Create a Differentiated School Library Orientation for ELL Newcomers

Create a Differentiated School Library Orientation for ELL Newcomers - Newcomer English Language Learners need a library orientation using very specific differentiation strategies based on WIDA-ELD Standards and Can-Do Descriptors. Read how I created a set of 3 Read-Aloud Orientation lessons with fun and relevant hands-on follow-up activities that meets their needs. #NoSweatLibraryA school library orientation influences our relationship with students for the entire school year, so it’s important to have an orientation with all students in the school, including our special populations.

Early on I realized that, even with customized grade-level orientations for ELA classes, Newcomer English Language Learners need a customized orientation with very focused differentiation.

So, I created a Read-Aloud Orientation plan using WIDA-ELD Standards and Can-Do Descriptors that met their needs.

3 GREAT READ-ALOUDS FOR ELL NEWCOMERS

A new school is an even more “alien environment” for ELL Newcomers (who also face a new city, state, country, and language), so I spread their library orientation across 3 weekly visits that help them get to know me better and gradually build their understanding of using the School Library.

I believe ELL Newcomers need to hear English spoken fluidly—not ‘fluently’, but ‘fluidly’—so the pacing and tone of the language becomes ingrained in their minds. For that reason I read aloud a picture book about the library at each of their 3 library visits:

  • Visit #1: Tomás & the Library Lady shares the Newcomers’ situation because Tomás and his family move from his home in Texas to Iowa. The local librarian helps him find wonderful books to read to his family, and this encourages our Newcomers to take their books home and practice learning English by reading to their own family.
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  • Visit #2: The Librarian from the Black Lagoon addresses Newcomers’ fear of things they’ve not yet experienced and helps reduce that worry through humor, as well as preparing them to learn the do’s and don’t’s of the school library.
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  • Visit #3: The Library Dragon highlights the joy and power of a library read-aloud. The words & phrases related to ‘fire’ preview synonyms & idioms for ELA and where students can locate different books in the library.
image of Tomas and the Library Lady picture book image of Librarian from the Black Lagoon book image of The Library Dragon book

ATTAINABLE HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES

Yes, students, especially ELL Newcomers, love read-alouds, but ALL library visits must be purposeful if we want teachers to use valuable class time to support our library program. I use follow-up hands-on activities that help ELLs meet English Language Arts objectives for ELL Level 1 students:

  • WIDA-ELD topic & academic language – word/phrase level Vocabulary Usage, sentence level Language Forms & Conventions, and discourse level Linguistic Complexity.
  • Can-Do Descriptors for performance tasks in Listening, Speaking, Writing, and Reading.
  • Differentiation strategies that offer sensory, graphic, and interactive support.

I chose these 3 stories because they naturally lead into activities that support classroom learning and help ELLs develop useful library skills. After the read-aloud, my modeling & guided practice activity has ELLs associate concrete visual stimuli with English language terms:

  • Visit #1 supports ELA concepts of story plot and compare/contrast
    • I Have, Who Has roundabout game begins with a student reading aloud the first plot question. I prompt “Who has the answer?” A student says “I have it,” reads their event, then their Who Has question. The game continues through the story, ending with the student who began.
    • Tomás and Me Venn diagram helps each student recall details of the story using compare/contrast by entering how they and Tomás are the same as or different from each other.Hands-On Activities for ELLs That Support Standards - These hands-on activities for my differentiated ELL Newcomer Library Orientations help English Learners meet English Language Arts Standards, ELD Standards, and Can-Do Descriptors, yet they're fun and easily attainable by students. And you can do them, too! #NoSweatLibrary
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  • Visit #2 presents library expectations with a concept attainment task allowing table groups to collaborate on sorting 12 pictorial cards into YES or NO categories for actions that are OK or unacceptable. (It’s the same activity as the one for 6g, but with fewer and simpler cards.)
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  • Visit #3 supports ELA recall of story details and similarities using a simple word search grid of story words related to fire, and supports ELD learning about idioms with fire-related phrases from the story.

The Venn diagram and the word search/idioms worksheets
can both be used as daily grades for the ELL teacher.

ELLS USE WHAT THEY’VE LEARNED

Next, Independent practice gives students an opportunity to use what they’ve learned.

  • Visit #1: Rather than confuse ELLs with navigating an unfamiliar environment, I hand-pick and lay out on tables a variety of picture books for students to browse, just as Tomás’s librarian chose books for him.
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    We have quite a diverse language population, so I display our bilingual picture books (in Spanish, Hindi, Urdu, Korean, Japanese, Khmer, Vietnamese, Arabic, Persian, Tagalog) along with a selection of English picture books with stories from or about other countries and cultures. This helps ELLs feel more at home in our school library, and I encourage them to choose a book to check out and take home to read to their families, as Tomás did.
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  • Visit #2 also gives students time to browse for books. I still have books laid out on tables, which some prefer, but now that the library isn’t such a scary place, I show them the adjoining bookshelf sections of bilingual books, picture books, and graphic novels. Students choose at least 1 book, and at checkout they receive a special ELL bookmark of library information of their learned policies & expectations.
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  • Visit #3 reinforces ELA compare/contrast and helps ELLS have pride in learning a new language, while retaining pride in their home language and culture. Students use English word/picture card prompts for things and events in the library and write the terms in their home language on the reverse side of the card. Then they affix tape and take the card to the proper location in the library and tape the card up to share their home language with the rest of the school.
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    Other students love seeing these cards and it gives them a conversation starter with ELL Newcomers in their classes. Plus I love having the “Welcome” and “Hello” cards in several languages (and alphabets!) displayed on my library doors every year!

A FINE BEGINNING…

The 2 Library Dragons!This set of library lessons is a positive and productive library orientation for ELL Level 1 Newcomers. They especially like Visit #3 about The Library Dragon because I have a huge stuffed dragon that students can sit with during the read-aloud.

After these lessons students feel very comfortable talking to me and using the library, so ensuing library visits are every other week like other ELA classes. Although we’ve had different ELL teachers through the years, they all look forward to beginning the school year with their Newcomers in this way.

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ELL Level 1 Newcomer Library Orientation pin imageIf this set of lessons appeals to you, the full package of the ELL Level 1 Newcomers Library Orientation lesson plan, printouts, and worksheets are available at No Sweat Library, my TPT store.

 

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Read Alouds & Free Reading in the School Library

Read Alouds & Free Reading in the School Library - No matter your grade level, School Librarians can engage students with the power of reading using a combination of read-alouds and free reading time...but the read-alouds must be relevant and the free reading needs to be longer than just 10 minutes at the start of a class period! #NoSweatLibrarySchool Librarians love books and tend to be prolific readers. One reason we became School Librarians was to share our joy of reading with others. Any elementary School Librarian can tell you that an effective way to ‘hook’ students into reading is to read a story aloud.

Young students never seem to tire of read-alouds, but many folks may think once students move beyond the elementary years, their fascination with read-alouds dissipates, but I can assure you that secondary students love them, too!

OLDER STUDENTS ENJOY READ-ALOUDS! 

When I returned to education after a ‘mom’ hiatus I taught in an alternative high school. It was truly one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The 15-19 year-old students in my school were “at-risk” of not graduating high school for a variety of reasons that made for poor performance in the regular classroom:

  • Poor reading or math skills, some as low as 2nd grade
  • Jobs to help support their family that kept them up late or missing days
  • Extended stay in a hospital for severe illness/accident or in rehab for addiction to drugs/alcohol
  • Lack of interest in or depression about the regular classroom, including social trauma

I learned early on that many of these kids had severely dysfunctional parents, and many never had a parent read to them as a child. One of their happiest memories was an elementary school teacher or librarian reading aloud to them.  Each teacher had an Advisory of 8-10 students that met daily, so I introduced my Advisory to books my own children had enjoyed and that these students had probably never heard.

image of book cover-500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. SeussThe first book I read aloud was an early Dr. Seuss book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, because I felt the theme of the story—perseverance in spite of criticism and intimidation—would inspire these kids. It was such a hit that I reread it each year to my Advisory, and even though some had heard the story before (we had our Advisory kids until they graduated) they loved hearing it again. I also read aloud other topical Dr. Seuss and Caldecott titles, almost all of which generated fascinating discussions among these high school students. That experience convinced me of the simplified presentation of complex issues through children’s books, and I continue to use them as a middle school librarian, to equal success.

READ -ALOUDS AS PART OF SCHOOL LIBRARY LESSONS

Make a read-aloud of Perrault's original Cinderella the focus of an ELA school library lesson. #NoSweatLibraryA particular middle school read-aloud success is during my 6g Multicultural Cinderella lesson. This collaborative co-taught lesson is designed to illustrate plot elements using the original Perrault Cinderella story as an exemplar. The 6g ELA Teacher introduces each plot element, and I, the School Librarian, read the associated story segment. While most students are familiar enough with Cinderella, many have never heard the original story. Though abbreviated for time, the read-aloud had students rapt with attention!

For the follow up activity students choose a multicultural Cinderella picture book on their table and, in pairs, read it to compare and contrast various cultural elements with the original story. The group discussion afterward emphasized to me that, not only do students enjoy being read to, but the combination of read-aloud and self-reading increases comprehension of concepts.

Make a Read-Aloud the Focus of a School Library Lesson - Here's how a School Librarian uses a read-aloud as the basis for 2 different School Library Lessons, one with 6th grade English Language Arts and one with Newcomer English Learners. #NoSweatLibraryRead-alouds are particularly powerful with ESL/ELL students, who need to hear English spoken in a fluid manner to fully grasp the rhythm and flow of their new language. My Newcomer ELLs experience read-alouds for their first 3 library visits of the school year, all designed to make them comfortable with me and with using the school library.

I also read aloud every week to our lowest-reading-level SpEd students who struggle with comprehension. Their teacher tells me what they are studying that week and I choose a story to support the subject area classroom activity. This wide range of read-alouds stimulates these students to explore the subject on their own, especially since I always pull a few fiction and/or non-fiction books on the topic for them to browse and check out.

PUT FREE READING INTO LIBRARY VISITS 

Our middle school ELA teachers all have classroom libraries, but they don’t compete with a good School Library. No matter how spacious a classroom, a teacher can only stock a few hundred books for her students; even a small middle school library can offer several thousand current Fiction books. My ELA teachers understand the difference, so that is why they schedule regular library visits every other week throughout the year.

We discovered that 10 minutes of reading at the start of each class period is not enough “free reading”. For students who have never had regular free reading, giving them 10 minutes a day to read is a great way to begin, but it can’t be the end goal. Ten minutes isn’t long enough to truly become engaged in a story: prolific readers want to read longer, and reluctant readers just want to get through the time, often jumping from one book to another and never finishing any of them.

Give Students the Gift of Silent Sustained Reading - Build student reading endurance & enjoyment by embedding extended free reading into every ELA library visit. #NoSweatLibraryTo really build readers we give students a 30-minute time period to become immersed in a story. When ELA teachers bring students to the library every other week for book return/checkout I occasionally have a lesson, but it’s a very small portion of the 50-minute period. Students always have 7-10 minutes to browse for books, and then sit down to read for the rest of the class period. During the last 10-15 minutes of the period I go to a couple tables at a time, signaling students it’s their turn to check out. This orderly checkout preserves the quiet reading atmosphere.

With a longer reading time, students become involved in the stories, continue to read on their own, and finish their books faster. Some students decide after a few minutes they don’t like the book they’ve chosen, and they still have time to find a new one and get started reading it. ELA teachers also provide a 30-minute reading time in the classroom during the interim week between library visits. The success of this strategy became evident to us with improved word recognition and reading comprehension, and we raised State Reading Test Scores. Interestingly, one year our district insisted on using the first 10 minutes of ELA periods for reading, but before the end of the first semester our ELA teachers realized it was a disaster, so we abandoned it and went back to our tried-and-true method with greater success.

My experiences as a high school teacher of at-risk students and a middle school librarian has convinced me that, no matter the grade level you teach, you can engage students with the power of reading using a combination of read-alouds and free reading time!

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You can find my Multicultural Cinderella lesson and my ELL 3-visit Library Orientation lesson in NoSweat Library Lessons, my TeachersPayTeachers store.
No Sweat Multicultural Cinderella & Fairy Tales Library Lesson - Students know the Cinderella story, but examining its story elements through an interspersed read-aloud gives it new meaning. Students then read other cultural renditions of the story, and make comparisons to identify the diversity of cultural elements. #NoSweatLibrary No Sweat ELL Newcomer School Library Orientation - 3 School Library Lessons where students hear Tomás and the Library Lady, Librarian From the Black Lagoon, and The Library Dragon read aloud by the School Librarian followed by a hands-on activity to build vocabulary & comprehension. Product includes the Library Lesson Plan with WIDA-ELD Standards, ELA Common Core Standards, and National School Library Standards.

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