DESCRIPTION

This two-part professional development series will focus on providing responsive initial literacy instruction in English to Newcomer ELLs in Grades 4-8. 

In the first session, we will consider the characteristics and needs of newcomer ELLs with limited literacy skills.  We will review what we know about the Science of Reading and how it applies to ELLs, specifically what we know about teaching phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency in English to students who are just beginning the process of learning English.  We will discuss common issues with emergent literacy programs when applied to ELLs as well as what components of K-2 reading curricula adopted by districts may be useful to teachers in the upper grades.  We will also suggest ways to modify commonly used initial literacy activities for ELLs.

In the second session, we’ll consider students’ background knowledge and life experience and their impact on reading comprehension and early writing.  We’ll discuss the need for a Connected Literacy Approach to the teaching of initial literacy to ELLs and introduce the Structured Literacy Plus (+) Model for planning emergent literacy units for newcomers in the upper grades.  To be modeled are how to conduct a linguistic analysis of early texts in order to identify and practice foundational skills across books in a connected text set. This will include how to select emergent texts for ELLs and how to plan code-based and language-based learning targets.  After modeling the process, we will practice the steps that are needed to create an age-appropriate emergent literacy unit for ELLs in grades 4-8.

Presenter:  Nancy Cloud, Ed.D., Professor Emerita, Rhode Island College

Audience: This institute is designed for Grade 4-8 Literacy Specialists, ELA, ENL and Bilingual Teachers who are teaching reading and writing to Newcomer SIFE ELLs.

A Padlet with Specialized Resources on the Topic Will Be Provided to Participants