Language Experience Approach (LEA)

With beginning learners, teachers or paraprofessionals can

• have students copy the story themselves;

• have students match words with pictures or definitions;

• delete every nth word (fourth, fifth, sixth, etc.) to create a cloze exercise. Have the students fill in the blanks either with or without the assistance of a word bank, depending on their literacy level;

• select words from the story for vocabulary, spelling, or sound-symbol correspondence activities;

• use the texts to review a grammar point, such as sequence of tenses, word order, or pronoun referents;

• dictate the story for learners to write;

• write the sentences in scrambled order and have students rewrite them, restoring the correct sequence;

• scramble key words and have students unscramble them.

More advanced learners can

• use the group-produced text as the basis for individually written texts about the same topic, about a similar experience, or as a critique of the experience. then they might read each others' texts;

• revise and edit the texts and prepare them for publication;

• read other texts related to the topic;

• generate comprehension questions for classmates to answer;

• write other types of texts--songs, poems, letters, or directions for how to do something.

"The Language Experience Approach and Adult Learners," http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/digests/LEA.html