REME Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Core Literacy: Home-School Connections

1. REME Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Core Literacy: Home-School Connections Amy M Eppolito Janette Klingner Lucinda Soltero-Gonzalez December 7, 2012

2. AGENDA • Logistics • Home School Connections (60 min) • Summary of Core Literacy Components (10 min) • Break (10 min) • Break out Sessions with CLD Guide (45 min) JC: Janette Avon: Amy • RTI Process (45min)

3. Upcoming Dates • SELP/SSLP Testing: Avon Dec 10th/11th • SELP/SSLP Testing: June Creek Dec 17th/18th • Informal Observations (classrooms/grade level teams): week of January 14th • Next PD January 24/25: Topic= Assessment and decision making in RTI (guest: Diane Haager) • Consent Forms!

4. Three-Tier Model: Foundations, Principles and Structures Research-Based Tier 1 Universal Instruction Reflecting and Revising RTI for ELLs PD Components Culturally Responsive Literacy Instruction Learning Disability vs. Language Acquisition Appropriate Assessment and Instructional Decision Making

5. Where are we?Culturally Responsive Core Literacy Instruction • Oral Language • Reading Fluency • Reading Comprehension • Word Work • Cross-Linguistic Connections • Writing • Connections to Home and Community

6. Tier 1 Core Literacy Instruction:Establishing connections between School, Home & Community

7. Think-Write-Pair-Share • What does it mean to be culturally responsive when interacting with our students’ parents? • Parents care about how their children are doing socially/academically • Eliciting suggestions from parents- how to help children at home • Find out what parents are already doing • Assume best intentions • Have a conversation with parents about cultural differences re: education • Try to be positive-not judgmental • Help parents feel empowered- give them a a voice • Model suggestions for them- could be during a literacy night

8. In conceptualizing culturally responsive literacy instruction, we draw upon Wiley’s (1996) framework for working with diverse students and families: • accommodation, • incorporation, and • adaptation.

9. Accommodation requires teachers and others to have a better understanding of the communicative styles and literacy practices among their students and to account for these in their instruction. • “Literacy learning begins in the home, not the school … instruction should build on the foundation for literacy learning established in the home” (Au, 1993, p. 35). • Several qualitative studies have shown that, even in conditions of substantial poverty, homes can be rich in print and family members engage in literacy activities of many kinds on a daily basis.

10. Incorporation requires studying community practices that have not been valued previously and incorporating them into the curriculum. • “We must not assume that we can only teach the families how to do school, but that we can learn valuable lessons by coming to know the families, and by taking the time to establish the social relationships necessary to create personal links between households and classrooms” (Moll, 1999, p. xiii). • “Teachers and parents need to understand the way each defines, values, and uses literacy as part of cultural practices--such mutual understanding offers the potential for schooling to be adjusted to meet the needs of families” (Cairney, 1997, p. 70).

11. Adaptation involves the expectation that children and adults must acculturate or learn the norms of those who control the schools, institutions, and workplace. • Culturally and linguistically diverse parents want to give their children linguistic, social, and cultural capital to deal in the marketplace of schools, but are unsure how to go about doing this. • “When schools fail to provide parents with factual, empowering information and strategies for supporting their child’s learning, parents are even more likely to feel ambivalence as educators [of their own children]” (Clark, 1988, p. 95).

12. Building Bridges of Home, School, and Community (Epstein, 2001) More and better information for parents: Families care about their children’s success, but most parents need more and better information from schools and communities to become and remain productively involved in their children’s education

13. Parent Involvement • What do the parents in your school community do to show their participation?

14. Example 2 of Culturally Responsive Instruction • The teacher integrated a social studies unit with literacy instruction in a unit about shelters around the world. Throughout the unit of study the students researched “factors influencing architectural styles of shelters, such as weather, geography, topography, economy, and other available resources. They designed shelters through collaborative activities, decided how to identify rooms in their buildings, and brought items from their homes to furnish the shelters…This classroom was a busy community where one heard a constant buzzing of voices. Students worked independently in small groups of two, three, or four, while the adults (researcher, teacher, Spanish- and English-speaking parents who volunteered during different language blocks) worked with groups or individuals…Throughout the day children were encouraged to talk. Sometimes they needed to be reminded to talk about the task at hand, but they were rarely asked to stop talking(Arce, 2000, p.254).”

15. Funds of Knowledge for Teaching (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & González, 1992)

16. Funds of Knowledge for Teaching The funds of knowledge for teaching research project in Tucson, Arizona: • Research approach that is “based on understanding households (and classrooms) qualitatively” • This approach is “particularly important in dealing with students whose households are usually viewed as being ‘poor,’ not only economically but in terms of the quality of experiences for the child” (p. 132)

17. Funds of Knowledge for Teaching • The project includes three interrelated activities: • Ethnographic analysis of household dynamics • Examination of classroom practices • Development of after-school study groups with teachers and researchers

18. “Funds of knowledge” are historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household or individual functioning and well-being” (p.133)

19. Funds of Knowledge for Teaching • “By capitalizing on household and other community resources, we can organize classroom instruction that far exceeds in quality the rote-like instruction these children [from working-class, Mexican communities] commonly encounter in schools” (p. 132) • What’s the importance of getting to know families’ funds of knowledge?

20. Funds of Knowledge for Teaching • Getting to know families’ funds of knowledge can provide us with a positive and realistic view of households as containing ample cultural and cognitiveresources with great, potential utility for classroom instruction • This view of householdschallenges prevailing and accepted perceptions of working-class families as somehow disorganized socially and deficient intellectually

22. Jigsaw Activity • Group 1: Basic Findings from Funds of Knowledge studies (p. 133-134) • Describe the 2 findings presented and explain how they contrast with typical classroom practices • What are the implications for your classroom? • Group 2: Funds of Knowledge for Teaching & Studying Household Knowledge (p.134-136) • How did teachers in the project make use of households’ funds of knowledge in their teaching? • What did you learn that could be useful in capturing the existing funds of knowledge in your students’ families? • Group 3: Seeing Beyond Stereotypes (p.136-137) • What did allow the teacher to learn about her student’s life outside of the classroom and see that beyond stereotypes? • What did you learn that could help you and your colleagues to challenge your assumptions about your students’ lives outside of the classroom? • Group 4: Experimenting with Practice (p. 137-139) • What essential elements can be identified in the design of the theme study described? Identify the teacher and students’ role in this unit, instructional methods • How did she utilize her students’ funds of knowledge to support and enrich the theme study?

23. When you return to your base group, discuss the following: • Ideas or actions that resonated with you because you have successfully implemented them in your classroom • Big ‘ahas’ from today’s discussion about school, home and community connections • A step you will take towards establishing and strengthening partnerships with your students’ families

24. How can we create school-wide “mediating structures” for developing novel classroom practices that involve purposeful connections between our classroom and students’ homes?

25. Tier 1 Core Literacy Instruction for Emerging Bilingual Children: Key Elements & Considerations REME Project December 7, 2012

26. The Importance of the Instructional Core

27. Culturally Responsive Literacy Instruction Includes explicit instruction in phonological awareness, the alphabetic code, fluency, vocabulary development, comprehension strategies, and oral language. Includes frequent opportunities to practice reading with a variety of rich materials in meaningful contexts (“mirrors & windows”). Emphasizes cultural relevance and builds on students’ prior knowledge, interests, motivation, and home language.

28. Tier 1 Core Literacy Instruction Literacy core (Reading ,Writing, Listening, Speaking & Metalanguage)

29. Tier 1 Core Literacy Instruction for EBs(Klingner, Soltero-González& Lesaux, 2011)

30. Supporting ELs’ Reading Development (cont.)

31. Supporting ELs’ Reading Development (cont.)

32. Instructional Methods & Strategies 1) Oral Language • Oracy objective & literacy objectives • Dialogue • Teachers’ questions (Bloom’s Taxonomy) • Vocabulary & Language structures • Adivinanzas and Riddles • Matrix for planning for oral language development • Vocabulary Instruction • Selection of vocabulary words, word walls, re-reads, enactments, field trips, cognates, vocabulary quilt • Accessing Prior Knowledge • Anticipation guide, clustering/word mapping, vocabulary concept sort, MINE, hands on graphic organizer, sea box, • Building Background Knowledge • Realia, videos, preteach vocabulary, advanced organizer, etc.,

33. Instructional Methods & Strategies 2) Reading Comprehension • CSR 3) Word Work • Cognate Analysis 4) Cross-language Connections • Connecting language environments (AES teachers) • Bilingual books (lesson demonstration to AES teachers) • Teach similarities between L1 & L2 through metalanguage (The Dictado) • Strategic use of L1 in English-medium classrooms 5) Writing • The Dictado 6) Connections to Home & Community • Building Bridges of Home, School, and Community • Funds of Knowledge for Teaching

34. Break Out Sessions

35. Discuss CLD Action Plan by grade level (refer to guide) • What existing supports do you have to accomplish these goals? • How can CU team and Mentor teachers support you? (refer to guide)

36. CLD Action Plan

37. CLD Coaching Supports

38. RTI Process for ELLs

39. RTI Process for ELLs Tier I: • Step I: For All Students • Step II: For Students who are struggling after above Step I items are confirmed (May include up to 15-20% of learners) Tier II: RTI Tier 2 Supplemental Intervention: School Level Team Checklist of Items and Tasks

40. RTI Process for ELLs • Refer to Handout • Focus on Tier I and Tier II • Discuss with grade level teams: • What are you doing as a team? • How are you meeting these steps? • How do you envision these steps in your school?

41. Activity • On the poster paper • List items in tier I & II doing well and describe • List items in tier I & II need support/questions/challenges ideas for improvement • Discuss whole group