Quick Tip for English Language Development Teachers

Secondary ELD Teachers, check out this week’s ELD Quick Tip! This week you’ll learn a reading strategy that you can use in any ELD class and learn about how to use the assessment builder in the Vista platform.

Strategy to Try: Signal Words

Signal words help students understand different text structures by telling them what is coming next. These words also help them to answer different writing prompts. Here are some signal words you can start teaching your students in ELD classes:

• Cause and Effect: if…then, because, as a result, therefore
• Compare: also, as well as, similarly
• Contrast: however, but, on the other hand, less than
• Description: for instance, in addition
• Sequence: first, second, meanwhile, finally, first of all

When teaching these signal words, you can create a poster to hang in your classroom or help students create their own flip books to refer to in their reading and writing.

Examples

• Get Ready: Teach students the signal words they might encounter in other classes when you do the “Connect to ________” lessons. For example, what words will they see often in a science class?
• Bridges and Engage: Each unit has a “Bridges to Language Arts” text in a different genre. Before reading the genre, teach students the signal words that will help them understand that specific genre.

Vista Assessment Builder

Did you know that you can create your own assessments or modify what is already in Vista?

• View the Instructor Guide and learn more!