¶ … vocabulary acquisition for a child, especially one that is not a native English speaker, who is trying to learn to read. The author mentions four "areas of instruction that teachers…demonstrated: comprehension, vocabulary, text structures and text features" (Kesler, 2010). The author relates that his test group for different reading approaches was from an urban elementary school at which 21% of the student population was ESL students. Four shared reading approaches -- possible sentences, using context clues, repeated readings, and using our bodies -- were compared as to effectiveness with this population. The remainder of the article was used to describe and evaluate the four different approaches.
The goal of using possible sentences is to help students understand how sentences can be built from an individual word or group of words. The author used a shared reading context to help the students think of ways that the words could be used. A chart was made of the words, and each of the students was asked by the teacher at some time during the day if he or she had used one of the words and how. If the student could relate a specific use of the word a tally was placed next to their name. The students enjoyed the interaction throughout the exercise.
For the context clues exercise, the author used the cloze procedure. Certain words were omitted from a sentence or paragraph and lines were placed where the words had been. Students were then asked to "fill in the blanks" based on the context of the sentence or passage. The students were able to generate many possibilities from the context of the passage.
The next approach was to use repeated readings of small passages to help the students gain fluency in their reading....
The author used a short passage in which the characters were using different voices. The students were read the story, and then the faces and gestures of the characters were demonstrated in conjunction with the words. In this way the students were taught about synonyms and antonyms of words.
The last approach was really a grouping of all the previous approaches with motion to make the words more clear and memorable to the students. The author read a story to the students and used the other devices such as writing the words down and repeating them. Then he would demonstrate the action of the word for the students. The students were better able to remember the words because they associated them with actions.
Relate
There has been a great deal of research conducted regarding different types of shared reading. The above examples allowed students to experience how they could use different approaches to better remember words while they learned to read a new language. Pinnell and Fountas (2007) defined shared reading as "students reading from a common enlarged text, either a large print book, a chart, or projected text. The teacher lead the group, pointing to words or phrases. Reading is usually in unison, although there are adaptations, such as groups alternating lines or individuals reading some lines." In the summarized article the author did not follow all of the conventions of shared reading exactly, but he made sure that all of the students were interacting during the different approaches and that they all were able to reply to questions in unison. The article by Pinnell and Fountas (2007) defines and describes similar approaches to the ones used in the summarized article.
One point which was not brought…
