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Learning Outcomes By the end of this chapter you will be able to accomplish the following objectives:

• Describe the significance of the Common Core Reading: Informational Text Standards for ELLs.

• Articulate the challenges of and opportunities for teaching science to ELLs.

• Identify and evaluate the unique opportunities that social studies provides for meeting English language standards and for increasing cultural awareness.

• Argue coherently for linking math and language in the instruction of English language learners.

• Evaluate the role and importance of the arts in the curriculum for ELLs.

7Content-Area Teaching

Stacey Newman/iStock/Thinkstock

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Introduction

Introduction We learned in Chapter 6 that to succeed in school, ELLs must learn language and content simultaneously and that reading comprehension is central to both. In this chapter we take a closer look at the subjects in the school curriculum—social studies, science, math, the arts, and because it is foundational to all of these, English language arts. This perspective is consistent with the organization and focus of the Common Core State Standards. The CCSS provide a useful frame for our discussions, not only because they are a practical reality in education but also because they embody the reality that language and literacy are central to all learning. They represent an opportunity to develop elementary school curricula that are truly cross-disciplinary, or inter-disciplinary, and that are also consis- tent with the principles of communicative language teaching. For kindergarten through fifth grade, the CCSS provides standards for only two areas—math and English language arts because “they are areas upon which students build skill sets that are used in other subjects. Students must learn to read, write, speak, listen, and use language effectively in a variety of content areas . . .” (CCSS, FAQ). For later years, the standards for science and social studies/history specify discipline-specific skills, but they are embedded within the standards for comprehension of informational text. Math has a separate set of standards that pertain to content rather than language, but, as we shall see, even math requires lan- guage proficiency.

Before delving deeper into the CCSS, we need to be clear about what the standards are and, especially, what they are not. Perhaps the most important point to make about them is that they are not a common curricula. Standards set the expectations for the minimum level of knowledge a student must master at each level. Curriculum, on the other hand, is a road map that specifies content, resources, environment/context, and possibly methods or techniques for achieving those standards. The Common Core has not been without controversy. Much of the controversy is rooted in misunderstanding, misinformation, and even to residual ill will over the accountability requirements imposed by No Child Left Behind. Misconceptions abound, but the information included in Table 7.1 can help teachers to understand the intent and assess the magnitude of change that adopting the standards implies for schools, teachers, and learners.

Our purpose in this chapter is to understand the intersection of English language learning, content-area learning, and the goals established by the CCSS. The relationship between lan- guage and teaching the arts is not demarcated in the Common Core standards themselves, but the CCSS does support teaching of the arts, and as we shall see, there are many opportunities for integrating teaching of the arts with the English language arts standards, especially for listening and speaking.

Although some examples of techniques are given for illustrative purposes in this chapter, it should not be thought of as an instruction manual or set of directions—we will see more of these in the next chapter. Rather, it is a discussion intended to provoke teachers’ own creativ- ity, a guide to ways of thinking about how to meet the needs of ELLs.

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Section 7.1 Teaching English Language Arts

7.1 Teaching English Language Arts With the goal of ensuring that all learners have the skills and knowledge they will need to succeed in school, higher education, and careers, the English language arts (ELA) standards represent three shifts in emphasis from traditional curricula. They have a greater emphasis on content-rich nonfiction in the earliest years, regular practice with complex texts and the academic language they require, and reading, writing, and speaking, grounded in evidence from texts, both literary and informational text. The ELA standards themselves are defined in four strands:

1. Reading

a. Foundational skills b. Literature c. Informational texts

2. Writing 3. Speaking and listening 4. Language

Table 7.1: Myths and facts about the Common Core

Myth Fact

The CCSS are mandated by the president and/or the Department of Education.

The CCSS were not handed down by the federal government but were developed and adopted by the majority of the 50 states working in concert under the auspices of the National Governors’ Association together with the chief education officers of those states.

Every school in the country that adopts the CCSS will have to fol- low the same curriculum.

The CCSS do not constitute a curriculum. Rather, they represent a framework on which a curriculum can be built.

Literature will be abandoned. The confusion on this point likely results from the fact that the CCSS integrate history/social studies, science, and technology within the informational reading standards, perhaps leaving the impression that literacy involves only those areas. In fact, the CCSS outlines standards for reading literature at all grade levels.

Every child in the country will be reading exactly the same texts in each grade level.

The CCSS do specify that certain critical content should be mastered. This includes classical myths from around the world, foundational U.S. literature, United States’ founding documents, and Shakespeare. But except for providing a list of suggested texts, the CCSS do not dictate content.

Teacher autonomy will be lost. For the most part, in using the CCSS, teachers retain the autonomy to choose content and the curricular path they will take. Where they do not, it is not because of the CCSS but because of local or state strictures. Districts and states may choose to establish common curricula in some areas or to specify particular content or materials, but the CCSS them- selves are mostly silent on the issue of how and what to teach.

The CCSS require even more assessment.

Schools will need to assess how well their pupils are doing in order to adjust their curricula and practice, but the CCSS does not “come with a test.” There two consortia of states currently developing assessment instruments to measure how well learners are meeting the CCSS (Chapter 10), but the CCSS itself does not focus on testing.

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Section 7.1 Teaching English Language Arts

While all the skills these standards capture are important for ELLs, in this section we focus mainly on standards for reading: foundational skills and informational text, for two reasons. First, ELLs are more likely to start school with fewer foundational skills in English than their native speaking peers, and second, the standards for social studies and science are embedded in the standards for reading: Informational text for grades K–5 and are closely aligned with them thereafter. As noted above, we will examine some of the standards for speaking and listening within our discussion of the arts. Most of the practical suggestions for helping ELLs to meet these standards are found in Chapter 8, but there are also some practical suggestions included in the next section on foundational skills because they address specific early skills and are not as generally applicable across the content areas.

Foundational Skills We learned in previous chapters that language structures are not learned in a vacuum—students do not learn the individual sounds of the language by practicing them in isolation from words, nor words in isolation from sentences and meaning. And yet, sometimes this is exactly what ELL learners need to do—to focus on segmenting words into individual sounds and to see how they are represented in print. This fact does not go unnoticed by the creators of the CCSS who acknowledge that these foundational skills are “important components” of reading comprehen- sion but “are not an end in and of themselves” (CCSS Initiative, Introduction, 2015).

The CCSS and Foundational Skills For kindergarten and first grade, the standards for foundational skills fall into four strands:

1. print concepts, 2. phonological awareness, 3. phonics and word recognition, and 4. fluency.

Standards for third through fifth grades cover only the latter two categories. At any grade level, however, ELLs may lack the skills related to print concepts or phonological awareness in English. Many will need to acquire these lower-level skills before they can progress to the higher-level skills required for reading fluency and comprehension. Fortunately, these skills can be taught. We know, however, that they should not be taught in isolation, but in the con- text of a broader reading program, and embedded in meaningful language activities.

Learning to read involves, first, phonemic awareness, or the understanding that words are made up of individual sounds, and that these sounds can be reorganized or manipulated to form new words (Chapter 6). Although phoneme awareness differs from phonics, which is a method of teaching beginners to read and pronounce words by learning the relationship between sounds and letters, letter groups, and syllables, it is good practice to teach the two together or to follow phoneme awareness activities with those centering on sound-symbol correspondence. For example, showing children that fat, cat, hat, mat, sat, and pat not only share similar sounds (phonemic awareness) but also share the same spelling of the vowel sound (phonics), is a way of providing dual input (oral and visual) to aid retention.

The reading fluency standards are subsumed under the general goal that learners “read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension” (CCSS Initiative, 2015), specifying that first graders, for example, be able to read grade level text with purpose and

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Section 7.1 Teaching English Language Arts

ELLs and Foundational Skills The real challenge for ELLs is to acquire these foundational skills quickly. Most ELLs require practice with a variety of language activities to increase phonemic awareness. Many different techniques used with younger English speakers are effective with ELLs if they:

• are of short duration, • are related to other language objectives, and • are focused on the needs of individual learners—it is counterproductive to have an

ELL practice the /p/b/ distinction if she has already demonstrated that she knows it.

Reading Informational Text The ability to read and comprehend informational text is central to other academic learning, particularly social studies and science. There are four standards for reading: informational text, related to:

1. key ideas and details, 2. craft and structure, 3. integration of knowledge and ideas, and 4. range of reading and level of text complexity.

understanding, and to read aloud, accurately, with expression, and without hesitation. The standards also require that learners be able to use context to confirm or to self-correct their word predictions and reread as necessary. Again, ELLs are less likely to have acquired these first grade fluency standards even by third grade.

Building Phoneme Awareness There are many ways of helping ELLs to recognize and identify the individual sounds in words. For example,

a. Questions such as “What is the first sound in dog?” b. A sound/picture identification task: The words rat, cat, hat, and pat are written or

shown on flash cards and learners are asked to match the word with the picture of a cat (or a hat or a rat).

c. Questions such as “What sound is the same in all of these words: mouse, mix, mom, and moon?”

d. Questions such as “Which word does not belong? Dog, log, rock, hog?” (How would adding clog to the list complicate it for beginners but possibly not for more advanced learners?)

e. Questions that require “subtraction:” “What is stop without the /s/?” or “What is block without the /b/?” Would the question “What is black without the /l/?” be harder or easier for more advanced learners? Why?

f. Rhymes play an important role in making infants aware of individual sounds, and they are also useful for ELLs. Children’s books featuring rhymes are good because they provide authentic context and teachers can expand the rhymes in the stories to other words.

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Section 7.1 Teaching English Language Arts

Because the standards for history/social studies and science are embedded in English lan- guage arts standards, we will examine each of them here before turning to discipline-specific variations later.

Key Ideas and Details Broadly, the objective of this standard is for students to learn to identify main topics and supporting details. The progression of skills from kindergarten to third grade is shown in Table 7.2.

Table 7.2: Key ideas and details: Progression of skills K–5

Skills to be mastered

Kindergarten With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

With prompting and sup- port, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

First grade Ask and answer ques- tions about key details in a text.

Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

Second grade Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

Identify the main topic of a multi-paragraph text as well as the focus of specific paragraphs within the text.

Describe the connection between a series of histori- cal events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text.

Third grade Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they sup- port the main idea.

Describe the relationship between a series of histori- cal events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.

Fourth grade Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text.

Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a histori- cal, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific infor- mation in the text.

Fifth grade Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explic- itly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.

Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a histori- cal, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.

Source: Author created from CCSS data

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Section 7.1 Teaching English Language Arts

As we look at the progression of skill development, there are a few things to keep in mind for ELLs. First, it is likely that they will need “prompting and support” well beyond kindergarten, and so teachers may need to tailor instruction for ELLs to develop the skills a grade or two below their actual grade level. Second, there is much presumed knowledge entrenched in these standards that ELLs might not have. Some of it relates to linguistic content and some to cultural content, where text may refer to events or people unfamiliar to them. Teachers will have to do a great deal more scaffolding with ELLs in order to keep them from falling behind.

Craft and Structure This standard is concerned with how different kinds of text are structured, vocabulary in context, and perspective and point of view. Learners are expected not only to understand what they read but, by the end of fifth grade, to begin to think logically and critically about it. Table 7.3 shows the growth expected between kindergarten and fifth grade as well as the expectation of ability by the end of high school.

Table 7.3: Expected growth in craft and structure

Kindergarten 5th grade 11th–12th grade

With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

Determine the meaning of general academic and domain- specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade five topic or subject area.

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, con- notative, and technical meanings; analyze how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term or terms over the course of a text (e.g., how Madison defines fac- tion in Federalist No. 10).

Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.

Compare and contrast the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, and problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in two or more texts.

Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposi- tion or argument, including whether the structure makes points clear, convincing, and engaging.

Name the author and illustrator of a text and define the role of each in presenting the ideas or information in a text.

Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differ- ences in the point of view they represent.

Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness or beauty of the text.

Source: CCSS

Not surprisingly, the increased emphasis on the different ways in which informational text is structured corresponds with expectations of the writing standards. By the end of fifth grade, for example, learners should be able to “Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information” (CCSS Initiative, 2015). These are high level literacy

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Section 7.1 Teaching English Language Arts

expectations for fifth graders, and for ELLs they are especially important. Remember what we learned in Chapter 6: The best predictor of academic achievement is an ELL’s reading ability at the end of third grade, and the lack of reading skills is the major language barrier to ELLs’ achiev- ing academic success. An ELL who hasn’t even begun to learn English until third grade has a great deal to accomplish to meet these literacy standards by the end of fifth grade.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas To develop research skills, this set of standards addresses how readers and

writers use visual and textual evidence to support an argument or conclusion. By the end of fifth grade, learners are beginning to analyze and synthesize different kinds of data from a variety of sources. A great deal of growth is expected in the elementary years to reach the standard expected for high school graduation, see Table 7.4. To meet the standards, teach- ers of ELLs will need to help learners to organize information from different sources and to understand the difference between conclusions and the details that support it. Teachers may find helping ELLs to meet these standards a less daunting task because the reliance on non- text sources relieves some of the linguistic burden for ELLs; they also provide an additional medium for understanding and remembering.

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity The purpose of this standard is to grow learners’ skills with increasingly more complex texts so that they can function effectively with content-area texts. The range of skills is shown in Table 7.5.

How do we know the level of text complexity or that it is intended for third or fifth graders? The CCSS identifies a number of measures for determining the reading level of text, one of which is the Lexile measurement system, as described in Lexile Measurements and How They Are Used. The Lexile measure for the Introduction section of this chapter is 1470, and the mean sentence length is 29.3.

Moodboard/Thinkstock This teacher is helping her students with a writing task that requires them to express and support an opinion on the material they have just read.

Table 7.4: Expected growth in integration of knowledge and ideas

Kindergarten 5th grade 11th–12th grade

Skills to be mastered

With prompting and sup- port, describe the relation- ship between illustrations and the text in which they appear (e.g., what person, place, thing, or idea in the text an illustration depicts).

Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrat- ing the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a prob- lem efficiently.

Integrate and evaluate mul- tiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Source: CCSS

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Section 7.1 Teaching English Language Arts

Table 7.5: Expected growth in range of reading & level of complexity

Kindergarten 5th grade 12th grade

Skills to be mastered

Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.

By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band indepen- dently and proficiently.

By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend liter- ary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 11-CCR text complexity band, inde- pendently and proficiently.

Source: CCSS

Lexile Measurements and How They Are Used The Lexile Framework for Reading measures both reader ability and text difficulty on the same scale. It is not an intervention, but is a tool for gathering information on which to base inter- vention that offers a “. . . ‘big picture’ view of growth of student reading ability from preschool through graduate school. Although the measure does not purport to establish grade level equivalencies, because there is so much variability among learners at any one grade level, the publishers of Lexile do provide data to illustrate where the “middle 50% of readers for each grade fall on the Lexile scale. These data are shown in Table 7.6.

Table 7.6: Lexile reader measures

Grade Lexile reader measures Mid-year

25th to 75th percentile

2009 text demand study

25th to 75th percentile

2012 CCSS text measures

1 Up to 300L 230L to 420L 190L to 530L

2 140L to 500L 450L to 570L 420L to 650L

3 330L to 700L 600L to 730L 520L to 820L

4 445L to 810L 640L to 780L 740L to 940L

5 565L to 910L 730L to 850L 830L to 1010L

6 665L to 1000L 860L to 920L 925L to 1120L

7 735L to 1065L 880L to 960L 970L to 1120L

8 805L to 1100L 900L to 1010L 1010L to 1185L

9 855L to 1165L 960L to 1110L 1050L to 1260L

10 905 to 1195L 920L to 1120L 1080L to 1335L

11 & 12 940L to 1210L 1070L to 1220L 1185L to 1385L

Sources: CCSS, Appendix A; The Lexile® Framework for Reading, http://www.lexile.com/about-lexile/grade- equivalent/grade-equivalent-chart/

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ELA

Social Studies

Science

Math

Section 7.1 Teaching English Language Arts

Readability measures can also be used to obtain information about the level of a student’s writing and can be used to track growth. The Lexile measurement can be used for this pur- pose, but since using it requires the text to be converted to plain text, it may be easier to use the Flesch-Kincaid measure within MS Word 10. The Flesch-Kincaid measure is easy to use and can give teachers a rough indication of a writer’s level of sophistication. Keep in mind, however, that these measures are not designed primarily to evaluate expression but to evalu- ate readability, and so they can serve only as rough indicators of writing growth. Also, because of slight variations within the two measurements, teachers using them to track students’ writing progress should be consistent and use only one.

A Note on Basal/Core Readers Basal readers, also known as core readers, are textbooks created specifically for the teaching of reading. Typically they come with a set of instructions and suggestions for teachers to use in teaching reading at various levels. They are a time-honored tradition in U.S. classrooms. Whether they will continue to enjoy such prominence in an increasingly diverse classroom in the era of the Common Core remains to be seen. What seems indis- putable is that basals alone will not be sufficient for meeting Common Core standards, especially for ELLs. They may have utility for beginning teachers: “The structure of a basal program—its units, materials, and lesson plans—can guide the thinking of novice teach- ers, but as a teacher grows in knowledge and experience, she can modify and augment the program to meet her students’ needs” (Kersten & Pardo, 2007). “Even the most expe- rienced professionals can find within a basal program materials and ideas to solve some instructional problems, but it is not the best set of tools for educating avid readers or those who struggle with the basics” (Dewitz, P. & Jones, J., 2013, p. 391). Moreover, for ELLs, the potential shortcomings of following a basal/core program without significant augmenta- tion are especially serious: “Unfortunately, the typical ESL series uses decontextualized language, bizarre sentence patterns, strangely repetitious language, and stories that do not contain familiar cultural content. Generally, basal readers are inappropriate for begin- ning “ESL” students” (Gunderson, Odo, & D’Silva, 2014, p. 185).

These last two sets of standards, integration of knowledge and ideas, and range of read- ing and level of text complexity, are especially good illustrations of the interdisciplinary nature of the CCSS for grades kindergarten through fifth grade, represented in Figure 7.1. As noted earlier, the ELA Standards for read- ing, writing, speaking, and listening apply to all the subjects in the K–5 curriculum. For grades six–twelve, standards are articulated in two sections—those that pertain exclu- sively to English language arts and those that pertain to social studies/history, science and technology.

ELA

Social Studies

Science

Math

Figure 7.1: The interdisciplinary nature of the language arts

Standards for reading, writing, speaking, and listening apply to all subjects in the curriculum.

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Section 7.2 Teaching Science

7.2 Teaching Science The science classroom can be a frustrating pla

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