1. TEACHING READING TO
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
LEARNERS
Laura Araujo
MAACCE Conference - May 8, 2014
Carroll Community College

2. What do your
students
enjoy
reading?
What is your
biggest
struggle when
teaching
reading?
What type of
reading is the
most difficult
for your
students?
What reading
strategies do
your students
currently use?
What are
your
students
reading on a
daily basis?

3. What is involved in reading?
Decoding Vocabulary
Comprehension Fluency

4. Decoding
What is the word?
Phonemic awareness- ability to notice, think about, and
work with sounds
Phonics knowledge- recognize relationship between letters
and sounds and ability to apply relationships to reading and
writing

5. Strategies to Develop Decoding Skills
Decoding instruction should involve explicitly teaching:
• Consonant blends (bl, st, sh)
• Vowel combinations (ai, oa, ea)
• High frequency spelling patterns (-tion, -nce, il-, ir-)
• Prefixes and suffixes
• Sight words
Cloze activities with sounds
Circle sounds/words in context
Letter tiles
Dictation
Sort words by sounds

6. What could we do with this vocabulary
list?
Strawberry
Apple
Watermelon
Orange
Grapefruit
Grapes
Banana
Peach
Cherry
Nectarine
Plum
Blueberry
Raspberry
Pineapple
Grocery store
Fruit
Produce
Shop
Slice
Chop
Cut

7. Vocabulary
What does the word mean?
Vocabulary is a primary indicator of reading success

8. Develop Vocabulary
Teach Greek and Latin roots
What do these prefixes/roots mean:
un (unhappy)
thermo (thermometer)
phon (telephone)
demo (democracy)

9. Developing Vocabulary
Types of Vocabulary
General Service List
1. the
2. be
3. to
4. of
5. and
6. a
7. in
8. that
9. have
10. I
Academic Words List
chart
adult
affect
economy
feature
proportion
respond
perspective
nevertheless
cycle
Technical Vocabulary
ampere
axle
cam
closed circuit
piston
radiator
suspension
timing change
torque
rotor

10. Explicitly teach and practice vocabulary
by…
Making flashcards and word sorts
Maintaining a list of new words
Use a word map
Play games (BINGO and Concentration)
Determine depth of understanding for vocabulary

11. Fluency
Can I read it accurately and quickly?
Affected by text complexity and reader’s familiarity of
structure

12. Comprehension
Why did I read? and Did I understand it?
Purposeful and active

13. Developing Comprehension
Learners need training, modeling, and guided
practice
Determine main idea, details, inferences
Summarize
Reread
Utilize prior knowledge
Elaborate discussion of text
Critical analysis of text
Determine author’s point of view/purpose

14. Using Graphic Organizers to Guide
Reading Comprehension
Discuss the following questions:
• With what type of reading would you use this graphic organizer?
• How would you modify the graphic organizer to match the level of
your students?
• How would this graphic organizer help students’ reading
comprehension?

19. Where do I start???
“People learn best when learning starts with what they
already know, builds on their strengths, engages them in
the learning process, and enables them to accomplish
something they want to accomplish” (Auerbach, 1997).

20. Balance top-down and bottom-up instruction
Whole
Story about going to the
grocery store
Part
Identify words with ‘ch’ sound,
identify sequence with a graphic
organizer
Whole
Class discussion about
going to the grocery store
Part
Preview vocabulary- review
words students already
know and introduce new
words

22. Resources
http://bit.ly/18mDXs4