Need Ideas on How to Support your English Learners during Reading and Writing Workshop?

by: Jesús López De Nava
Elementary Bilingual Coach

     Some time ago I visited a 3rd grade bilingual teacher at one of our campuses and among other things, she mentioned that she was facing some challenges with a couple of students during her Reading/Writing workshop, specifically when the language of instruction was English. This was due to the fact that these students were in the beginning stage of their English Language acquisition. She wanted to know what best practices and strategies she could put in place to better support her students. After some brainstorming, sharing and research, we came up with some ideas/resources:

1. Preview the mini lesson and/or text with these students prior to whole group instruction. This will help them understand the gist of the lesson, preventing them from feeling "lost" during the same.
2. During the mini lesson, stick to the language of instruction, so that your LEP students continue being exposed to their L2 language. Use comprehensible input strategies to support them during this whole group time. There are tons of articles/resources online, just google "Comprehensible Input"
3. For turn and talk and partner interaction, it may be a better idea to create "trios" where you would place one of these LEP students with other two that have a better mastery of the English language. This way the two more proficient English students can support the LEP student, while they themselves have each other to continue developing their English speaking skills.
4. During your conferring/small group time, you can bring these LEP students together to reinforce the teaching point of the lesson and support them as they practice the skills taught.

Here is an article and two charts that I'm sure you'd find useful:

• What can Beginning Speakers do in Reading Workshop and Read Aloud?
• Supporting English Learners in Reading Workshop
• Supporting English Learners in Writing Workshop

Additionally, I invite you to read this blog post titled "Serving ELLs through Reading and Writing Workshop"

I really hope you can find these ideas & resources valuable to you. If you have any other best practices and strategies of your own, I'd love to hear from you! Please share them to me via email at jlopezdenava@dentonisd.org and I will update this article to include them.