The Reading Card/Differentiation

5 thoughts on “The Reading Card/Differentiation”

1. Ben Slavic

   August 17, 2015 at 3:42 am

   Here is a copy of an email I wrote to a parent today (names changed) that relates to the above. Feel free to use it if you find yourself in a similar situation:
   Hi Mr. and Mrs. Fardward it’s Ben Slavic. Thanks for your visit this morning Cedrik. I am happy to report that Dward had a great class today. He read an entire chapter book in the (75 min.) period and was able on top of that to write a page of French about what he read. This is where the real gains for Dward in French will be made this year as we discussed earlier today. Again, the professional and mature way that Dward handled what was asked of him in class today was just wonderful.
   One detail that aligns with the research: Students write better because they read more, not because they write more. So I will ask Dward to read a lot more than he writes in my class. He will do both, but he will read at least twice as much as he writes.
   Another important detail: Correcting every mistake in the grammar, or asking the student to correct the grammar, has been shown to result in no gains. So we will take what Dward writes and circle or highlight patterns in the grammar but we will not cover it in red ink, as they did in the past. I will meet with Dward as often as I can, perhaps once a week, to go over the general error patterns in his writing, but not to correct every detail, so as to align with the current research. Slowly his writing will self correct with all of the reading and by the end of the year we should be able to see improvement in his writing.
   I am most encouraged by Dward’s maturity today in class. Awesome!
   Sincerely,
   Ben Slavic
   AES French Instructor

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2. Alisa Shapiro

   August 18, 2015 at 8:45 pm

   Yeah – that’s what I’m talking about!

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3. Diane N.

   August 19, 2015 at 2:59 pm

   I’m working up plans for a heritage speaker/limited reader of Chinese. He’ll be semi-independent in the highest level Chinese class (he’ll rejoin us on reading days but do his own thing on auditory days). His family is on board with having him do independent reading (reading along while listening to audio) and writing/typing. I have some books that he can pick from, and in semester 2 maybe we’ll look for more advanced books.
   I’m also collecting some “reading response” activities – not necessarily big writing work, but a variety of options. I’m going to let him pick a different one each week or two. How often will depend on what seems appropriate as it gets going (right now I imagine a ratio of reading for 3 days, write for 1). I also plan to have him occasionally do a cultural report which is a part of the AP test, which I expect he’ll take in 2016-17.

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   1. Ben Slavic

      August 20, 2015 at 8:18 am

      Diane interestingly I have also decided on a 3:1 ration of reading to writing practice for my student who is in that same situation. The brilliant thing you wrote above is this, in my opinion:
      …having him do independent reading (reading along while listening to audio) and writing/typing…
      Perhaps we can explore this and compare notes as the year goes on. The idea of audio books while reading seems to contains enormous potential for building the student’s skills eventually to writing. The student hears it, reads it and eventually naturally writes it. It respects the sequence of how we learn languages.

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      1. Diane N.

         August 20, 2015 at 9:00 am

         I’d be really glad to hear about this type of situation. It’s almost my first with a real heritage speaker. In fact, he wasn’t going to take Chinese this year, but this plan convinced him to stick with it. He didn’t advocate for himself last year and rarely took up my offer to do independent reading then – but I didn’t have such a nice-sounding, ready-to-do plan, either, and I didn’t press him about it because he didn’t seem to have problems.
         Audio books are a necessity for Chinese especially, since he’s learning to read characters — he knows the sound/meaning, and now needs to connect that to how they look in written form. Thankfully, some book publishers recognize that, so I have a short shelf of choices from simpler to more complex.
         But I agree that it’d be very good for any language. I think it takes away a level of burden and stress on new readers to hear it while they follow visually. How I think about the 3 steps now is:
         – Connect sound to meaning (steps 1 & 2)
         – Connect now-familiar sound-meaning chunks to their visual appearance (step 3)
         I think I may involve movies later in the year, with subtitles on the whole time, so it’s visual + reading again. Not as sure how to keep him following subtitles instead of just listening yet. I will look to Judy DuBois for ideas there.

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