Practicum Presentation

The focus:

The focus of my practicum is to learn better ways to engage my students and help them with reading and writing skills.

During my practicum I want to focus on reading and writing strategies to support my level 6 students as they work towards passing the TOEFL and preparing for college level work.

Focus

Cognitive Dimension

It is important for students to create links between the English vocabulary and their words and suffixes and their native language.

Through the Cognate Activity, students were able to connect the vocabulary word to their native language.

Cognitive Dimension

Phonological Awareness

" The best two predictors of reading success are alphabet recognition and phonemic awareness"

- Marilyn Jager Adams

Integrative Phonics: Strategies in Practice

Due to the diversity of my student population in terms of language and reading and writing skills, I noticed my students frequently struggle with letter sound knowledge especially when it comes to more advanced text. In order to promote the application of phonics knowledge, I decided to do the Writing Letters activity where students have to write down the sentence in which the word was used in the text given to them and what they think it means given the context clues in the story.

" Phonics knowledge is developmental. Culturally and linguistically diverse students develop phonics knowledge from phonological awareness skills in their native language. Depending on their level of native language proficiency, the rate at which students acquire phonics skills in English will vary. The challenge for teachers is to utilize cross language transfer as a toll for helping CLD students acquire English phonics skills, tapping into what they already know and teaching them the phonics skills they do not know" ( Herrera, Perez & Escamilla, 2015, p. 81).

It is important to teach text-to-self instruction. To help my students with this, the MINE activity, In My Head activity, and the Question Bookmark activity were done. These activities allowed the students to create questions to also connect with the text. In addition, it involved meta cognition as they related to the text as they were reading.

Instruction

CLD Student Biography

It is important to get to know the student's background and where they come from. By getting to know their linguistic, academic, and sociocultural background, I am better able to not only know more about them but target their needs.

Background

The data collected and the information helped my learning goals.

• My main goal was to be able to know use strategies and activities that would help my student's reading and writing skills.

• Based on the information (data) collected, such activities and strategies provided a great way for my students to be able to increase their reading and writing skills. More importantly my students showed genuine interest for them and excitement to use them for future texts.

Data Evidence I

In addition:

• My students showed greater comprehension after doing the strategies.
• Students expanded their vocabulary by making connections to their native language ( they were amazed on how many vocabulary words they knew based on how similar a word sounded to their native language).
• Knowing student's background helped me target where they are struggling the most.
• B doing these strategies, students learned additional ways to increase their reading and writing skills.

Data Evidence II

Every time there was an activity students were a little hesitant to try them...

• I could sense it was a bit difficult for my students to feel a bit naive when they were faced with a difficult text. When a new text was presented to them, many of them gave up easily. However, through the strategies and activities, they gained confidence. I loved being able able to discuss their personal connections to the text. For example, one students when reading a "Haunted House" by Virginia Woolf made references to his parent's house when he was growing up. This provided not only a great class discussion, but it enabled students to comprehend the text better.

• Although some of the strategies/activities are aimed for children, it was not difficult to adapt them for adult learners.

• One of my favorite comments when working with vocabulary words and that came directly from the TOEFL test and their cognates was " I didn't know I knew so much English!"

Data Evidence III

Learning Part 1

• I learned to not assume that because they are adults they know HOW to read. Many of them didn't grow up reading in their native language, which makes it more difficult for them to read in a new language.
• I learned that modeling is great way for students to see and learn.
• I have learned of the importance of being able to create activities that are engaging and interesting.

" There is considerable evidence from research over the past four decades supporting the assertions that explicitly teaching a variety of self-regulating strategies improves students learning and reading" ( Echeverria, Vogt, & Short, 2017, p. 127).

What I learned Part 2

• I learned that my students, despite their age, need the use of strategies to help them figure out ways to better their reading and writing skills.
• I learned that getting to know the student's background is essential for the instructor as it provides an insight into their needs and assets and what they can bring to the literacy process.
• I learned that students are open to learning when they feel confident that they can become better readers and writers.