If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, last week I gave a few easy tips for teaching writing to EBs. In this email I'm going to focus on reading. Here are a few things you can do or keep in mind when asking students to read for your content area.
- Give students a translated version of the text so they can read in both their language and English, or an authentic text in their language on the same topic.
- Use Text Compactor, Simplish, or Rewordify to simplify/summarize/shorten lengthy or difficult texts.
- Break the text into smaller chunks with headings.
- Preteach vocabulary.
- Frequently check for comprehension.
- Select key words from the passage and ask students to translate those words into their native language before reading.
- Explicitly teach, reinforce, and practice reading strategies such as visualizing, connecting, asking questions, evaluating, making predictions, summarizing, etc.
- Teach and encourage more advanced students to write while reading by using the Cornell note-taking system, highlighting, or annotating.
- Use the SQ3R reading system: survey, question, read, recite, review.
- Survey: reread the text.
- Question: ask yourself questions before you read.
- Read: read and annotate while reading.
- Recite: stop and summarize periodically.
- Review: summarize the whole text at the end.
Doing just a few of these suggestions can greatly help the reading comprehension of your emergent bilinguals. Pick one to try out and see how it goes!