by Cheryl Huebner, John Cline Elementary Title I Reading Teacher I recently read By Different Paths To Common Outcomes: Literacy Learning and Teaching by Marie Clay. She believed that all children come to school with oral language reflective of their home, family and culture, and it is on that foundational language that children build reading, writing, thinking, and all future learning. The book led me to ponder how I can create language opportunities for my students to help them become increasingly successful in all academic areas. I wondered what can I do in my Reading Recovery classroom and throughout the day to help my students improve their oral language? I began to make some changes to my lesson for my children who scored the lowest on the Record of Oral Language. (This included English Language Learners.) Here are some of the adjustments I have made:
We also read Blocks (another Pioneer Valley text by Michele DuFresne). She was successful at reading this book, except for vocabulary such as “castle” and “tower” which were new words for her. After the reading, I did not just ask her what Maria, the main character, built, but rather asked if she had blocks at home, and what she made with the blocks. Then I echoed and expanded her thoughts with statements like, “You built a huge tower, just like Maria!” I could again observe her vocabulary expand throughout the week as we read and reread the text and had conversations around the book. The use of open-ended questions led us to more authentic and rich language.
My journey is far from over, and I will continue to work on providing authentic language opportunities in my classroom. However, it will take more than my efforts alone to support our children’s language development. I leave you with a few more questions and look forward to hearing your ideas:
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2 Comments
Sarah
11/15/2019 05:42:02 pm
Thanks for sharing this, Cheryl! So many good books out there; yet so little time- I love that we can share our learning with one another!
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Greg Murphy
5/5/2020 05:24:20 pm
Having conversations with young students is fun and eye opening. What they have to say is very exciting to them (and to us). They are a book being written as they journey through life which includes the years they spend at school and beyond.
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