CI Elementary – 2

Lisa asks:
Hola Ben,
I’m really interested in TPRS and CI. I teach PreK-3rd grade. I see my children 2/week. The wee ones for 30 mins, the older ones for 45. I’m not a traditional methods teacher w/pen and paper or a text book. I make up my own curriculum and roll with it. We act, dance, sing, read stories, play games, and I use pictures, props and items to teach.
In researching and reading it seems that most teachers share @ middle/high school students. Do the kids need to be able to read or can I accomplish the input through pictures? I use pictures for my wee ones with a combination of pictures and words for my older students.
My main goal is for Spanish to be fun and comprehensible.
Gracias,
Lisa
I asked Alisa to respond and she said this:
Yes, Lisa you are correct! They don’t need to be able to read. You can roll with their emergent literacy by offering some words in whatever visuals you are integrating – a book, a poster, a slide… So those who are actually reading have some differentiation. In my (affluent high performing) district this checks the ‘differentiation’ box…
The text would be simple, short and easy and don’t spend a lot of time on it… I don’t even add text intentionally (there is some in my classroom environment from other higher grades – I teach 1st thru 4th) until the latter part of first grade…
Please feel free to ask me questions! I wrote up a group presentation on literacy in the elementary WL classroom in the current issue of iJFLT – you might be interested in reading it….
I also share this little first grade video to give you some idea of what my first grade/January looks like – we start WL in 1st grade and these kids started late in the fall, so they’ve had very little.,..
This is my birthday ritual – from 2 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2n6K6KRZtE&feature=youtu.be
Best to you – sounds like you are a natural for these kinds of Comprehensible Input strategies – and I’m glad to answer any questions,
Alisa