Comprehension and English Language Learners: 25 Oral Reading Strategies That Cross Proficiency Levels

by Yvonne S Freeman, Lindsey Guccione

This book is one of the few that focuses on oral language development, a crucial but often overlooked component of academic development for ELLs . It helps fill a gap in the professional resources teachers need to help their English language learners reach high levels of oral and written English proficiency. -David and Yvonne Freeman Authors of Teaching Reading in Multilingual Classrooms and Essential Linguistics Oral reading is powerful enough to simultaneously support every student's comprehension learning and scaffold English language learners' progress toward proficiency. But not just any kind of oral reading will do. To help everyone in your class, you need effective, engaging strategies that can motivate all readers and help them learn to make meaning with texts-the kind you'll find in Comprehension and English Language Learners . The 25 oral reading strategies in Comprehension and English Language Learners support students with differing levels of English proficiency during regular reading instruction-from beginners to those completely comfortable with their new language. Michael Opitz (coauthor of Goodbye Round Robin, Updated Edition) and Lindsey Moses help you go beyond oral reading activities such as round robin or popcorn reading that have no research base and that can actually inhibit reading progress. With their strategies, you'll instead help English language In addition, Opitz and Moses make determining students' level of English proficiency easier with a primer on effective ELL assessment. They show you how each strategy can work within or across levels to help English learners make progress or consolidate gains. Each strategy is clearly presented and ready to use today with teaching suggestions, classroom examples, suggested children's literature, and online resources. Supplement your silent-reading program with oral reading that works. Read Comprehension and English Language Learners and teach with its strategies. Then listen to your English language learners to hear how powerful oral reading can be for developing comprehension.

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2009

Reviews

[Natalie Cardon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was given this book in an in-depth ESOL PD. The nice things about it are that the activities are broken down by what would help ESOL students at different language acquisition stages with their reading comprehension. I also always like book recommendation lists and the book is practically full of them & there’s a list for each activity (in my opinion, the whole school library should be indexed this way!!) As far as the activities, they seemed a little “well duh!” to me, having taught for 10 years. They’re better for teachers still in college or grad school. But at least there’s the validation that what I do every day has a basis in proven techniques that help ELLs.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an easily accessible resource for teachers who have heritage language speakers in their classrooms. The book describes proven strategies you can use at all levels of development, while detailing which literacy skills each approach helps with. I read this for my Literacy for Diverse Learners class in my masters program and will definitely be keeping it on the shelf in my classroom.