Homework

Homework is an important tool in a teacher’s arsenal of teaching tricks. Because teachers are responsible for teaching a lot of different content throughout the day, independent practice and homework become a time and place when teachers can observe how their students are applying the learning that has gone on during the day. For ELL students and non-ELL students alike, independent practice is a time when they can digest the information they’ve learned and apply it in ways that make sense to them. According to the research-based strategies by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, “effective teachers approach this kind of learning experience [independent practice and homework] as any other—matching the planned activity to the learning goal.” This point is especially important for ELL students. Often times teachers send homework home that has very little to do with that day’s learning. For ELL students, in order for the homework to be meaningful, they must be able to relate to it in some way. If the homework does not resemble anything they had learned that day, they will be lost and frustrated.

            In Hill and Flynn’s (2006), Classroom instruction that works with English language learners, they suggest that “the amount of homework assigned to students should increase as the progress from elementary school through high school” (p 78). I believe that homework should be given in preschool through 12^th grade, with some changes for the younger students. In preschool and kindergarten, the homework is designed to get families working together with their students. Although the homework does relate to the day’s learning, as was suggested above, it requires more than independent practice. Parental involvement is encouraged in preschool and kindergarten. As students get older and are more used to the routines of school, I believe homework should require very little parental involvement, but not until they are used to the routines of school work.

            For ELL students, homework should be modified to fit their level of English language development. Similar steps should be taken to ensure that the student has success with their homework just as in school. Providing homework with picture support can help with any reading problems ELL students may have. Clearly stating the directions to the student before he goes home can help with confusing assignments. Shortening homework assignments to focus on only a couple of key learning points can help the student feel less overwhelmed.

Reference

Hill. J.D. & Flynn, K.M. (2006). Classroom instruction that works with English language learners. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: VA

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (2005). Focus on Effectiveness.

running records

The two students that I gave running records were a second grade Spanish speaking student and a first grade Vietnamese speaking student. Both students have been in English speaking schools since ECE and would be considered to be in the intermediate to advanced fluency stages of language development.

Cassandra is a second grade student reading at approximately a DRA-14. While analyzing her miscues, none of them seemed to be particularly tied to her second language development. Cassandra seemed to rely on the visual cueing system which led to some of her mistakes. For example, in the sentence “Amy wanted to paint a picture,” Cassandra substituted went for wanted based on the w, n, and t of the original word. If she had been using the meaning cueing system, I believe she would have been able to go back and correct her mistake. Cassandra also seemed to use the structure cueing system pretty often during the running record. She substituted words that sounded right in the context of the sentence. The cueing system that Cassandra seemed to use the least was the meaning cueing system. She rarely went back and asked if what she was saying made sense. A next step for Cassandra’s reading instruction would be to prompt her to ask herself if what she is reading makes sense. Modeling for her how to tell if the words in the sentence make sense will help her as well.

Chiyah is a first grade student reading at approximately a DRA-6. While analyzing his miscues, none of them seemed to be particularly tied to his second language development either. The cueing system that Chiyah seemed to rely on most heavily was the visual cueing system. He relied heavily on picture support and on initial letter sound. For example, in the sentence, “This is a tortoise,” he substituted the word turtle for tortoise. In this miscue he used the initial letter sound and the picture to come up with the word. A next step in instruction for Chiyah would be to start sounding out words without the picture support. Modeling for him how to sound out words and then check them against a picture for correctness can help him effectively use the visual cueing system while reading.

nonfiction/fiction comparison

	Nonfiction	Fiction
Illustrations	-illustrations are more closely tied to the words on the page -illustrations are drawn. -illustrations are very simple	-illustrations are drawn. -illustrations are very busy with additional pictures
Number of words on each page	-fewer words on each page.	-more words on each page
Content/text structure	-common objects that can be found in a backyard -each page introduces the item (i.e. The ball.)	-common animals on a farm -may be difficult for students to understand what is happening in the story (i.e. The cows go.)

The two books that I chose were Go, Go, Go and The Backyard. Both books are from readingatoz.com and are at a DRA-A level. At this reading level, there are more similarities between the two types of texts than there are differences. I believe the closeness between the two types of texts may prove to be very difficult for the students to understand. For example, each book had illustrations that were drawn, making it very difficult to decide which was fiction and which was nonfiction just by looking at the pictures. For ELL students, clearly seeing the difference between drawn illustrations and photographs definitely helps to decide fiction from nonfiction. Although each book had drawings, the nonfiction illustrations had a more obvious tie to the concept than did the fiction text.

The nonfiction text had fewer words on each page than did the fiction text. The nonfiction text would be easier to read and to understand for ELL students because of how closely the words and the illustrations matched. The fiction text would be more difficult to read simply because the illustrations did not lend much support to the text.

Besides the obvious difference between theme (the nonfiction text was about objects found in the backyard and the fiction text was about farmyard animals getting in a truck to go somewhere), the text structure was not that different between the two texts. Each page of both texts introduced a new item or animal while maintaining the pattern.