Scaffolding Literacy Chapter 2
“One clear teaching implication of studies into second language acquisition is that the degree of facility of second language learning in a classroom depends largely on how classroom discourse is constructed.” (pg. 16)
“While a single instruction may cause no problems, instructions that involve a number of sequenced steps are often far more difficult. Try to put into practice the notion of ‘message redundancy’…by giving the same instructions in several ways.” (pg. 21)
“A group task should require, not simply encourage, talk.” (pg. 22)
Scaffolding Literacy Chapter 3“While spoken and written language obviously have distinctive characteristics, this continuum of texts illustrates that there is no absolute boundary between them. Technology increases this blurring.” (pg. 41)
Tompkins Chapter 5
“When EL’s learn a word they being by learning its meaning and how to pronounce it. Almost immediately, they’re introduced to the word written form, and with practice, they learn to recognize and read it. Soon they’re writing the word, too. At first their spellings reflect what they know about the English spelling system, but with spelling instruction and reading and writing practice, they learn to spell words correctly. Because spelling is more demanding than reading, it’s not surprising that students’ knowledge about spelling grows this way.” (pg. 171)
These quotes above all come from the chapters that we read from our texts. The other two articles that we read, "Book Clubs Plus" and "Book Clubs as Part of a Balanced Curriculum" offer suggestions on not only how to include the concept of book clubs into the classroom but also how to scaffold book clubs so that every student from every walk of life is included in the fun. Here is where the link between ESL students and students with other obstacles becomes concrete. While a teacher may not have a student in their classroom that is performing lower than normal simply due to the fact that they do not understand the language in terms of the way it is regularly spoken, read and written in the classroom, does not mean that the teacher will not have students who do not struggle otherwise. Below are some quotes from the two articles that we read for this week that help to include various different students at different ability levels regardless of what their ability handicaps might be:"Book Clubs as Part of a Balanced Curriculum" - Salna
“Balanced literacy is an approach to teaching language arts that…involves a number of different components, including guided reading, reading centers, shared reading, modeled writing, and oral language activities.” (pg. 42)
“When creating Book Clubs, I had several goals. I wanted them to interest my students and challenge them a bit. I wanted to introduce my students to some authentic issues that were appropriate to their age level as well as controversial topics for them to think about, write about and discuss. I also wanted to introduce a range of genres and to incorporate literature from our basal into Book Clubs” (pg. 44)
"Book Club Plus" - Raphael et. al.
“To learn to read well, all students need to read thought-provoking, age-appropriate books.” (pg. 1)
“A dilemma facing teachers is how to engage their diverse readers in meaningful activities around age-appropriate text while also providing instruction appropriate to each student’s individual needs.” (pgs. 1-2)
Both of these texts hit on the point that the books associated with book clubs need to be age-appropriate. You can encourage literacy in the classroom all you want, but if you are not providing students with the opportunity to engage in books that their various different levels you will see in the classroom then you have provided them with nothing. A student that grew up in an educator's home might be at a different level than a student who just arrived from China. Your classroom needs to be set up in a way that appropriates and accommodates all types of readers.
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