The number of English as a Second Language (ESL) students enrolled in schools across North America is increasing (Cummins, 1981). The increase means that more are enrolled in mainstream classrooms where they are taught to read using materials and programs designed for native English speakers

Gunderson, Lee

English

ScholarWorks at WMU

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy andLanguage ArtsVolume 25Issue 3 April 1985 Article 24-1-1985Basal Reading Instruction and E.S.L. StudentsLee GundersonUniversity of British ColumbiaFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizonsPart of the Education CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the SpecialEducation and Literacy Studies at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy andLanguage Arts by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks at WMU. For moreinformation, please contact maira.bundza@wmich.edu.Recommended CitationGunderson, L. (1985). Basal Reading Instruction and E.S.L. Students. Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 25(3). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol25/iss3/2BASAL READING INSTRUCTION AND E.S.L. STUDENTS Lee Gunderson FACUL TY OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA The number of English as a Second Language (FSL) students enrolled in schools across North America is increasing (Currmins, 1981). The increase means that more are enrolled in mainstream classrooms where they are taught to read using materials and pro-grams designed for native English speakers. Eighty to ninety percent of the reading instruction in the United States (Aukerman, 1981; Austin & Morrison, 1963; Chall, 1967) and Canada (Pieronek, 1981) involves basal readers. Since L2 learners are being taught to read using basal readers (Gunderson, 1983) this paper presents an integrated Second Language (L2) lesson plan developed with their needs and abilities in mind. Basal Readers and the D. R. A. A basal reading series is generally designed witr~n a skills mcxiel of reading, typically providing " ... for developnental se-quences of phonics skills, word recognition skills, comprehension skills, and so on" (Aukerman, 1981, p. 11). Basal vocabulary is controlled so that only words occurring at a high frequency in the general lexicon are used, only a few words are introduced at a time, words are repeated often to ensure they are learned, and words are not encountered in text until they have been intro-duced. The initial texts designed for L2 students contain vocabu-lary that differs from Ll basals. In L2 texts the highest frequency words are inflected "ing" forms of verbs (Rebane, 1983). Since they are the first gramnatical morpnemes learned in both Ll (Brown, 1973) and L2 (Dulay & Burt, 1974) it is appropriate to include them in initial L2 texts because they are a prominent feature of the language of beginning L2 learners. The vocabulary in initial Ll reading texts is inappropriate, however. Teachers should place beginners in texts designed for L2 students or use some other instructional approach such as Language Experience. Basal reading series usually prescribe the Directed Reading Approach (D.R.A.) to teach individual lessons which involves; 1) a discussion of story background, 2) the introduction of new vocabulary, 3) guided reading, 4) story follow-up activities, and 5) related skills developnent activities. Pieronek (1979)devel-oped the "ideal integrated reading lesson plan," a refinement of D.R.A., as a guide for classroom teachers. The L2 plan presented in this paper is a refinement of D.R.A. to be used with L2 students. The D.R.A. and L2 Students Text comprehension depends, in part , on one I s background knowledge and experience (Bransford and Johnson, 1978; Thorndyke, rh-163 1977; Anderson, Reynolds, Schallert , and Goetz, 1977; Mandler and Johnson, 1977). Betts (1946) notes that " ... the pupils should be prepared for the reading of a given selection" (p.430). D.R.A. provides for background knowledge by introducing historical fea-tures and concepts. Background knowledge is essential for L2 stu-dents (Johnson, 1981 & '82; Carrell, 1981; Hudson, 1982). However, they face the additional burden of not knowing a great number of the items of vocabulary associated with the background of a particular story. They lack a knowledge of ITBinstrearn customs , idiomatic terms, or genre-specific vocabulary. The standard proce-dure for basal vocabulary introduction is in isolation. Aukerman (1981) describes this as the "whole-word" method or " ... providing pupils with the new words in each lesson in chalkboard work just prior to reading in their pupil books" (p. 11). Step one The first instructional step is the integration of vocabulary and background, a task best accomplished by assuring that 4 areas of vocabulary are covered: 1) new vocabulary, 2) cont,ext-dependent vocabulary (e.g., "pilot" in a story about ships means something different from "pilot" in a story about airplanes), 3) genre spec-ific vocabulary, and 4) idiomatic vocabulary - within the structure of the story. It is important at this point to introduce words at a sight level as an aid for learning meaning. Stage one can be best understood with an example from a third grade classroom in which three students were being introduced to a basal story about a "fair". (Ruddell, Adams, & Taylor, Surprises and Prizes, 1978) Before the lesson the story was ITBPped and an outline contain-ing ITBin narrative elements in chronological order was produced. The resulting structural units resemble typical story granmar elements (cf. Mandler & Johnson, 1977; Rumelhart, 1975; Stein and Glenn, 1979; Thorndyke, 1977). Vocabulary was ordered according to occurrence in the story providing a set of expectations to guide passage comprehension. Illustrations were collected for use as cues to the learning of meaning. Analysis resulted in the following outline: 1. Introduction - Family on its way to a fair. 2. Family arrives at fair, introduction of fair features. 3. Family buys tickets to the fair - buying features. 4. Family sees a high wire show - high wire features. 5. High wire incident - incident features. 6. Conclusion - Family gets to jump on net. Thirty-four words to be introduced were identified: no, this, want, dad, Dave, miss, mom, fair, hurry, library, people, books, but, here, need, now, dime , win, Bell, Day, prize, ticket, jump, jumped, looked, Mrs.-:- show, so.-that, bike, fell, Ling, net, Rose. The order of introduction was determined by story structure. So, for instance, fair, no, Dave, miss, mom, dad, this, hurry, and want were associated with the introduction and were taught first. 164-rh The lesson was begun in a typical manner: "today we are going to read a story about a fair. (Holds up the word "fair" printed on an oak-tag strip and repeats it once, places it into a pocket chart.) "Do you know what a fair is?" (Reveals several illustra-tions of a fair.) During this portion attention is focussed on word meaniIlg, llowe v eI' , eacll I 'ef eI'ellce Lo a word is cue for the teacher Lo point to tl1e; relaLc'li 11a5hcard ClIld txiy "yes, 0. fair is a place with rides, prizes, tents, and shows." The first phase of stage one focusses on word meanings inte-grated into a story or passage structure. The "fair" introduction, for instance, began with a discussion of the word fair and con-tinued with the development of the first story element, a family hurrying to a fair. "The story today is about a fair. Dave, (Shows flashcard) his dad, (shows flashcard) and his mom (shows flashcard) are going to a fair (points to the word fair). Can someone tell me what mom means? After meaning is learned the next word is intro-duced. "Dave, his mom, and his dad (points to each word) are going to the fair (points to fair) and Dave is in a hurry (holds up the word hurry). The student is made aware of the words as visual units. The subtle introduction of words as visual units often helps students remember word meanings. That is, the printed form helps them remember what the words are so they can concentrate on what they mean. Since teachers know their students' abilities they can judge how much of a story to teach at one time. The most meaningful units to teach are story elements. The second phase of step one represents a shift in emphasis from the teaching of word meanings to the teaching of word recogni-tion. Again, the procedure involves retention of the structure of the story, beginning with the first words to be encountered and progressing sequentially through story elements. "Can anyone remember this word?" (shows fair) "Yes, this is fair." (Moves fingers from left to right under the word.) ''We know this word means a place with rides, shows, tents, and prizes." ''What is this word?" (Students repeat the word fair individually and in unison.) While the emphasis is now on learning to recognize the words by sight the teacher subtly refers to the meanings either by repeating them aloud or by saying, "Yes, you're right, that is fair, what does it mean?" When students have difficulty recog-nizing words, their meanings can be used as added cues, i. e., "This means a place with rides, tents, prizes and shows." The teacher's task in step one is threefold: 1) to help stu-dents acquire word meanings, to help them place the words into their speaking vocabulary while subtly associating them with the printed forms, 2) to help students learn to recognize words by sight while subtly reinforcing their meaning, and 3) to provide the background or concepts to be developed through the repeated sequential introduction of vocabulary and story structure. In each case, the activity uses information from other sources to help students learn a particular skill. So, for instance, story background and concepts are retained by the order in which word meanings are introduced, learning word meaning is assisted by the presence of the printed forms of words, and so on. rh-165 Step Two Guided reading is an important factor in comprehension since it provides goals for reading. Reading can be guided globally or in increments. It has been my experience that guiding reading in a global fashion is more appropriate for Ll readers than for L2 readers. When step one has been successful and the students have acquired essential vocabulary at a lexical as well as a sight level and have been introduced to the essential structure and concepts of the passage, they are generally aware of global issues. Guided reading should emphasize significant structural elements. The first element in the fair story describes a family hurrying to a fair. The teacher began the guided reading with the statement, "Read the first two pages to find out why Dave was in a hurry to get to the fair." The question does not represent any really new activ-ity. During the introduction of background and vocabulary, and the sight-word practice, the students focussed on the story element and the background of the element, the meaning of the vocabulary of the element, and the recognition of the printed forms of the vocabulary related to this element. The guided reading allows them to integrate all these sources of information in a meaningful way. As students become more proficient they can read increasingly greater portions of a story. Step Three Oral reading often occurs after guided reading. It is essential that oral reading be meaningful. If they are involved in oral read-ing it is essential that it involves the best in pronunciation, intonation, stress, and phrasing. In this respect L2 students are inappropriaately placed in the lowe~t reading group where they repeatedly hear the worst oral models. When L2 studens consti-tute a reading group, they should not listen to their own unre-hearsed oral reading. It is essential that L2 students be placed in the I best I reading group, where oral reading is excellent or in activities that present the best oral models, e.g., following along as the teacher reads, following along in a textbook while listening to a tape, choral reading with good readers, etc. Steps Four and Five Steps four and five involve related skills and enrichment activities. Follow-up exercises should redirect L2 students to the vocabulary and content of the rraterial they have read. All too often, it seems, follow-up activities are not significantly related to the ongoing reading activities. Follow-up exercises should involve vocabulary practice, comprehension exercises related to the particular story, etc. Enrichment material should be at students I independent reading level and should be similar to the instructional material being read. Indeed, enrichment material should be directly related to the prirrary story being read in order to reinforce skills and to promote better comprehension. They will, after all, be familiar with the structure and vocabu-lary of theme-related stories. Measuring L2 Reading Ability In order to place students in appropriate reading groups 166-rh and materials, it is necessary to assess their reading abilities. Two evaluation procedures have been found to be effecti ve with L2 students, the cloze procedure (Oller & Conrad, 1971; Bowen, 1969; Darnell, 1968) and miscue analysis (Devine, 1981; Rigg, 1977; Clarke, 1981). Mainstream teachers, however, generally rely up:m standardized test results to make rmding plD.ccmcnts (l3D.rr, lC)7l); Sh::lvP 1 son ;:mrl Rorko, 197q; Sh;wp 1 son & Stf'rrl, 1 C)R1; John"t,on & /\11 -ington, 1983). Such a reliance is problematic with L2 students. Gunderson (1984) analyzed U and L2 reading scores obtained from individually- and group-administered standardized tests. Individu-ally-administered L1 scores did not differ from group-administered U scores, while the L2 difference was statistically significant. U individual scores were predictive of group scores while L2 scores were not. Indeed, correlations between L2 individual and group scores were zero. The estimations of two reading specialists were compared with the individual and group assessment scores revealing that L1 scores were valid while L2 scores were not. L2 reading placement should be based on cloze scores or miscue analysis rather than standardized test results. Conclusion The integrated L2 reading lesson plan is repetitive, purpose-fully so. It is designed to provide 12 students with consistent and redundant feedback in order to assist their learning of word meanings, recognition of words, and comprehension. A preliminary study has shown that the 12 D.R.A. results in significant gains in comprehension. The use of basal readers and D.R.A. is not necessarily recorrrnended for ESL students. However, since it is widely used across the United States and Canada, with both U and L2 students, the attempt has been made to make it as effective as possible for L2 students. We anxiously await research that will give us empirical evidence concerning the best methods for teaching L2 students how to read in mainstream classrooms. Until then we can use the 12 D.R.A. REFERENCES Anderson, M.J., Reynolds, D.L., Schallert, D.L., and Goetz,E.T. "Frameworks for comprehending discourse." American Educa-tional Research Journal, 1977, 14, 4, pp. 367-381. Aukermm, R.C. The Basal Reader Approach to Reading. NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1981. Austin,M. & Morrison,C. The First R. NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1963. Barr, R. "How children are taught to read: Grouping and pacing." School Review, 1975, 83, pp. 479-498. Betts, E.A. Foundations of Reading Instruction With Emphasis on Differentiated Guidance, NY: American Book Co., 1946. Bowen, J.D. "A tentative measure of the relative control of English and Amharic by 11th grade Ethiopian Students." Workpapers in TESL: UCLA. v. 2, 1969, pp. 68-98. Bransford, J.D. and Johnson, M.K. "Considerations of some problems of comprehension." In W.G.Chase (Ed.) Visual Information Processing. New York: Academic Press, 1978. rh-167 Brown, R. A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973. Carrell, P.L. "Culture-specific schem3ta in 12 comprehension. " In R.A.Orem & J.F . Haskell Cllis.) , Selected Papers, 9th Ill. TESOL/BE Annual Convention, & The First Midwest TESOL Confer-ence, Chicago, IL TESOL!BE, 1981. Chall, J. S. Learning to Read: The Great Debate, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1967. Ching, D. C. Reading and the Bilingual Child, Newark, Delaware: The International Reading Association, 1976. Clarke, M.A. "Reading in Sp:mish and English: Evidence from adult ESL students." In S. Hudelson (Ed.) Linguistics and Literacy Series: 1. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1981, pp. 69-92. Cummins, J. Bilingualism and Minority-Language Children. Toronto, Ontario: The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,.1981. Darnell, D. The Developnent of an English Language Proficiency Test of Foreign Students Using a Clozentropy Procedure. Boulder Colorado: Univ. of Colo., 1968. Devine, J. "Developnental pattaems in native and non-native read-ing acquisition." In S.Hudelson (Ed.) Linguistics and Literacy Series: 1. Wash. D.C., Cntr. for Applied Linguistics, 1981, pp. 103-114. Dulay, H. & Burt, M. "Natural sequences in child language acquisi-tion." Language Learning, 1974, 24, #1, pp. 37-53. Gunderson, L. ESL Students: Don I t Throw Them to the Sharks. High-way One, Winter 1983, §. #1, pp. 34-44. --"Reading Achievement Assessment of L1 and L2 Students in Regular Classrooms." TEAL Occasional Papers, 1984, 8, pp. 31-40. -Hudson, T. "The effects of induced schem3ta on the I short circuit I in L2 reading: Non-decoding factors in L2 reading perform:mce" Language Learning, 1982, 32, #1, pp. 1-3l. Johnson, P. "Effects on reading comprehension of building back-ground knowledge." TESOL Quarterly, 1982, 16, #4, 503-516. "Effects on reading comprehension of language complexity and cultural background of a text." TESOL Quarterly, 1981, 15, #2, pp. 169-181. Mandler, J .M. & Johnson,N.S. "Remembrance of things parsed: Story structure and recall." Cognitive Psychology, 1977, 2, #1, pp. 111-151. Oller, J. and Conrad, C. "The c10ze technique and ESL proficiency." Language Learning, 21, 1971, pp. 183-195. Pieronek, F. T. "Using basal guidebooks-The ideal integrated reading lesson plan." The Reading Teacher, 1979, 32, #2, pp. 168-172. --168-rh "A Survey of Reading Practices in Canada." Reading-Canada-Lecture, 1981, 1, #1, pp. 72-77. Rebane, K. "A word frequency distribution study of language pre-sented to young ESL students." Unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of British Columbia. 1081. Rigg, P. "The ruiocue-l:!;oL Projed ... " In H.BrowIl, C.l'orio, & H. Crymes (Eds.) Teaching nd Lear i g English as S cond angu ge: Trends in Research and Practice (On TESOL 77). Washington, D.C., TESOL, 1977. -- -Ruddell, R., Adams, P. and Taylor, M. Surprises and Prizes, Boston, Massachusetts: Allyn and Bacon Inc., 1978. Rumel hart , D. E. "Notes on a schema for stories." In D. G. Bobrow and A. Collins (Eds.), Representations and Understandings, New York: Academic Press, 1975. Shavelson, R.J. & Borko, H. "Research on teachers' decisions in planning instruction." Educational Horizons, 1979, 58, pp. 183-189. -Shavelson, R. J. & Stem, P. "Research in teachers' pedagogical thoughts, judgements, decisions, and behaviors." Review of Educational Research, 1981, 51, pp. 455-498. Stein, N.L. and Glenn, C. "An analysis of story comprehension in elementary school children." In R.O.Freedle (Ed.), New Directions in Discourse Processing, Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 197~ Thorndyke, P.W. "Cognitive structures in comprehension and memory of narrative discourse." Cognitive Psychology, 1977, 9, #1, pp. 77-110. -

Basal Reading Instruction and E.S.L. Students

https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1873&amp;context=reading_horizons

Basal Reading Instruction and E.S.L. Students

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

ScholarWorks at WMU