Equitable Access for English Learners, Grades K-6. Mary Soto

      Figure 1.1 What Research Says About Basal Reading Programs

      1. Turn and Talk

      Do you agree with the pros and cons of using a basal reading program in your classroom? Which of the pros do you agree with? Which of the cons do you agree with and which of these are causing you the most concern? Do you have students who are lost most of the time you are teaching your language arts curriculum? Do you know why? With your partner, add to the pros and cons listed in Figure 1.1.

      2. “What if … Then” Poem

      Write a “What if … Then” poem to complete the following prompt:

      “What if I used a series of strategies to make my mandated language arts curriculum more comprehensible for my English learners?” The structure of the poem is as follows:

      Support for English Learners in Basals

      In the process of developing this book, we performed our own analysis of widely used basal series. This analysis informed the conclusions of the following subsections of this chapter.

      Basal programs and alternative programs include instructions for teaching the lessons to emergent bilinguals. Some suggestions for ELs are typically included in a given program’s teacher’s guide as part of the instructions for each selection. However, teachers are often directed to look in another section of the guide for more detailed ideas for ELs. In addition, major basal programs provide suggestions for English learners in a separate resource book. To develop their lessons, then, teachers have to consult two sections of the teacher’s guide plus a separate document.

      Support Instruction in the Teacher’s Guide

      Most suggestions included in the teacher’s guides to basal programs focus on direct instruction of vocabulary. Key words for each selection are pre-taught. Many programs include vocabulary cards, another resource that teachers must search for within the program materials and have ready to use. The cards usually include drawings to help students understand each word and a sample sentence using the word. Teachers are instructed to define the word and show the picture. It should be noted that the pictures and their relation to the words are not always clear, even to native English speakers. Often, the instructions direct teachers to have the ELs repeat the word two or three times. Students might also be asked to explain the word to a partner. This practice of pre-teaching vocabulary words is almost always the first suggestion for supporting English learners, despite research (Anderson & Nagy, 1992) showing that vocabulary is more readily acquired in the context of reading rather than by studying isolated words out of context.

      Another common suggestion for working with ELs is to have the students repeat after the teacher. For example, students might be asked to repeat the selection title or the author’s name as well as key words from the reading selection. Another repetition activity also promoted is echo reading. In echo reading, the teacher reads a short text section aloud, and English learners echo (repeat) what the teacher says. This practice is commonly used for emergent bilinguals at beginning and intermediate proficiency levels. While this activity can be useful at times, it should not be used with every lesson and should be tailored to a students’ needs and levels of English proficiency. However, the basal supports for ELs typically don’t differentiate by English proficiency levels.

      An activity sometimes suggested for English learners is to distinguish between words that are minimal pairs. Minimal pairs are words that differ by one sound (or phoneme) such as big and bag or big and pig. Having students repeat minimal pairs or identify which word of a pair the teacher has pronounced is a practice that was commonly used in teaching ESL in the past. There is little purpose in repeating isolated words, usually not related to the readings in the lesson, and there is no research showing that this practice improves listening, speaking, or reading skills. An overarching goal for English learners in a basal program should be to build comprehension of academic English during reading: Activities such as identifying words from minimal pairs does not serve the interest of helping students improve their reading comprehension.

      Separate EL Resource Book

      Most basal programs include a resource book and online resources for emergent bilinguals. In a typical program, teachers are directed to have English learners listen to a recorded version of the text selection, usually provided as an online resource before the reading lesson. The teacher then pre-teaches key vocabulary from the reading. After that, the teacher follows a script to teach the selection. First, the teacher reads the text aloud, one paragraph or short section at a time, and then stops after each paragraph or section and asks a series of questions to guide students through the reading. This plan for supporting English learners is teacher centered rather than student centered and seldom engages students in meaningful language use. Further, there is no attempt to shift the responsibility from the teacher to the students. Instruction should help emergent bilinguals develop the skills needed to become independent readers.

      Basal program teacher scripts are designed to present some background or context for the reading, define key vocabulary, and build understanding. Questions are often based on the pictures in the text. Teachers ask students about what they see in the picture. The resource guide provides teachers with expected answers from the students.

      There are several problems to an approach that uses a question-answer script. Many of the questions teachers are supposed to ask are syntactically complex and contain vocabulary that many emergent bilinguals could not be expected to have acquired. Since language acquisition results from receiving comprehensible input, it is unlikely students would benefit from questions that are incomprehensible to them. Further, asking and answering questions is an oral exercise. Although the development of oral English is important for learning to read, during reading instruction time students should spend most of their time interacting