Category Archives: Literacy

. · .

Feeling Confused?

confused monkey
At a seminar I attended recently, the presenter asked for an audience member to look up the word “leverage” to clarify a point. A helpful gentleman volunteered and read through four distinct definitions of “leverage” before finally reaching the one that accurately matched the presenter’s meaning.

When confronted with a word that has multiple uses, “looking it up” can add to the confusion.

In addition to multiple definitions for everyday vocabulary, there are subject-specific definitions which are especially challenging for ELLs in content-area classes, like most science and social studies classes.

In the article “Academic Language and ELLs: What Teachers Need to Know” Lydia Breiseth offers these examples of words whose meanings change by subject:

Word Meaning/Use
Table
  1. Lunch table (Social language)
  2. Periodic Table of Elements (Science)
  3. Table of Contents (ELA)
  4. Multiplication tables (Math)
  5. To table (delay) the discussion (Social Studies)
Plot
  1. Plot of a story (ELA)
  2. Plot of land (Geography)
  3. Plot ordered pairs on a graph (Math)
  4. To plot a government coup (History)
Branch
  1. Branch of government (Social Studies)
  2. Branch of a river (Geography)
  3. To branch out (Idiom)
Foot
  1. Your foot (Health)
  2. One foot in length (Math)
  3. Foot in your mouth (Idiom)
  4. Foot of the mountain (Geography)
  5. To foot the bill (Idiom)

For students already struggling with literacy and content-area knowledge, having to read through multiple definitions to select the right one is painful and distracts from the meaning of the text. Far more helpful is providing the precise definition for a specific context.

And it’s not just words!

Later in the same article, Breiseth brings up Debbie Zacarian and Judie Haynes, who coined the term TWIPs (Terms, Words, Idioms, and Phrases) in their book Teaching English Language Learners Across the Content Areas, for important language structures. The article provides these examples that further illustrate how important content specific definitions are:

Terms The boiling point of water is 212° F.
Words The Declaration is now on display in Washington, DC.
Idioms She came to town once in a blue moon.
Phrases Based on the data, we agree with the scientists’ conclusion.

Analyzing texts, identifying vocabulary pitfalls, and developing instructional materials to address those challenges are the time consuming tasks that discourage you from using fresh, authentic materials in their classes.

LessonWriter automatically performs all those tasks on any reading material, so you can teach what suits your students best and still deliver high quality literacy support.

And with LessonWriter’s Differentiated Instruction options, definitions, jargon and slang can be taught as needed to some students and not to others where they may be inappropriate or distracting. Explicit instruction in slang, for example, is often helpful to second language learners but not to native speakers.

Join now to get started customizing language learning support for your students today.

1 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/modl.12150/pdf
2 http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/academic-language-and-ells-what-teachers-need-know
3Haynes, J. & Zacarian, D. (2010). Teaching English Language Learners Across the Content Areas. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Leave a comment

Filed under Literacy, Uncategorized

. · .

The Feng Shui of Reading

After an assistant principal observed one of my first social studies classes, he commented that the bare walls were not very stimulating and maybe I could brighten up the place. At first I didn’t really understand but after decorating with student work and posters of the cultures we were studying, the students were more engaged and the room was energized.

Feng Shui
The idea that environment influences mood and learning is hardly a new one.  Feng Shui, the popular approach to arranging physical space in harmony with the five elements of ancient Chinese physics—Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, Earth—to influence mood and energy dates back thousands of years. More recently, studies have shown that improving the classroom environment definitely improves learning outcomes.

Similarly, research shows that readers have strong preferences for how words, space, and pictures are arranged on a page and meeting those preferences improves mood and enhances performance.

LessonWriter lessons balance the three elements of modern page layout—Typography, Images, and Layout—to improve students’ experience and understanding.

Our Feng Shui of Reading uses more white space, clearer delineations between tasks, and hundreds of new thematic images to brighten your pages. Click here to to try now.

All of LessonWriter’s design features are simple, fast, and free.

Check these resources for more information on how mood influences learning and how page design affects mood.

  1. The Aesthetics of Reading , Kevin Larson (Microsoft) & Rosalind Picard (MIT)
  2. Depending on My Mood: Mood-Driven Influences on Text Comprehension, Catherine M. Bohn-Gettler and David N. Rapp
  3. Better Mood and Better Performance:Learning Rule-Described Categories Is Enhanced by Positive Mood, e Ruby T. Nadler, Rahel R. Rabi, and John Paul Minda The University of Western Ontario

Leave a comment

Filed under Accessible text, Literacy

. · .

Repetition is Key! Working Towards Multiple Exposures of New Vocabulary

Anyone over 25 can surely remember making vocabulary flash cards, writing words over and over to learn the spelling, and generating example sentences to try and cement the meaning of new words. Today’s students have an endless supply of mobile vocabulary flash card apps to choose from, so they don’t have to carry around a lame pile of colored index cards. Regardless of the medium the method of repetition to learn new words is not likely to fade anytime soon, nor should it according to mounds of research

In a recent article in Education Leadership, Lawrence at al. explained that, “Probably the most consistent finding related to good vocabulary instruction is that students need multiple exposures to a word to learn it well.” The National Institute for Literacy has also highlighted the importance, noting that, “Once vocabulary words have been selected, teachers should consider how to make repeated exposures to the word or concept productive and enjoyable.” Ensuring that the multiple exposures are significant and engaging is an important priority for teachers, and fortunately there is a plethora of interesting and exciting ways to reinforce new words.

Here are some ways to support multiple exposures of new vocabulary:

  • Make a lesson on www.lessonwriter.com and get a lesson with up to seven different exposures to new vocabulary. The pre-teach vocabulary section gives instructors an opportunity to introduce new vocabulary via whole class or small group instruction. Then students encounter the vocabulary in the context of the passage and in three separate reinforcement exercises (fill-in-the-blank, matching, and write your own sentences). Teachers can also easily create flash cards and word searches from these vocabulary words.
  • Try bringing flash cards to the next level. Have students go beyond the word and definition to also include lists of examples and non-examples. Ask them to draw a simple picture that reminds them of the new word or connect the word to a physical action.
  • Use concept maps to help students activate schema and build connections to new words.
  • Have students create word sorts. Differentiate the activity by letting advanced groups determine the categories.

5 Comments

Filed under Literacy

Tagged as ,

. · .

What Level is the Right Level? Finding the Instructional Sweet Spot

The right level text can be the difference between engaged students increasing their skills and comprehension, and alienated students unable to make meaning or progress. This is why skilled teachers are careful to choose texts that Image are the appropriate level for their students,; but finding the instructional sweet spot is by no means an easy task.

Lev Vygotsky coined the term Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)  to describe “the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers.”

ZPD has often been an elusive pedagogical ideal, but the push from the Common Core to include texts with a greater degree of complexity at earlier grade levels has exacerbated the need to find the right fit.  Fortunately, there are some great tools that not only help educators identify texts of appropriate levels, but also provide instructional strategies to make difficult texts more accessible to students:

  • Google has an Advanced Search Filter by Grade Level.  The filter breaks up search results into basic, intermediate and advanced, and the best thing is that categorizations are not simply the result of automated grade level analysis, but have been vetted by actual educators. Click here to read more.
  • LessonWriter.com just added a new premium feature that allows users to get  an estimated grade-level based on the Flesch Kinkaid Grade Level Formula  If you are not already a LessonWriter user click here to register now for free.
  • Also, http://readability-score.com offers several grade-level estimation calculators.

These are terrific resource for learning more about instructional techniques related to accessible texts:

How do you select text of the appropriate level for your students? We’d love to hear your suggestions.

Leave a comment

Filed under Accessible text, Literacy

Tagged as ,

. · .

Ask Better Questions with Prompts Inspired by the Hess Matrix

The British philosopher Francis Bacon famously said, “Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.”

As teachers we’re in the business of crafting effective questions. The penalty for failure is often the vast silence of a room full of disengaged students.  But coming up with the right mix of questions and tasks is a challenge that can stump even the most expert of teachers.  It’s important to first ask questions that reinforce knowledge and understanding,  and then progress to those that promote higher order thinking.

Dr. Karin Hess of the National Center for Assessment has written extensively about exploring the level of cognitive demand in instruction and assessment.  The Hess Matrix aligns the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy  with Webb’s Depth of Knowledge in order to shed light on the intersection between the type of thinking required and the depth of understanding needed to complete a task.

Last year, at the request of school in the Bronx, LessonWriter created specialized question prompts matched to each part of the Hess Matrix and added them to Bloom’s prompts, writing prompts, and NJ HSPA prompts.  All of these provide a valuable aid for crafting questions and tasks.  For example, consider the differences between the following questions:

  • In Shakespeare’s Hamlet what becomes of Ophelia?
  • What are the similarities and differences between Juliet’s suicide in Romeo and Juliet and Ophelia’s suicide in Hamlet?
  • In Shakespeare’s Hamlet what events impact Ophelia’s actions? Identify at least two examples of how other characters’ behavior negatively affected Ophelia. Suggest specific positive alternatives to these characters’ actions and predict how Ophelia might have responded.

LessonWriter prompts make it easier to compose the right questions in the right sequence.

We hope you’ll check out LessonWriter’s question prompts based on The Hess Matrix. Not only will your questions lead to better instruction and assessment, but you’ll be modeling  better questions for your students.

Ultimately, students generating better questions themselves leads to the most enduring learning outcomes.

And check out these great Karin Hess Resources:

Video Introduction to Cognitive Rigor Matrix
Hess Matrix for ELA
Hess Matrix for Math

1 Comment

Filed under Higher Order Thinking, Literacy

. · .

Close Reading with LessonWriter

Close reading is not a new concept; engaged readers have always practiced close reading.  However, the Common Core State Standards, which challenge students to dissect and evaluate texts with high degrees of complexity, have ushered in a frenzy of discussion about how best to teach close reading.

LessonWriter provides several tools to make it easier to structure lessons that support close reading:

  • The textual analysis that the system performs extracts core components of literacy instruction and increases the accessibility of the text.
  • Differentiation groups help teachers target the right amount of support to each student.
  • Graphic organizers support important comprehension strategies like self-monitoring, questioning, predicting and summarizing.
  • Our question prompts help teachers structure questions to encourage student to re-read the text and extract, evaluate and explore the meaning behind the words.

In the Sourcebook on Rhetoric, James Jasinski explains: “The principal object of close reading is to unpack the text. Close readers linger over words, verbal images, elements of style, sentences, argument patterns, and entire paragraphs and larger discursive units within the text to explore their significance on multiple levels.”

We hope you’ll use LessonWriter to help students “unpack the texts” in your classes!

Here are some other great resources on Close Reading:

Leave a comment

Filed under Literacy, Uncategorized