Texas Reading Academy - Module 5 (2024)

Module 5

Module 5 Participant Notebook

Optional Readings and Activities

• Review IES Practice Recommendation 1 pp. 6-13

• Read T2% Vocabulary article

Optional Videos

• Video 5: Narrative Language, Retell

• Video 6: Narrative Language, Main Idea

• Video 7: Narrative Language, Cause & Effect

• Video 8: Morphology

• Video 9: Academic Vocabulary in Text

Language Structure Defined

To support the learning that you have already done, take a moment to consider Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan’s explanation of oral language. Think about those components and how they might impact literacy development. In one or two sentences, using your preferred communication mode, share a short explanation (less than 2 minutes) of why oral language is important for literacy development.

In your classroom, you can support building vocabulary depth by engaging in word gradients. To engage in this, you can use the Semantics Gradient Lesson from Reading Rockets or follow the steps below:

1. Allow the children to choose two words with opposite meanings.

2. Generate five to seven synonyms for each of the words.

3. Arrange the words in a way that makes a bridge from one opposite word to the other. Continuums can be done horizontally or vertically, in a ladder-like fashion.

4. Engage the children in a discussion about why they placed certain words in certain locations. Encourage a conversation about the similarities and differences among the words.

5. Compare similarities and differences among the words through oral conversation.

Addressing our State Standards

"Languages as bound systems and fixed codes make little sense in multilingual communities."⁵¹

What is bilingualism and how does this frame our language development? As we look back at the traditional language constructs, bilingualism is simply defined as 1+1=2, illustrating the notion of balanced bilingualism which views a bilingual as two persons, each language equally fluent. However, bilingualism is not about 1+1=2 but about a plural that mixes different fractions of language behavior as they are needed to be socially meaningful.⁴⁹ Teaching and assessing multilingual students as if they were a “Spanish plus an English” monolingual excludes the possibility of their linguistic multiplicities and the potential of bilingual language—translanguaging.³⁵ As educators, we should allow, acknowledge, and equally value a “third space”—”Spanglish”—as part of our cultural and linguistic identity.

In this video, pay attention as Dr. José Medina reminds us of the goals of bilingual education and the connection to this third space our students enable as multilingual learners in and out of our classrooms using their entire linguistic repertories flexibly.

Instructional Considerations: Comparing Development Across Languages

Misconceptions and Realities About English Learners

Teacher Tool

You can provide students time to have conversations and share stories with their classmates. This will lay a foundation for using story elements to comprehend literary texts. Conversation starters can help facilitate these conversations.

• Build students’ receptive and expressive language.

• Promote agency and support students as they engage in social and academic conversations.

• Build an understanding of grade-level content through oral-language and vocabulary experiences.

• Model conventional oral-language use (e.g., content vocabulary, a variety of sentence structures, and use of structure words common in academic discussions).

• Notice, name, and explain the features of oral language that students are learning.

Examine an Oracy Lesson

• How might this type of lesson promote agency and support students’ ability to converse about their world?

• How does this type of lesson engage students of varying proficiency levels in grade-level content standards?

Instructional Methods to Develop Oral Language

Talking About Content

Promoting Oral Language Across Content

Accountable Talk Framework

Techniques that Support the Overall Goal for Oral-Language Development

• PEER is a sequencing technique that encourages short but focused interaction between the child and the adult as they read. During this time, the adult will prompt the child about the book, evaluate responses given, expand using the child’s responses, and repeat prompts to ensure that the child has learned from the experience.

• The prompts used in a PEER experience are known as CROWD. These prompts include completion prompts, recall prompts, open-ended prompts, wh-prompts, as well as distancing prompts.

Through these experiences, children are able to make connections with a variety of texts. These techniques involve higher-order thinking skills and allow the children to take their language and learning to the next level.

Teacher Tool

You can use current events topics to spark interest in your students and engage them in listening comprehension and vocabulary development through audio clips and brief lessons like the ones provided in this Listenwise pdf of audio lessons.

Vocabulary Routine Activity

Take a moment to think about an upcoming unit you and the students are going to engage in. Choose a word that you will be explicitly teaching in this upcoming lesson. Design an explicit vocabulary routine to teach this word. Highlight where you have added support for special populations.

1. Choose one grade-level TEKS.

2. Choose the word you will explicitly teach.

3. Create a short vocabulary routine aligned with this standard.

4. Provide a scaffold to support engagement in oral language.