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Connecting Content and Academic Language for English Learners and Struggling Students, Grades 2–6
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Connecting Content and Academic Language for English Learners and Struggling Students, Grades 2–6

Foreword by Ofelia García

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May 2011 | 200 pages | Corwin

Create unit plans that will empower your EL students

In this supremely practical book, award-winning principal Ruth Swinney and college professor Patricia Velasco focus on the careful planning needed to develop the academic language of all students. For English learners especially, it is critically important to integrate language development with the content that the curriculum demands. What makes this book unlike any other is the detailed guidance it provides to:

• Help students advance from social to academic language
• Encourage verbal expression in the classroom
• Plan language arts, social studies, and science lessons that connect language and content
• Use shared reading and writing, read alouds, and conversation to teach language skills

Hands-on tools include graphic organizers, sample lesson plans, concept maps, semantic webbing, word walls, and worksheets—everything teachers need to help emergent bilingual and struggling students master the academic language they need to excel in school.


 
List of Illustrations
 
Foreword: Finding Cats and Dogs in the Zoo, by Ofelia Garcia
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Authors
 
Part I: The Language Component: From Social to Academic Language
 
Introduction: Making Content Accessible to English Learners and Struggling Students
 
1. Building Language: How and Why
Background Knowledge and Its Relationship With Vocabulary

 
The Role that Background Knowledge Plays in Our Learning

 
Morphology and Syntax

 
Figurative Language

 
Conclusion

 
Questions for Reflection

 
 
2. From Social to Academic Language: a Curriculum of Talk
Developing Oral Language

 
The Social and Academic Language Continuum

 
What Is a Curriculum of Talk?

 
Goals of a Curriculum of Talk: The Role of Conversation

 
Different Types of Classroom Conversations That Support Listening and Speaking in the Classroom

 
Conclusion

 
Questions for Reflection

 
 
3. Structures of Balanced Literacy That Support English Language Learners and Struggling Students
What Is Balanced Literacy?

 
Literacy Practices That Support Language Growth

 
Adapting Balanced Literacy Components

 
Interactive Real Aloud

 
Shared Reading

 
Shared Writing

 
Conclusion

 
Questions for Reflection

 
 
Part II: The Lesson Component: Sample Units to Integrate Content and Language Goals
 
4. Language Arts Unit: Memoir (Grades 3-6)
Introduction

 
Section 1: The English Language Learner and Memoir

 
Breaking the Plan Into Doable Parts

 
Immersion in the Genre Through Read Aloud

 
Developing Knowledge About the Genre After Reading Many Memoirs

 
Section 2: Addressing Language Needs

 
Elements of Cohesion

 
Figurative Language

 
Conclusion

 
Teacher Self-Assessment for the Unit

 
 
5. Social Studies Unit: Colonial Times and the American Revolution (Grade 4)
The English Language Learner and the Social Studies Curriculum

 
Concepts and Teaching Tools

 
Breaking the Plan Into Doable Parts

 
Anchoring the Unit in a Read Aloud

 
Thinking Skills Used Throughout the Unit: Language Prompts

 
Vocabulary Development

 
Shared Reading: Working With Language Goals

 
Shared Writing

 
Conclusion

 
Teacher Self-Assessment for the Unit

 
 
6. Science Unit: Plant and Animal Adaptations (Grades 5-6)
The English Language Learner and Science

 
Planning the Unit

 
Breaking the Plan Into Doable Parts

 
Shared Reading

 
Developing Critical Thinking Skills Through Read Aloud

 
Experiment: Plant Adaptations

 
Individual Book Reports

 
Conclusion

 
Teacher Self-Assessment for the Unit

 
 
7. Thematic Unit: The Rainforest (Grades 2-3)
The English Language Learner and Thematic Units

 
Planning the Unit

 
Breaking the Plan Into Doable Parts

 
Social Studies and Math Concepts

 
Science

 
Language Arts

 
The Rainforest of the Amazon: The Play

 
Conclusion

 
Teacher Self-Assessment for the Unit

 
 
Conclusion
 
References
 
Index

"When told not to simplify but rather to amplify a lesson for English learners, a teacher's first questions are: 'how and when?' In Swinney and Velasco's book, a Grade 2–6 teacher finds the answer to both questions and the tools to implement them. Congratulations! I do not know many books that can do that."

Elena Dilion, Supervisor of ELL and Dual Language Programs K–12
City School District of New Rochelle, NY

"The authors offer teachers a toolbox that explicitly illustrates scaffolding strategies to trigger background knowledge, link the building of academic language to the acquisition of new knowledge, and intertwine thinking skills throughout all experiences. Written in simple, user friendly language, this work will undoubtedly become a most useful tool for all teachers who seek to ensure academic success for emergent bilingual learners."

Nancy Villarreal de Adler, Executive Director
New York State Association for Bilingual Education

"Finally, teachers of English learners have the book they have needed for so long. Swinney and Velasco describe in a friendly and practical way the precise pedagogical sequence needed by Grade 2–6 school teachers in the education of ELs. In my personal experience the only way that English learners can develop their cognitive abilities in the second language is learning the second language within the content of the other curriculum matters."

Rafael Olivares, Associate Professor of Education
Queens College, NY

"Many professors, staff developers and literacy coaches offer their conceptual knowledge but lack the wisdom of practice. Swinney & Velasco take the time to detail exactly the making of an ELL master teacher. Their teaching wisdom serves an often misunderstood student population—the struggling reader and writer. This book is a must-read to those practitioners in the field of second language special education."

Jossie O’Neill, Ed. D., Director of Partnerships & Outreach
The Gateway Schools, New York City, NY

"Swinney and Velasco provide an extraordinarily useful and comprehensive resource across content areas for the full spectrum of professionals working to improve the language and learning skills of students in Grades 2–6. Teacher educators as well as pre-service and beginning teachers will find a rich array of very concrete examples that detail effective instructional strategies, step-by-step action plans for achieving specific instructional objectives, and real-world vignettes of teachers achieving success with struggling students. This is an inspired and inspirational guide, well-informed by theory and research, and by the realities of actual classrooms. Both authors have extensive experience in classroom teaching, teacher supervision, program development and administration, and the writing of educational materials; their book distills the best of their combined 30 years of educational service."

Herlinda E. Cancino, Associate Professor
San Francisco State University, CA

"The authors' practical approaches for teaching content and language simultaneously are based on research and a deep knowledge of how classrooms operate. Every teacher working with language-diverse students will find much of value here.”

Catherine Snow, Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor
Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA

"The main contribution this book makes is to show teachers that they have other options rather than simplifying the material. Supremely practical, with careful and precise guidance, the book is for teachers in bilingual settings, in regular classrooms, and for ESL teachers. It can also be valuable in teacher training programs, which incorporate language objectives into all their planning."

SirReadAlot.org, July 2011, Issue 147

The content was covered by other resources that were more broadly applicable to other grades.

Dr Kate Reynolds
Foreign Languages Dept, University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire
February 15, 2013
Key features
  • Focuses specifically on ELL children as well as English-dominant students in grades 2-6 who come to school with low literacy skills
  • Provides teachers with basic information about student background knowledge and how it affects learning and language
  • Examines the continuum of social to academic language, stresses the role that conversation plays in the development of academic language, and presents ways to develop language skills through a "curriculum of talk"
  • Takes teachers step-by-step through the process of planning units of study and linking language goals with the requirements of the unit
  • Shows teachers how they can use specific structures of balanced literacy—read aloud, shared reading, and shared writing—to develop students' background knowledge and to teach the language skills students need in order to understand the content
  • Provides specific lesson plans for sample units of study in language arts, social studies, science, and for an integrated thematic unit

Sample Materials & Chapters

Foreword

Introduction


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