Quick Tip for English Language Development Teachers

• Download 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 you’ll learn how to access Rosetta Stone stories.

Strategy to Try: Engineered Text

Just like it helps your MLs to break up what they hear into smaller chunks, you can make the texts they’re reading easier to process by breaking them up, too! Here are some things you can do to “engineer” a text:

• include focus questions at the beginning of chunks and/or space for written responses in between chunks
• add text features like headings, bolded words, and visuals
• provide definitions, translations, or synonyms for key words

As students read, give them time in between chunks of text to process what they’ve read. Some ideas for that processing time include:

• drawing a picture of what they’ve read
• summarizing using sentence frames or sentence starters
• discussing the focus question with a group and then writing their own answer

Examples

• Get Ready: The lessons that connect to other content areas have readings that students can complete with a group. Instead of having them just read, provide a focus question or a graphic organizer that students can fill out together.
• Bridges and Engage: The readings in these textbooks have focus questions already created for you! Choose the questions you want your students to discuss and plan time in their reading to stop and process what they’ve read.

Rosetta Stone Stories

In Rosetta Stone stories, students can listen and read along to a native speaker narrating a story, or record themselves reading the story and listen back. The “Speak” section is a great way for new students to practice recording themselves because they don’t have to think about what to say but still get practice speaking.

• Instructions on how students can access stories in the Rosetta Stone platform.