WEEK 5! The final week of our Boosting Achievement of SLIFE study
-based on the book by Carol Salva and Anna Matis.
Other weeks can be found here: WEEK1, WEEK2, WEEK 3, WEEK 4. Here is the study’s landing page where we began.
No more baby books, please. If we want our students to become better readers, we must hook them into reading for pleasure. We must find ways to support emergent readers as well as on-level readers to continue reading. The power of reading (more and more reading) is profound for mainstream students, for newcomers, and for SIFE (students with interrupted formal education). Every student needs to learn to read, but older students do not need to do it with baby books.
I am always on the look out for text that might be compelling for my newcomers. This blog post by Emily Francis was a powerful text to use for shared reading. 
The short video below shows some of my students’ reactions to Emily’s story. She has a few blog posts that work well so we read them over several days. The recording of the video took place at the end of the school year so many of my newcomers had basic English to express their thoughts. But some were brand new to the class.
My post last week discusses the importance of compelling input for second language acquisition. (Krashen 2011) Emily’s story is certainly compelling.
This week we look at how this compelling story can help us with foundations of literacy. Tracking print is what makes this activity powerful for emergent readers. It is offering them exposure to sight words and opportunities to build phonological awareness.
Technology use is simple here: I recorded my voice reading the blog on my phone. This is important so that I am able to walk around and monitor students’ ability to track the print. It allows me to analyze the behaviors of the class and to process the text with them if I am not reading while they track the print.
Every student benefits from exposure to words in context. Still, we must differentiate for our more advanced reader. For those students, this text is still appropriate because it is the message of the story that is important. As a teacher, I have set a purpose for reading. We are reading about real people who have overcome challenges such as ours. But we can easily be also looking for setting, author’s purpose, theme or other grade-level standards.
I hope you can see how using narratives like Emily’s can absolutely develop foundational literacy but they are also culturally responsive and can help our newest students develop a growth mindset.
This padlet has many narratives that can be powerful for teaching reading to learners who are SIFE.
Content area teachers may consider this practice of tracking print for textbook passages, primary source documents, or word problems. My suggestion is that you incorporate the strategy with a Talk, Read, Talk, Write approach keeping in mind that you’ll want to stop more frequently for more complex text or less compelling themes.
Hope you give them a try!
WEEK FIVE BOOK STUDY QUESTIONS
All questions for weeks 1-5 can be found on the book study landing page.
Part IV of Boosting Achievement: Implementing a Practical Approach to Instruction (Answer some of these, all of these or none of these. We welcome all ideas, reflections & insight!)
A) We have many examples of tasks that SLIFE are capable of doing. Illustrating, acting out, gesturing… to name a few. What are expamples of ways that a pre-literate language learner might show you his knowledge on a subject? Do you have anything else to share on this?
B) Structured conversations are key learning opportunities in any classroom. Why are opportunities to participate in structured talk are critical for SIFE? These pages show examples of ways to support and structure conversations. Please share thoughts or any more that you could add to these.
C) QSSSA is a top tip for teachers with SLIFE learners. What is your experience with this routine? Read more about it here.
D) We have learned a lot about literacy in recent years. This post can offer some updates on how we think about supporting foundational literacy for SLIFE. What parts are new to you or what parts resonate the most? How can you use this information to support older emergent readers?
E) Watch the two short videos (bit.ly/ChoralReading and bit.ly/NabilUpdate), Besides a newfound growth mindset, what practical reading strategies likely contributed to Nabil’s gains in reading? Why do you think that?
F) Language Experience Approach is a TOP TIP for EAL/ELD/ESL teachers. Here is more on that approach. It is what I model first when I support newcomer teachers. And here is a post on how to go BEYOND just creating text with SLIFE. What are your thoughts about using this approach for reading and writing instruction of SLIFE?
Thank you for completing this book study. Your work is so important. It can inform our collective knowledge as we study how to best support learners who may have been away from formal education for some period of time.
In writing this book, we received a great deal of help from our colleagues and our online professional learning network. I ask that you join us so that you can add your voice to the conversation. We use the hashtag #BoostingAchievement so as to be able to collect and review all that people are saying about this topic. Your unique perspective can only add to what we know and how we think about education. We hope you’ll help us keep the conversation going!
Carol Salva
DrCarolSalva on X
Anna Matis
@AnnaTeachesMLLs on X