TO, WITH, and BY emergent bilinguals:​

1. Shared Readings (TO/WITH)

Shared Readings are when usually in a whole-group instruction setting. This text is usually at a level that is beyond a student's ability to read. The idea of shared readings are so that teachers can model specific behaviors/strategies and students can ask questions. 

Picture Credit: https://thisreadingmama.com/shared-reading-ideas-printable/

  1. Reader's Theatre (WITH)

  2. Shared readings (TO/WITH)

  3. Narrow Reading (BY)

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2. Reader's Theatre (WITH)

Reader's theatre is when students will read a story or script out loud as a group. The best thing about reader's theatre is it build fluency and becomes very familiar to students quickly. This allows them to build prosody and ultimately allows them to comprehend the text well. 

Picture Credit: https://strategiesforspecialinterventions.weebly.com/readers-theatre.html

3. Narrow Reading (BY) 

Narrow reading is when students read multiple books about the same topic, by the same other, or using the same style. Students start to become more familiar with the content and work towards the goal of comprehension and fluency. The picture on the right shows an example of Narrow Reading and what that could look like regarding a specific topic.

Picture Credit: https://www.slideshare.net/wardn1/making-thematic-narrow-reading-work-in-an-elementary-esl-context-3526705

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Writing

​About teaching writing to emergent bilinguals, we know that writing is one of the most important skills students will learn in school and it is crucial to their success as students. With the writing process, students are constantly reflecting and can use their skills to show their understanding. Emergent bilinguals face many challenges when learning a new language such as learning speaking skills while also learning writing skills, may not be familiar with the Roman alphabet, or have the same topic knowledge as native English-speaking writers due to their home life and experience (Wright, P. 223-224). 

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An emergent bilingual's first language affects learning to write in English by allowing the students to use skills from their first language to help them learn their second language. This is also known as cross language transfer. (Wright, P. 187).

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What helps emergent bilinguals learn to write?  

  • There are three genres required by the Common Core State Standards: Narrative, Expository/Informative, and Argumentative/Opinion. 

  • Scaffolding can also help emergent bilinguals learn to write. Some scaffolding techniques are:

    • Sentence Frames - ​

    • The Gradual Release Model -Teachers teach students strategies to use in their writing before they go off on their own and choose which strategies will best fit their writing goal. 

  • ​Supports for Writers:
    •  Word walls (high frequency and/or sight words)
    • Thematic word charts
    • Vocabulary word walls with words
    • Images 

    • Good teaching techniques for all students (mentor texts (models))

    • Clear rubrics / expectations

  • Three Activities that Support Writing Development:

    • 3.2 Moments with Strong Feelings - Students can identify different emotions and write about a time when they felt that emotion strongly (Seravallo, p. 95).​ 

      • Use this site to learn more --->​

    • ​5.18 Start with a Plan in Mind -Before writing a story or paragraph, students are encouraged to use a visual representation to map out the different parts of their story/paragraph and physically manipulate it so they can see that visual plan.  (Seravallo, p. 185).

    • 6.13 Show, Don't Tell. Using Senses to Describe Places - Students are encouraged to use as any sensory details in their writing as possible. (Seravallo, P. 224)

      • Use this site to learn more --->​

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Language Objectives

A Language Objective is specific to the WHAT that your student should be able to do when finished with the lesson, activity, or unit. It has a couple parts to it. The first part is the function: Describe, Explain, Discuss, and Argue. The second part is the form: different skills students could use like prepositions, tenses, pronouns, etc. Language Objectives are helpful because it specifically tells students what they should be able to do. They also help teachers attend to the language emergent bilinguals need to successfully learn the material and meet the content objective. 

Language Objective Example:

Students will be able to give directions from one location to another using commands and cardinal directions. 

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Citations

Anonymous. (2015, December 01). English language learners and the five essential components of reading instruction. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/english-language-learners-and-five-essential-components-reading-instruction

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Arizona Department of Education. (2020). 5 Pillars of Early Literacy Infographic.  https://www.azed.gov/sites/default/files/2017/11/5%20pillars%20infographic%20Poster.pdf?id=5a1c969e3217e10144257f54

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Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement. (2001). Put reading first: The research building blocks for teaching children to read. The Partnership for Reading: National Institute for Literacy; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; and U.S. Department of Education.

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Seravallo, J.  (2017) The writing strategies book.  Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

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WIDA. (2020). WIDA English language development standards framework, 2020 edition: Kindergarten–grade 12. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.

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Wright, W. E. (2019). Listening and Speaking. In Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, policy, and practice. Philadelphia: Caslon.

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