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.
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