Topic: ELL's and Sight Words

10-second review: Part of work in reading should be practicing reading materials that are familiar to the reader.

Comment: “English Language Learners” (ELL) are what used to be called “English as a Second Language” (ESL) learners. English Language Learners are learning English as a second language. RayS.

Title: “What Does Oral Language Have to Do With It? Helping Young English-Language Learners Acquire a Sight Word Vocabulary.” LA Helman and MK Burus. Reading Teacher (September 2008), 14 – 19. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Summary: An important part of teaching young students whose native language is not English is to help them learn sight words. One method to help them reinforce their sight words is to have them re-read materials with which they are familiar.” “Repeated reading has been shown to increase fluency and consolidate the automatic recognition of sight words. Meaningful repeated readings can occur when students read with a partner, to a younger buddy, for their parents at home….”

Comment: Time to resurrect the time-tested language experience approach? Students (as a group or individually) dictate a story which is recorded by the teacher on chart paper. Teacher and students read it together. Then the students as a group, or individually, read it. They can re-read it again to buddies, the teacher or to parents at home. RayS.

The purpose of this blog, English Updates, is to review interesting contemporary (2008-2009) articles from professional English education journals at all levels—elementary, middle school, junior high school, high school and college.