District Administration - February 2008 - (Page 58)

SUPERVISOR’S OPINION • Eamonn O’Donovan Narrow the Academic Language Gap to Reduce the Achievement Gap You must teach academic vocabulary if you expect your students to use it. ARFIELD CHARTER EL ementary School serves 677 K8 students in the Redwood City Elementary School District in California. Ninety-four percent of the students are Hispanic or Latino. Eighty-ﬁve percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Seventy-eight percent of the students are English Language Learners. Sarah Twiest teaches eighth-grade language arts at Garﬁeld. She sees ﬁrsthand that her students lack the background knowledge needed for academic success. This gap in knowledge is expressed in language. Her students not only grapple with everyday English, but they do not have the academic vocabulary needed for success in classroom assignments and state-mandated standardized tests. They must bridge this language gap in order to be successful in the worlds of school and work. Twiest does not leave this to chance. She explicitly teaches the academic language that her students must develop to be successful in school. Words such as compare, order and analyze are the mortar needed to build the capacity to speak and write in functional academic language. Twiest does not assume that students know these words. Her students may recognize these words as part of the receptive language that they have built up, but they often can’t use the words properly. They are not yet part of their expressive language. Twiest selects academic vocabulary from the texts that students will read in class and—here is the key—students must use them in specially structured classroom activities and must reproduce them in their writing. 58 February 2008 G Vocabulary lists in textbooks are often chosen by frequency, not utility. A visit to her classroom will reveal students actively engaged in the acquisition of high-utility academic vocabulary. Lessons are designed so that everybody uses the target words repeatedly, using an “I do it, we do it, you do it” type approach. All students pronounce these words, see and hear explanations of them, and engage in choral response of them. Multiple examples of the words in diﬀerent contexts are oﬀered. Students say and explain words to a partner, ﬁnish sentence starters with the words, and record the words in a cumulative word journal. Her approach reﬂects the recommendations for direct instruction of vocabulary by the National Reading Panel in 2000. According to these recommendations, speciﬁc word instruction should: . . . . RESOURCES Linguistic Department at the University of California, Irvine eee.uci.edu/programs/esl/ strategies.html Narrowing the Language Gap: The Case for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction teacher.scholastic.com/products/ ReadAbout/pdfs/RA_Research_ Narrowing_the_Gap.pdf National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition and Language Instruction www.ncela.gwu.edu/resabout/literacy/2_academic.htm Sonoma County, Calif., Department of Education web1.d25.k12.id.us/home/title1 /vocabdev.htm Focus on words that are useful to know in many situations and that are essential to understand texts. Go beyond deﬁ nitions of words, with clear explanations and opportunities to use, discuss and analyze target vocabulary. Involve multiple exposures to target words. Engage students in active and deepprocessing of words and word associations. I asked Twiest how she knows what words to teach. She replied that she uses a vocabulary list, called the Academic Word List, developed by Averil Coxhead, which has 570 high-incidence and highutility academic word families for secondary school and higher education. Mostly, however, she selects her own words, having developed experience in word selection from working with her students and looking to the texts that they have to read. Her instruction is research-based and reﬂects to a large degree the work of Kate Kinsella at San Francisco State University. There are other word lists. Vocabulary lists in textbooks are often chosen by frequency, not utility, so teachers have to be more selective than that. English District Administration http://eee.uci.edu/programs/esl/strategies.html http://eee.uci.edu/programs/esl/strategies.html http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/ReadAbout/pdf/RA_Research_Narrowing_the_Gap.pdf http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/ReadAbout/pdf/RA_Research_Narrowing_the_Gap.pdf http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/ReadAbout/pdf/RA_Research_Narrowing_the_Gap.pdf http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/resabout/literacy/2_academic.htm http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/resabout/literacy/2_academic.htm http://web1.d25.k12.id.us/home/title1/vocabdev.htm http://web1.d25.k12.id.us/home/title1/vocabdev.htm

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - February 2008

District Administration - February 2008
Contents
Editor’s Letter
Letters
News Update
Technology Update
Security Update
Virtual Schools Update
Curriculum Update
Inside the Law
District Profile
The “Other” Advanced Program
State of the Superintendency
Landing the Chief
Purchasing Security Products and Services
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
Speaking Out
Professional Opinion
Supervisor’s Opinion
Overheard on the Pulse
New Products
Problem Solution
Computer Literature
Research Corner
Calendar of Events
Products Showcase
Understanding the Times

District Administration - February 2008