Kaleigh Allen
Elementary Education
The purpose of this assignment is to gain experience working one on one with an English Language Learner (ELL) in a mainstream classroom within the guidelines of the Florida Consent Decree. The teacher candidate will be responsible for adapting content based curricula for the ELL , and developing activities to promote comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.
Keyler is a first grader at Tropic Isles Elementary. He will be 8 years old in March. He does speak English in school, but his mom only speaks spanish. His family is from Cuba.
COMPREHENSION: I gave Keyler a score of a 3 on comprehension. He seems to understand most of what you are saying if you are talking clearly and slowly. Sometimes you need to repeat what you said in order for him to understand. Often, he will pretend to understand when he really doesn't. He just shakes his head a lot but when you ask him to explain it to you or repeat something, he will look confused.
FLUENCY: Keyler can have normal conversations with his classmates, or if it is something that he already knows a lot about a certain topic. Sometimes he has to think about what he wants to say and takes a pause to get the words out. For this reason, I gave him a 4 for fluency.
VOCABULARY: Keyler received a 4 on vocabulary. He has a well developed vocabulary. I did notice he did not understand idioms. He also had some trouble with matching pictures with words.
PRONUNCIATION: Keyler also received a 4 for pronunciation. He speaks and enunciates his words very well. He speaks 2 languages fluently. He only speaks Spanish at home. He has a bit of an accent, but overall does well and makes few mistakes.
GRAMMAR: Keyler has trouble with grammar rules. He sometimes mixes up words, but tries to correct himself. He spells words just like they sound.
ESOL Capstone
All About
Keyler
Purpose
The reason that I chose this comprehension activity for Keyler is because he said that he likes to draw. I figured it would give him a better way of expressing his understanding of the text better. I read the story to him and had him draw what came to mind as the story went on. When I was done reading, he retold the story from his drawing.
To practice fluency, I worked with Keyler on his sight words. We started with easier words, and every time he would master them, we would move up to harder words. I would write the sight words for the previous, current, and future weeks on cups and he would stack them as he read them. When he would get better with the words, I would let him read the words and build a cup tower with the words he read.
For a vocabulary activity, I had Keyler match pictures to words. He first cut out the words and pictures, put the words in abc order, and then matched the picture to the word. When he finished that, he glued them in order on to the page. When we completed that activity, we played word bingo. If he had the word on his board, he would have to tell me the definition and use it in a sentence. Then he was able to cover the word.
We have been reading nonsense words to practice pronunciation. There is a monthly list with new words that come out. The more he reads them and practices, the better he will get with pronouncing words and reading fluently.
In this phonics/grammar activity, I covered our weekly sounds with cubes. I went over the weekly sounds with Keyler first. I had him read the beginning and end of the words and insert the sound to read the word. He would then uncover the word to see if he was right and then write it in the box below.
Standards:
ELD.K12.ELL.LA.1
English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of Language Arts.
ELD.K12.ELL.SI.1
English language learners communicate for social and instructional purposes within the school setting.
LAFS.1.L.1.1
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking
LAFS.1.RF.3.3
Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words
LAFS.1.RI.1.1
Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
LAFS.1.RI.1.2
Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.
Reflection:
Working with Keyler was a pleasure. I learned a lot working with him. Even when you think an assignment will be relatively easy for them, it turns out to be much harder. Keyler would act like he knew much more than he really did. He is very good at playing along and making you think he understands. He struggles but does not like to show it. I had to modify many of my ideas when I found this out. They took much longer than expected as well. I had to really work with him to figure out how he liked to learn to adjust his activities. He works much better one on one, when he is not put on the spot. I think if I keep working with him on these activities, we could really make some progress. He was already making improvement with his nonsense words and sight word fluency. When we were practicing fluency and stacking cups, we would use the same cups over and over again until he read and pronounced them all correctly before moving on to the harder words. He saw it as a challenge to be able to keep adding more cups to stack. He eventually got very fast doing it. When we did our weekly sounds where I covered up the middle sound and he had to guess what the word was, did very well on it. We practiced the sounds and he just had to insert that sound between the initial and ending letters. He especially liked it because it was like a trail of words and at the end I left him a treat when he got them all. I think the activity that I enjoyed the most working with him was the read and draw. He would have to really listen and think about what he was going to draw next that happened in the story. By doing this, he was able to retell me the events of the story. I chose that because even though he listens, he has a very hard time comprehending what was read. So I would ask questions throughout the story to make sure he was following. Overall I think this assignment was very useful and informative. It allowed me to work one on one with a student and learn from him as well. I think it was great practice to show me how to differentiate instruction to meet his needs.