Dear Colleague,
Each month colleagues with expertise in HOT TOPIC areas will be asked to submit articles for this
newsletter. The two coaches featured in this month's newsletter, Toni M. McElroy, M.A. and Muriel Hall Ayanaba, PhD. discuss important aspects of
literacy in secondary education.
The topics are:
- Core Components of a Successful Reading Intervention
Program
- Fostering African American
Student Success in Middle School
English Classes
Core Components of a Successful Reading Intervention Program
by Toni M. McElroy, M.A.
In my position as English Language Arts/Reading Intervention Content Coach for my school district, colleagues from neighboring school districts often
call for guidance and clarity regarding implementing a district wide intensive reading intervention program. My experience in implementing a Reading
Intervention program successfully and with fidelity encompasses nine essential core components.
1. Selection of intervention teachers: Selecting (recruiting) the best
teachers on each site for working with this student population makes a
difference in the success.
2. Scheduling: Setting parallel classes in a master schedule so that
students can be shifted between intervention classes according to ability &
skills without upsetting an entire schedule. Scheduling is huge in
intensive intervention. 90 minutes/day minimum is recommended in the master schedule for these classes.
3. Assessment: Deciding who will be given the placement tests for
intensive intervention. What assessment will be administered? Will multiple
measures be used in assessment? (Most districts use FBB or bottom quartile - depending on numbers who need intervention) What is your cutoff: below 30%, below 25%? Can students be assessed in 5th grade and 8th grade (spring) to inform master
schedule needs for the middle schools and high schools in the fall.
4. On-going support: District coaching, professional development and
on-going follow-up/training (site and district);
5. Setting Goals: 1) The goal of intensive intervention is to close
the achievement gap and get students back to core classes as soon as
possible. Making district/site decisions ahead of time will tremendously
support teachers in implementation. [Example: A teacher is teaching an
intervention class at the student's level of functioning and moving them as
quickly as they can through the reading intervention curriculum- then an
administrator visits the class and wants to know when and where the grade
level standards are being taught. If the students could function at grade
level, they would not need intensive intervention. Reading Intervention
teachers need administrative support to teach the intervention to bring
students' skills up to grade level so that they can do grade level work.
State recommended Instructional time in the intervention is a minimum of 90 min/day-5 days a week.] 2) How are you going to examine progress of the intensive intervention -- can the district's research team be involved from the beginning
to assist with purposeful progress assessment (student growth data, student/teacher evaluation of
the intervention.)
6. Fidelity: Teachers need administrative support to teach the
intervention with fidelity. If they are doing their own thing, you don't
know if the intervention is working.
7. Staff support: Administrators can encourage entire staffs to
support literacy and the intervention teachers. Make literacy a site goal.
Teaching intervention should not be entirely the job of the reading
intervention teacher. A site's literacy team might be made up of: reading
intervention teachers, representatives from departments, counselor, and a
site administrator.
8. Funding: Being creative about funding intervention materials:
Teacher & student Core Program Components, supplementary materials, gender and culturally relevant classroom libraries, and technology components. Planning
ahead for replenishing consumables is important.
9. Motivation and Behavior: Intervention students often have difficulty
with motivation about school and behavior issues. What district/site support
is available to assist intervention teachers and their students?
Toni McElroy is an ELA
Secondary Content Coach in the Instructional Services division in Oakland
Unified School District. She is the Reading Intervention Coach.
Fostering African American Student Success in Middle School
English Classes
by Muriel Hall Ayanaba, PhD
Middle schools face the challenge of increasing the number of students who
are considered proficient or advanced in English as measured by the
California Standards Test. Schools are charged with significantly improving
the performance of African American students who attend their schools, in
part, because students' mastery of core English standards directly affects
schools' AYP scores. Our middle schools receive many African American
students who are approaching or at proficiency as they leave elementary
schools. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, middle schools find those
levels of student achievement extremely difficult to maintain. This article
enumerates research-based approaches that result in academic achievement for
African American students in middle school English classes.
Focus on Academic Oral Language Development
Dr. Noma Lemoine, Director of
Academic English Mastery Program
(AEMP) of Los Angeles
Unified School
District, has developed an
instructional approach that takes into consideration the linguistic
functioning of students who speak African American Language (AAL). AAL is
also referred to as Black English, African American English Vernacular and
Ebonics. AAL is a rule driven language that is spoken by some African
American students in our schools. The AEMP strategies are designed to
familiarize both teachers and students to the rules of AAL and to the rules
of academic Standard American English so that students will acquire academic
language for school success.
The program promotes six
instructional approaches; three of
which have great relevance at the middle school level. These are -
- Integrate linguistic knowledge about the languages
of Standard
English Learners into instruction.
- Design instruction around the learning styles and
strengths of
Standard English Learners.
- Infuse the history and culture of Standard English
Learners into the
daily instructional curriculum.
(For more information, visit http://www.learnmedia.com/aemp/index.html)
Focus on Oral and Written Language Development
Geneva Smitherman and John Rickford
are linguists who are
professors at the University of Michigan and Stanford University
respectively. They have studied and conducted research into the language of
AAL speakers and into the instruction needed to support AAL speakers toward
academic success. Dr. Smitherman and Dr. Rickford urge educators to provide
focus on students' development of communicative competence.
Communicative competence is the
ability to communicate
effectively in the language appropriate to the situation and the audience.
So as educators, middle school English teachers can encourage students to
acquire and use academic language in the appropriate venues, like during
class discussions and in their essays. To do this, Smitherman and Rickford
recommend that teachers build students' communicative competence on the
foundation of verbal and literary strengths African American Language
speakers bring from home. So, teachers can:
- Use the verbal interaction styles of students in
the context of
learning
- Call and response
- Signifying - metaphor, irony, word play, imagery,
humor
- Tonal semantics - intonation and expression to
convey added meaning,
rhythm, rhyme, alliteration
- Narrative - to tell a story or to make a point
These literary devices and use of figurative language are in the oral
repertoire of the students; our task is to convince them to transfer these
into the academic setting as they read and write in class. Smitherman proffers significant research evidence that
African
American students who incorporate the elements of strong writing are those
that perform best on standardized tests and assessments, such as the SAT and NAEP. Therefore, middle school English teachers who support African
American students will get best results when they promote the elements of good
academic writing that are embodied in the California English Content
Standards. She and Rickford suggest that English teachers do the following -
-
Highlight important elements of composition when
giving instruction or when responding to students' oral and written texts, in terms of
- Content
- Message
- Style
- Word choice
- Logical development
- Analysis
These writing elements conform closely to rubrics developed in response to
the California English standards for grades 6 through 8. Conventions of
spelling, punctuation, and syntax make writing more acceptable and
comprehensible and should not be ignored. However, middle school English
teachers will find that African American students make greatest strides in
their academic writing development when substantial attention is paid to
content, organization, and development.
For more information Geneva Smitherman, visit http://www.msu.edu/~smither4/ and John Rickford at www.stanford.edu/~rickford/
Classroom instruction and practice that develop the academic language of
African American middle school students have the potential to move ever
greater numbers of students to achieve at the proficient and advanced
levels. At the same time, educators will foster the development of successful, confident readers and writers.
Muriel Ayanaba is currently on special assignment
as an Outreach Coordinator for the New Teacher Center at UC Santa Cruz.
Muriel works as an ELA Secondary Coach in the Instructional Services
division in Oakland Unified School District.
>Email
your thoughts on this article.
I hope you've enjoyed our first newsletter.
Sincerely,
Dr. Patricia Fioriello
Educational Consultant
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