Imagine my dismay a couple of years ago when the decision was made to get rid of all reading texts that were not deemed levelled or decodable. This was in a high school setting where the texts had been curated over time to build the intervention programme that would include exposure to high interest, rich language and to enable discussions to build background knowledge with EAL/D students and more precisely, the large number of refugees who were coming in needing interventions at the tier 2 level.
The research highlighting the need to move away from instructional levelled texts to more grade appropriate texts is thankfully being discussed a lot more now, and hopefully will filter down to decision makers.
It is imperative that students, including EAL/D learners who are just learning the language, be exposed to year level texts, which inherently will be at their age appropriate level when engaged in the classroom. Shahanan made an interesting point in his blog post that with levelled reading, there is little challenge. When using complex texts with students who don’t have the language skills to access them, there has to be explicit teaching of the skills to enable access. As a teacher in the Singapore school system up to 15 years ago, teaching reading this way was our bread and butter. Even students in the lower 20% of the cohort (referred to as the normal stream)were actively taught to read and were successful.
So how do we get a student with almost no english language upon starting school in an Australian high school to begin accessing their texts. Allow me to demonstrate how this might be approached in a inclusive setting where the student is getting interventions through the MTSS system. I’m going to illustrate this using the text “The Little Refugee” by Anh Do.
Tier 1
The inclusive classroom, where a teacher would be addressing the needs of a range of students as the unit is delivered.
| The text | Instructional support | Rationale |
| The full text would be covered. | – Provide a summary of the story to the student. – Student engages in all discussions with the class. This will include themes, discussions on characterisation etc. – Short extracts from the text ( from 30 to 100 words depending on the language level of the student). Choose perhaps one extract to be worked on over each week – approximately 3 lessons when the short reading text can be exploited for study. | The EAL/D learner can learn with peers. The natural flow of discussions will support their thinking about the text. If the student has very little language, listening will be the main task. Repeated reading is a routine that definitely has a huge impact on the learning curve of an EAL/D learner. |
| – provide the student with an online version of the text. Encourage the use of a translation and read aloud apps where possible. – Where possible, a similar language speaker could support with some key words during discussions. | Remember, the barrier is the written language. While they are learning language, do not allow this barrier to block their learning of concepts and thoughts. This is the key to their acquisition of listening and speaking skills to conceptualise ideas. | |
| Tier 11 in the classroom | – Provide the students with some key words that could be the focus on each week’s lesson. | Build the students vocabulary. By pre-teaching some key words before the discussion, the student will find class discussions more accessible. A teacher aide, if available, could reinforce this learning. |
Tier 2
I just read Faith Howard’s article “I was doing Fluency Wrong – until I made it about Knowledge“. Read the article for a suggestion on creating alternative authentic texts in line with the dibel’s assessments for fluency. These could be incorporated into intervention at this point.
This would be some form of intervention programme for the student run outside the classroom. I’ll also provide suggestions here for setups where the only “intervention” is a teacher aide in the classroom. This often occurs when there is no official MTSS structure put in place to address EAL/D needs. I’ve also seen this occur when teachers are worried about getting the child to meet standard assessments, and believe a crash course is the way to go. It isn’t. An EAL/D child will learn if their language acquisition pathway is acknowledged and addressed.
Interventions that do not value the actual learning that students have to be engaged with in the classroom will not be beneficial. We want to be able to increase students ability to access their curriculum – when they are sitting in the classroom with their peers.
| The Text | Instructional Support | Rationale |
| Tier 11: Dedicated intervention (Pull out scenarios) Whole text Extracts Simplified texts Alternative similar text | – Content: Use similar themes to classroom work as the basis of the intervention. The text “The Little Refugee” was an ideal introduction for a small group of new arrivals with no language. The images were excellent for discussions and vocabulary building. – Reading skills: The work you do in this space is highly dependent on the ability of the students. Students must be explicitly taught reading skills that highlight how age appropriate texts can be accessed. With students with no English language, focus on key vocabulary, tap into their prior knowledge, discuss ideas while reinforcing vocabulary and syntax and introduce the text in a simplified form initially. – Definitely build repeated reading into your programme. | With a successful tier 2 intervention programme, the student is building the language to access the classroom work. The student is also acquiring the building blocks of language – very often the syntax and vocabulary to build general language skills cannot be covered adequately or in a timely manner in the subject focussed classroom. |
| Tier II: In class support | – If no other staff support is available: Provide students with exemplars of work being done in class and modify with the use of cloze passages, guided writing etc. The teacher could come round once in a while to provide one on one support such as getting student to read the extract aloud, clarifying sentence structures etc. – If an aide is available, ensure the expectations of the output is narrow and with a clear goal. The aide could be supporting the student to express an idea and then teaching how to write that idea down. | Firstly, let me state that this set up is not to be encouraged as it singles out a student to address differences rather than similarities. The value of the EAL/D learner being in the classroom with peers is that there is so much that goes on in the classroom that they can access – generally with their peers. The only time the student may have to work away from the rest of the class is when the class is engaged in a highly intensive task that the EAL/D learner cannot access. |
Tier III
MTSS isn’t about the number of students in a group. It is about the intensity of the support provided to a student. In many schools, there may be only one or two students in this group. In a low socio-econmic school with a large number of refugees, we will be looking at larger groups of about 6 to 9.
The students involved in tier III support require more intensive assistance, and this depends largely on what the assessments suggest as their gaps in learning. For the sake of this article, I’ll like to stick to the discussion of the support required to teach this text. As mentioned earlier, I taught this small intervention class at a tier II level. These were usually students who had just arrived in country and so it took me about a fortnight to know with some certainty, what their struggles were. Here, I’d like to highlight some of these that would have required more intensive support.
| The Text | Instructional support | Rationale |
| The simple text “The Little Refugee” augmented with other simple texts where possible. | 1. Phonics work- the explicit teaching through a structured programme. 2. A safe, non judgemental environment to experiment with speaking skills. 3. Intensified teaching to fill gaps in learning. Eg. focussed, explicit teaching of short reading text, revisited a number of times. Explicit coverage of the grammar error being made to ensure strong take up of syntax rules. 4. Provide ample opportunities for listening, speaking, reading and the writing of short texts. | While many EAL/D learners do not require intensive phonics work in high school, some, especially those who have had interrupted or no prior education, and those whose first language is based off a different script could face barriers they struggle to overcome. Some students simply need more frequent or extended repetition of learning for improvements to be seen. An EAL/D specialist will be able to ascertain the precise gaps students face so that a suitable intervention programme can be put in place. |
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