Oral Language and the Reading Process for ELL Students

Although I could talk from an early age, my sister, who is less than eleven months older than me, was my spokesperson to people outside of family.  I chose not to talk because there wasn’t a need and I felt shy around strangers.  I could tell my sister what I wanted and she would tell the adults. Teachers need ELL students to feel comfortable with responding to questions, so teachers need to provide an appropriate amount of wait time for an answer. They also need to be very encouraging of whatever the student is trying to say.  This can be applied to their reading as well; as students are learning how to sound out words and what the words mean, English Language Learners may feel uncertain and hesitant to try.  It is important to create a safe classroom environment, so students may do their best without feeling like their answers will be mocked or judged.  Students may feel more comfortable doing some activities in small groups or one-on-one conferences.

 

When I learned to read, my first books had a gigantic font size with very few words on a page and pictures to match the message being conveyed. The message was not detailed but the simple story was successful in its purpose. The words were short and the rules easy to remember. If I reread a book for school, it was  with the goal to become more accurate or fluent.  When I read my textbooks, the font size is usually small and there are hundreds of words on one page. Textbooks tend to have some pictures, graphs, and data, which is used to further illustrate what the author has written. The ideas written are complicated and very specific because reading at this point is used to learn new concepts. When I reread my textbooks, it is to make sure I can accurately apply the concept in a classroom not to ensure I read a word correctly.

 

Freeman (2014) suggests in his book Essential Linguistics: What Teachers Need to know to Teach that students should be taught how to read and speak through a gradual release of responsibility lesson framework.  Teachers may start by heavily filling students’ background knowledge to assist them with a concept and scaffold until they can do their work independently.  It is essential for English Language Learners to attain the grade level content at the same time they are acquiring language. They should be challenged, but not frustrated by the level of difficulty because the teacher asks questions using Bloom’s Taxonomy and has the patience to provide wait time for students to recognize and understand the words being said or read.

 

When you teach oral language to a child it is through practice from a simple format to a more complicated format, but it is the same language the entire time. Learning to read is similar to learning a new language with books starting with simple words like “the, cat, and hat.” The reading process is broken down into simplified parts for students to catch on to the method, but they are still reading the same language.