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Assessment Strategies and Reading Profiles
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Profile 11:"NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH"

Beginners Group - Silent Reading GE 0-3.9



Suggestions for instruction for ASRP Profile 11 learners

Reading components work together. Increasing skill on any component increases skill on the others. RR

Reminder: All members of Profile 11 are Non-native Speakers of English (NNSE.)

Effective instruction includes a systematic, phonologically-based curriculum and continued practice toward automatic Word Recognition coupled with a focus on vocabulary development.

Through GE 2 level, the emphasis of reading instruction should be on direct teaching of the alphabetic principle—that is, that letters represent speech sounds and when blended together these sounds represent words in our spoken language.

Oral language
  • Is your learner ready for ABE classes, or does he/she need more ESOL language/literacy education? What kind of assessment is given to determine readiness for ABE classes? Does your center use a published listening comprehension measure for ESOL learners as part of placement decisions? In other words, does your learner understand and speak English well enough to enter into learning about the written form of the new language?
  • All Profile 11 learners need further instruction and practice in spoken language Fluency and comprehension. In order to isolate English sounds in Word Analysis instruction (below), they may need help with English pronunciation (particularly with sounds present in English that may not be present in a learner's first language).
Word Analysis sequence of instruction at the 0-2 grade level
  • First, the sounds of language:
    • Phonemic Awareness (PA): Any kind of practice that involves only the sounds of letters—not the letters themselves—will help focus learners' attention to "sounding out" a word before spelling it. Give them a PA assessment, such as the Test of Auditory Analysis Skills (TAAS) (5 minutes per learner) to see where their mastery of consonant deletion gets shaky. Five minutes of a PA game before you start a Spelling lesson will prompt the learners to listen to and manipulate sounds before they put symbols to the sounds in the lesson itself.
  • Matching sounds to letters - systematic phonics instruction:
    • Accuracy in letter identification: How automatic is their letter recognition? Make up sheets of different sets of four or five letters by typing them in random order in three or four horizontal rows. Use only one set of four or five letters on each page. Do not group together the letters that are most often confused, d, b, p, q. Time this letter recognition practice.
    • Consonant sounds
    • Short vowel sounds
    • Digraphs (sh, wh, ch, th, ck)
    • Word families (ang, onk, ing, etc.)
    • Closed syllable rule: When a syllable has one vowel and ends with a consonant, the vowel sound is short.
    • VC/C and VC/V division rules, e.g., bas/ket, tox/ic
Word Recognition
  • Teach an initial list of high frequency words such as the first 100 words from the Fry or Dolch word lists. Add to this list words you know to be of practical importance in their daily living. Try to find phonetically regular "real life" words that give practice in the phonics skills you are teaching. Teach non-phonetic words as sight words.
Fluency
  • Beginning Level (GE 0-3.9) readers read slowly because they must decode or sound out most words, rather than quickly recognizing them by sight.  As their decoding improves and they become "unglued from print," as Jeanne Chall puts it,RR their reading rate gradually increases and their reading begins to sound smoother and more fluent.  Oral reading practice is the best way to accomplish this.  Texts chosen for Fluency practice should be at or slightly below learners' Word Recognition grade equivalent (GE).
    Effective techniques for practicing Fluency can be found in Chapter 5 of McShane, S. (2005). Applying research in reading for adults: First steps for teachers.
Spelling
  • K/ck spelling rule
  • Doubling consonant rule
  • Adding s/es
Oral reading
  • For accuracy practice, use texts that include only those words that have phonetic patterns that you have directly taught in Word Analysis instruction. Find out more about these kinds of texts.
  • For Fluency, re-read passages that were first read for accuracy.
Word Meaning (Vocabulary)
  • Intensive vocabulary acquisition is an ongoing part of the curriculum for second language learners throughout all levels of ABE (and beyond).  It can be challenging for them catch up in vocabulary to their NSE peers who attain the same level of reading comprehension.

    Because most NNSE learners at the beginning reading level are newcomers to the U.S., they need to know the meanings of many words relating to their general safety and welfare. Affective words (those that communicate feelings and wants) are usually most easily learned and can be incorporated into oral sentence pattern practice. When possible, use words that can also be part of a Word Analysis lesson, so that the meaning can be more firmly established through familiarity with its written form.

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Last updated: Monday, 16-Nov-2009 07:52:34 EST