Instructional Plan for Viri

Based on my analysis of Viri’s development as a bilingual learner, I believe that there are some instructional strategies that I can use to help her continue to develop in both languages.  However, since all formal literacy instruction is in Spanish, I will focus mainly on strategies that I can use with her during our daily literacy block in Spanish.  There are also things that I can do to help answer questions and concerns that arise as I implement these changes. 

There are some instructional strategies that I believe may really help Viri in writing that I am excited to implement into my writing block.  The first is one that I never thought I would use in my classroom because I was afraid to explicitly teach writing after reading the Lucy Caukins books which are much more about students getting their ideas down than focusing on standard ways of recording their thinking.  This quote really spoke to me: “We must take responsibility for providing guided and focused practice attending to the written, linguistic, and communicative needs of our students, and we must abandon our fear of teaching them standard ways to record their thinking.” (Delpit, 1995; Reyes, 1992) 

I have begun implementing “El Dictado” in my writing block.  For students like Viri who seldom use punctuation and omit both silent and non-silent letters in their writing, El Dictado is a wonderfully explicit way to get students paying attention to their writing.  Using El Dictado has enhanced Viri’s writing by exposing her to words with silent letters, focusing on writing conventions such as punctuation, and focusing on a handful of high frequency words per week.  I have already noticed improvement in Viri’s writing, and will continue to incorporate El Dictado into my teaching.  (Using Writing to Make Cross-Language Connections from Spanish to English)  I will use the first grade dictated writing test to help assess Viri’s progress in dictated writing, as well as using informal assessments to look for improvements in her writing. 

Incorporating more interactive writing into instruction both in small guided groups and whole group is one way I am able to help Viri and several other struggling writers to hear all the sounds in a word.  I have also really internalized the idea of how “cocreated text is reread together, perhaps several times, then later is made available in the classroom for children to return to for rereading.” (Teaching for Comprehension and Language Development of English Learners: Insights from Reading Recovery, pg. 88)   I have begun to do this more and more and I believe it is wonderful for Viri to use as both a writing experience and then a rereading opportunity.  I have focused these interactive writings on books we have read as well as big concepts we are learning about in our science and social studies themed units.  Interactive writing can also be used as a way to expand on students’ vocabulary or reinforce new vocabulary.  I will continue to implement interactive writing in my classroom more during the rest of the school year and will incorporate it more early on next year to help students like Viri.  Interactive writing is great for creating writing and reading opportunities as well as expanding vocabulary which will ultimately assist in language development. 

During the literacy block in the classroom, I believe that there are certain things I can do to help Viri with some of her difficulties.  The most important issue that I would like to address is Viri’s lack of monitoring in her reading.  She often reads the first syllable of a word and then guesses at the ending.  The ending she guesses may have something to do with the picture she sees or may just be a random ending that she throws on the end of the first syllable.  I am going to use “reciprocal teaching” and the four key reading strategies of “predicting, questioning, summarizing and clarifying difficult-to-understand parts of the text.”  (Struggling Learners and Language Immersion Education, pg. 37)  I am going to model reading for meaning with Viri and scaffold her to be able to slow down and read the whole word for meaning.  This work I will do with her will be both in her guided reading group as well as once a week in a group with one other student who is struggling with monitoring.  We will work on changing word endings and how they change the meaning of a phrase as well.  This will be a sort of “game” used to help hone in on the importance of monitoring.  I will assess Viri on the SPLAA in a month to monitor progress as well as continue doing running records once every week or two.

Outside of guided reading groups, there are many things I can do to help Viri with vocabulary development, monitoring reading and providing rereading opportunities.  During read alouds, I can use that opportunity to expand vocabulary as well as show students what good readers do.  By modeling my thinking and problem solving during read alouds, I can show Viri and other struggling readers what good readers need to do to read and understand a text.  During literacy centers, Viri has a book box with “just right books” which is a great way to reread texts. Another literacy center is the “read the room” center which I feel is really enhanced by the interactive writing pieces we have done together.  While students already have a listening center, the idea of having students “complete a sheet of comprehension questions together” (Click, 2004, pg. 5) is a great way to help Viri understand the importance of not just reading a text but understanding it.  I will add a comprehension sheet to the listening center. 

There is also a new center that I will introduce that is for playing a game with word pieces.  There are cubes with different syllables on them that students put together to form words.  This activity will be great for Viri to experiment making different words from the same first syllable.  It is also a wonderful activity for all students in my immersion classroom to play with language and experiment with making new words from word parts.  In the article “Learning Centers: Meaningful Contexts for Language Use in the Primary Immersion Classroom,” Click discusses the importance of giving students the opportunity to produce and experiment with language.  I think my new center will do just that. 

While we do not have formal literacy instruction in English in first grade in Dual Immersion, there are things that we can incorporate into our science and social studies English time to help facilitate some early learning of concepts that will help students when formal literacy instruction begins.  One of the first things is to work on vowel sounds in English.  Viri, like many English Language Learners, tends to use her knowledge of Spanish vowel sounds in her writing in English.  If we work early on with the differences between the vowel sounds in English and Spanish, I believe that students will be better prepared for English literacy.  We have incorporated one song with vowels into our English time, but we need to incorporate more. 

As far as English, another thing that Viri struggles with is the “th” sound.  One thing that we can do is take time to practice making the “th” sound and pointing out words that contain the sound.  Since it is hard to make that sound, providing students with a chance to experiment with it is a wonderful way to expose them to it.  (Dr. Izquierdo Conference with MMSD, 2010)  I also believe that continuing the use of read alouds in English time will help Viri to expand her vocabulary and be more exposed to different language structures and patterns in English.  (Teaching for Comprehension and Language Development of English Learners: Insights from Reading Recovery)  

There are, of course, some questions that will still remain about Viri’s literacy and language development.  My biggest question is regarding helping Viri with reading the whole word for meaning, not just reading the first syllable and then guessing.  While I believe my efforts will benefit her, I am not sure that it will be enough.  I am going to begin gathering more information about this by meeting with other Dual Immersion teachers in my school and sharing ideas with them.  I believe that collaborating is always a really good way to find new ways to help students when I am struggling with how to best teach.  I may also pick up the book “Struggling Learners and Language Immersion Education” to help look for more assistance. 

With minor changes and extra focus on certain concepts, I believe that my literacy and writing blocks and our “English time” can nurture Viri’s development as a Spanish-dominant bilingual learner.  Most of the changes I am implementing in her instructional plan will not only benefit Viri, but will be changes that benefit my entire class.  I believe Viri will be able to continue to show huge gains with the new additions to instruction in her instructional plan. 

Reflection on Viri's Biliteracy Development

After analyzing Viri’s patterns in oral language, writing and reading in English and Spanish, I have been able to learn a lot about her as a bilingual learner.  Viri is a simultaneous bilingual who has been exposed to both English and Spanish since birth, and she uses both languages to navigate her world.  (Urow 2009)  However, Viri is dominant in Spanish, which is the only language that is allowed to be spoken in her home.  In the following paragraphs, I will discuss patterns that I saw in Viri’s oral language, writing and reading in both Spanish and English.

Viri’s oral language shows trends of code-switching in both Spanish and English.  Comparing Viri to many of her peers, I believe that she very minimally code-switches. Viri tends to code-switch with expressions when she is speaking in Spanish such as “Vamos a hacer otro problema.  Oh my God, it’s so hard.  ¿Ok, que hago primero?”  Viri also uses linguistic blending in Spanish such as “púchale.”  This code-switching is minimal and usually occurs when she is speaking to an English-dominant classmate.  Viri’s code-switching in English is different.  In English, her code-switching tends to be because she is not sure of the name of an object; however her code-switching in English is more minimal.  In her oral language in English, however, Viri also mixes up the syntax of Spanish with English.  She says things like “Do you have shoes purple?” The way that Viri uses code-switching in both English and Spanish is evidence of how she uses both languages to help explore her world and make sense of language.  (Urow, 2009)   Viri’s linguistic complexity, vocabulary usage and language control are all more dominant in Spanish.  (WIDA Consortium)

Writing for Viri can be a struggle in both Spanish and English.  After analyzing her writing in both languages, I noticed that in both languages she uses consonants and vowels to write new words.  Unlike her monolingual peers who may use mostly consonants or mostly vowels to represent sounds in their writing, Viri uses both to navigate in her writing of new words.  (Rubin and Carlan, 2005)  According to Gentry’s stages of writing, Viri is at the phonetic stage in both languages.  However, her writing looks very different in each language.  While in Spanish Viri has many ideas for writing and writes long stories with very circular writing organization, in English, Viri has not had any formal writing instruction and tends to write simple one phrase stories. 

On pattern between her writing in Spanish and English is that Viri is able to match most of the phonetic sounds to letters.  She is “able to segment words into their individual sounds and represent most of those sounds with letters.” (Rubin and Carlan, 2005 pg. 732)  Her abilities are very consistent with a bilingual learner at the phonetic stage.  Another pattern that she shares between languages is that she leaves out “silent letters.”  However, Viri also leaves out some letters that are not silent but are difficult-to-hear.  For example, Viri leaves out the “h” in “hoy” and the “h” in “hermana.”  Other difficult-to-hear sounds that Viri leaves out in Spanish are words such as leaving out the “n” in “pintamos” and the “n” in “grande.”  In English, Viri also leaves out sounds that are typical for Spanish dominant writers.  These include the sounds of “th” in “the” (writing a “d” instead) and the “t” in “water.” 

It is important to remember that Viri has not had any formal writing instruction in English.  Therefore, she definitely uses her knowledge of L1 spellings and applies them to L2 words.  For example, she writes “ai” for “I,” “en” for “in” and “lai” for “like.”  She also records some sounds with little knowledge of the language code.  This includes things like “fechin” for “fishing” and “waroho” for “water.”  Viri’s pattern of leaving out some sounds but representing most of the sounds in a word is consistent across both languages.  I believe that with more writing instruction and time to grow as a writer in Spanish, she will be able to represent even more sounds in her writing and begin to use the “monster letters” (Escamilla, 1999) with more expertise.  By the time Viri begins formal writing instruction in English, I believe that she will have many skills of a good writer that will transfer into her English writing. 

According to Viri, a good reader is someone who looks at the words and the pictures on a page and reads them.   It was difficult to see clear patterns between her Spanish and English reading because she has had no formal literacy instruction in English and is a struggling reader in her dominant language of Spanish.  One pattern that I do see is Viri’s dependency on visual cues.  She tends to rely heavily on the pictures when she reads in Spanish and she did the same when I asked her to read to me in English.  Another pattern would be her knowledge of Concepts About Print.  (Escamilla, Andrade, Basutro, Ruiz)  She is able to translate what she knows about Concepts about Print from Spanish to English.  

In Spanish, Viri tends to struggle with letter reversals such as “ay” for “ya” and “al” for “la.”  However, in the few words that she read to me in English, I did not see that pattern.    Although when Viri writes in English she uses vowel sounds from Spanish in her writing, does not read the same way.  In fact, while she doesn’t like to try to read words that she is not sure about in English, the words that she does read are not read using her understanding of letter sounds in Spanish, but rather what she knows already about sight words in English.  

Viri’s language development definitely has an effect on her reading in writing in both her dominant language of Spanish and in English.  It is not surprising that Viri’s reading and writing are stronger in her dominant language of Spanish.  However, we must also consider the fact that she has only had formal literacy instruction in Spanish.  Across all three domains in Spanish, Viri shows her language dominance.  However, she also shows signs of code-switching, linguistic blending and the use of consonants and vowels in her writing of new words which shows that while she is Spanish-dominant, Viri uses her knowledge of English to help navigate across all domains.  Primarily in Viri’s writing in English, she clearly uses her knowledge of Spanish to help her make sense of writing.  She uses vowel sounds from Spanish to help write words in English and other times her lack of knowledge of the language code shows through in her spelling. 

It has been very interesting to see the patterns within all three domains in Viri’s language development.  She shows many patterns consistent with bilingual learners and tends to navigate her world using her knowledge of both Spanish and English. 

Reading analysis

I started this week’s session by asking Viri: ¿Qué hacen los buenos lectores?  She responded by saying “vean los dibujos y las palabras y los números en las páginas para buscar cosas.”  I believe that she is referring to the non-fiction texts that we have been studying, and the table of contents that we can use to look up different parts of a text.  Since we have been looking at non-fiction texts, I thought it was interested that she incorporated that.  I have to admit that I was a little disappointed to not hear her say think.   We talk a lot about how good readers think about the text and make connections, and she does this to some point. Viri said she prefers non-fiction texts and could tell me what a non-fiction text is.  However, she said that her favorite book is a fiction book called “Tigre, tigre” and I usually see her choose fiction texts over non-fiction.  Viri loves to read one on one with teachers, and also enjoys guided reading groups.  She says that she loves to read at school and at home because reading is fun. 

Viri has been receiving Title services this year as well as guided reading with me and an academic after school program.  After coming into the school year as a non-reader, Viri has made strides in her reading.  Viri is an instructional text reading level 8 in Spanish and a level 0 in English. 

Viri makes connections, predictions and comments about a text when prompted.  However, when she reads, Viri seldom makes connections with the actual text, but may make connections to the pictures on the pages.  When asked to summarize a story, Viri can give an overall idea of things that happen in the text, but she often misses expanding on the details.  When asked to give more details, she often says “no sé que más.”   This is because of her monitoring issues which I explore in the next paragraph.  When I asked Viri to read a story to me in English, she quickly told me that she does not read English.  I asked her to look at the page and tell me if there are any words she might know, or to tell me about the pictures.  She was able to tell me about the pictures and read some of the words on the page to me.  While Viri understands that we read for meaning, she is inconsistent with her usage of comprehension strategies and will seldom use them unless she is prompted. 

When it comes to monitoring, Viri is struggling.  In Spanish, Viri often reads letter reversals in two letter words, and only sometimes go back to reread and correct for meaning.  Viri sometimes reads the first syllable of a word and then fills in what comes next by using a word that might fit in with the picture but not make sense.  For example, Viri read a book in Spanish “Día soleado, día llovioso.”  She read “al” instead of “la” and “ay” instead of “ya.”  I do not think that she would pass the letter reversal part of the Concepts About Print test.  Viri also read “nubes” instead of “nuevo” (there were clouds in the picture) and “lloverá” instead of “llovía.” 

In English, Viri looked at the book “Big or Little” which is a level 2.  This is after she was unable to identify any words in a level 1 book.  Viri said “oh, I know this book.”  She has read this book before in Spanish.  Viri looked at the title and read “Big or little.”  Viri was able to read high frequency words such as “I, big, bus, am, is, a, truck.”  Viri also knew that there was a pattern in the book.  The pattern that repeats itself is “I am little.”  She knew that it said something of that sort, but she consistently substituted the word “tiny” for “little.” 

Viri has had no English literacy instruction in school or at home.  She says that her sister has books in English that she brings home, but that Viri only reads the pictures and doesn’t know the words.  Since Viri is not allowed to speak English at home, I find it interesting that her reading, writing and oral language behaviors are consistently showing an understanding of both the differences and similarities between the two languages.  What is interesting is that while Viri uses Spanish vowel sounds when writing in English, she does not read the same way.  In fact, while she doesn’t like to try words that she is not sure about in English, the words that she does read are not read using her understanding of letter sounds in Spanish, but rather what she knows already about English.   

Writing Analysis

This week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Viri and having her draw and write English and Spanish.  She is a struggling writer in Spanish who has improved immensely since she was my student in summer school just 8 months ago.  That said, she often leaves out letter sounds in Spanish, so I was curious to see what she would write for me in English.

During writing time (in Spanish), Viri always has an idea that she would like to write about.  Since Spanish is her dominant language, she always seems comfortable describing orally what she will write about.  I would say that Viri is at the phonetic stage in her writing in Spanish.  Viri is able to match most of the phonetic sounds to letters.  Viri has pretty typical errors at this stage such as leaving out the “h” in “hoy” and the “h” in “hermana.”  Other difficult-to-hear sounds that Viri leaves out in Spanish are words such as leaving out the “n” in “pintamos” and the “n” in “grande.”  

When I asked her to draw a picture and write about it for me in English, Viri thought a long time about what she might draw.  Finally, she drew a stick figure little girl with a blue marker, added a yellow smile and a black string of hair. 

She then wrote:

ai lai tu gou tu fechin en du waroho

Viri read it to me:  “I like to go to fishing in the water.” 

In her less dominant language of English, Viri’s writing is probably at the phonetic stage.  Viri is well aware of the fact that writing in English and Spanish look different.  I know Viri is not at the semiphonetic stage still, but I am wondering if she might be at an early phonetic stage because she leaves out not just difficult-to-hear sounds, but obvious ones like the “k” in like and the “t” in water.  However, unlike monolingual Spanish dominant writers at this stage, Viri uses more than just vowels, she uses consonants.   Consistent with a simultaneous bilingual at the phonetic stage, the vowels that Viri writes in English use the Spanish vowel sounds.  Also, very consistent with a Spanish dominant student learning English, Viri misses the “th” sound in the word “the” and instead writes a “d” sound in place of it.  

Viri’s ideas in her writing in both languages are usually simple and lack details.  She tends to use the same vocabulary but occasionally will seek help to incorporate new vocabulary into her writing.  The organization in her writing is more circular as would be expected for the discourse pattern of a Spanish dominant student, although it is sometimes so disorganized that it is hard to read because she often goes for length over organization (she has just recently learned that her own writing can go across several pages and be more than just one phrase long). 

Spelling in both languages seems to be somewhat difficult for Viri as far as slowing down to hear all of the consonant letters.  She consistently misses consonant letter sounds in both languages.  Viri does not have errors in sentence structure in Spanish, however does have more difficulty in English.  For example, she wrote “I like to go to fishing in the water.”  The use of the phrase “go to fishing” seems to be the result of her using what she knows about grammar in Spanish and applying it to English.

When looking at the miscue analysis, I did not see evidence of code-switching in any of Viri’s writing.  Similar to her oral language, Viri tends to stay in one language when she writes, and avoids code-switching.  This is probably even more evident in her writing because she cannot just code-switch depending on who she is communicating with like she can orally.  Viri uses L1 spellings and applies them to L2 words.  For example, she writes “ai” for “I,” “en” for “in” and “lai” for “like.”  She also records some sounds with little knowledge of the language code.  This includes things like “fechin” for “fishing” and “waroho” for “water.”  Viri’s example does not show any confusion of word boundaries.  

Oral Language Development: 1st 30 minute session

My student is definitely a simultaneous bilingual.  She is oral language dominant in Spanish.  She went to preschool at Head Start and has attended elementary school in the Dual Language Immersion program for kindergarten and first grade.  I have noticed that she often assumes people can’t understand something in one language and she is quick to translate.  It has been difficult to get her out of this habit this year because it really enables kids in the DLI program if she does that.  Since her parents do not speak English, I think she is accustomed to quickly translating between people when she is out with her family. 

When this student speaks, there is evidence of code-switching.  The other day in math groups in Spanish, I gave them a story problem and she was talking about it in Spanish and then said “Oh my gosh, this is so hard” and then went back to speaking in Spanish.  This is very typical for her, especially when she is in a group with or talking to friends who she knows speak English as their first language.  She occasionally throws in words in English when she is speaking in Spanish such as “Rachael, tu backpack.”  The only example of linguistic blending I have heard my student say is “púchale.”  I believe that my student does not use more code-switching because it is not accepted in her home.  I think that this strict isolation in her home has helped her develop the two languages more separately. 

This student has positive attitudes about speaking in both languages.  I believe she has a positive attitude about both languages because she is not shy to speak and loves to chat with friends in either language.  My student easily changes from one language to another depending on who she is playing with at recess or whose attention she is trying to get.  She seems comfortable and happy using both languages.  The student’s academic language is definitely higher in Spanish than in English.  Many people who hear her speak might assume she knows more English than she does because she is very confident and very chatty.  However, while she has great social language, she has not really developed much academic language in English yet. 

Because I work in a Dual Language Immersion environment, I am not able to speak with my student in English.  However, she speaks English occasionally in front of me with classmates, at recess and in specials classes.  Her teacher for English time just left on maternity leave, so I have minimal information from her.  I have done my best to consider my student’s English oral language proficiency from what I know and what I have heard from other teachers. 

Looking at the speaking rubric from the WIDA Consortium, my student’s assessments show that her oral language in Spanish is higher than in English.  I would say that she would receive a 4 in linguistic complexity in Spanish and a 2 in English.  For vocabulary usage, she would receive a 3 in Spanish and a 1 or a 2 in English.  As far as language control, I believe that she would be about a 5 in Spanish and a 3 in English. 

My student received a 1 for speaking and listening on the ACCESS test last year.  This year, looking at the Can Do Descriptors, I can see that she has progressed in her English oral language this year.  This student is able to ask WH- questions and describe pictures, events, objects and people.  She is able to restate some facts such as what she knows about plants or nutrition from English time.  While she can retell very basic stories and articulate predictions, I am not sure that she can really describe processes in any detail.  For this reason, I would have to give her a Beginning Level 2 in her English Oral Language. 

Looking at the Can-Do Descriptors for my student’s Spanish oral language, I would say that she is more of an Expanding Level 4.  My student can give oral reports (first grade level) and can articulate creative solutions when there is a problem posed or a real life conflict.  She loves to discuss issues and can explain what happens in a story in her own words in Spanish.  

Change in student

He tenido que cambiar el estudiante con él que voy a trabajar por problemas con su asistencia.  He escogido a un estudiante que va a estar presente todas las semanas.  Entonces, cambié mi estudiante previo por un estudiante diferente.  Ella es bilingüe simultáneos que tiene padres mexicanos pero ella nació aquí. 

En su casa, ella y sus hermanos tienen prohibido hablar en ingles porque los padres quieren conservar su idioma.  Esta estudiante tiene la dominancia de español en su lenguaje oral.  Ella fue a Head Start y ha estado en el kindergarten y primer grado en el programa de doble inmersión. 

La introducción de mi estudiante

Yo voy a estar trabajando con un niño de mi clase de primer grado en el programa de doble inmersión.  Él estaba en el programa de doble inmersión también el año pasado.  El estudiante habla ingles y español en su casa y le gusta leer en los dos idiomas.  Su nivel de lectura, escritura y lenguaje oral es más fuerte en el español. 

El estudiante juega con sus amigos pero también juega solo muchas veces.  En la escuela, le gusta mucho hacer las matemáticas y leer libros nuevos en los grupos de lectura.  Lo que no le gusta en la escuela es tener que sentar quieto.  Muchas veces se desespera porque se distrae mucho pero realmente quiere hacer todo su trabajo.  Cuando le pregunto sobre su vida afuera de la escuela, me cuenta mucho de los video juegos y de programas en la televisión.