Do you love your biblioteca???

My four-year-old is definitely into the word "special" lately.  She wants to know what "special" thing we are going to do each day.  Thankfully, it doesn't take much to make something special.  In fact, high on her list of favorite special things is our weekly visit to the public library.

I grew up going with my mother to the public library and I have never stopped going.  Like my daughter, it is high on my list of favorite places.

Several years ago, as I was preparing to finish the year with another group of second graders, I happened to notice the new library that was opening near the neighborhood of my school.  In the minutes it took for me to drive home, I had a hopeful idea to make that library a special place for my students.  I created a survey to send home to the parents of my students asking them about their interest in meeting me at the library once a week throughout the summer.  I asked for them to indicate the best days and times and sent home a library card application with my letter.

A couple of weeks later, I delivered the applications to the library and picked up cards for most of my students.  The librarian gave me a card too, even though I don't live in that city.  The last day of school, when I gave each of my students a book I had picked out specifically for him/her, I also gave them their library cards.  They were so excited and proud!  I mean, seriously, how often do kids get to have an official card with their name on it?  Library cards = POWER!!! :)

Saying good-bye to my students didn't really feel so final because we got to say, "I'll see you at the library!" Every Wednesday afternoon, with a few exceptions for vacation, I was at the library from 3:00-5:00.  One week, I had seven students and their families show up and other weeks, I had one or none.  I was just there to listen to them read, help them pick out books, and chat with their parents.  When I had no one to talk to, I picked out books for myself and discovered a lot of gems!

So, if you are looking for a super-easy and fun (probably more fun for me than for them!) way to continue loving on and support your bilingual students' love for reading, consider becoming a regular fixture in their public library.  After all, it IS such a SPECIAL PLACE!  You have read this book, haven't you?  LOVE IT!


And, if you aren't convinced yet, Lydia Breiseth, managar of Colorín Colorado, contributed an article to Spanglish Baby titled "How the library can help you raise a bilingual child".  Now, go forth and give your library some love! 

Estrellita Giveaway: We have a winner!

Congratulations to Miss Teacher (Adriana) on winning Estrellita's Parent Packet with English instructions for dual-language immersion classrooms!  Thanks to everyone who entered and thanks to Estrellita for sponsoring this giveaway.  If your campus is already using Estrellita's resources, I highly recommend Maria Teniente as a trainer for understanding how to best utilize these materials.

Why I give the Estrellita Accelerated Reading Program a Gold Star!

Throughout my first seven years of teaching in second and third grade, I continuously returned to my Estrellita materials every time I received a student who had not yet cracked the code of reading in Spanish.  I found its unique method to be the most efficient and effective in moving those students from learning letter sounds to blending syllables to decoding and writing polysyllabic words.  

When I began writing curriculum for my school district six years ago, I met with other experienced bilingual primary teachers to discuss the best resources and methods that should be included.  Many of these teachers were native Spanish-speakers that had received their initial literacy education in Peru, Argentina, Mexico, and Columbia.  As we looked at different methods about teaching Spanish reading, we had many arguments discussions about the best way.  We kept coming back to the question about which was better:  ma-me-mi-mo-mu or ma-pa-sa-la?  

We decided to email Estrellita with our question and, shortly after, my phone rang.  Karen Meyer, the author of Estrellita, was on the phone.  I felt like I was talking with a celebrity!  As Karen explained the rationale of her program, we all began to understand why Estrellita was so uniquely effective with our bilingual students in the US.  

Unlike a primary student in a native Spanish-speaking country, most of the students that enroll in PK and Kindergarten bilingual programs in the US are simultaneous bilinguals.  While Spanish is their primary and dominant language, they have been exposed to English phonics through television, educational toys, etc.  So, when you ask a bilingual four-year old about the sound of the letter “A”, who knows what sound he may provide?  

Traditional Spanish reading programs move quickly through the vowels and focus on blending with one consonant at a time.  Estrellita takes into account the potential vowel confusion that can occur with simultaneous bilinguals and focuses initially on mastery of the vowels and blending one vowel with a variety of consonants.  Since there is transfer between the majority the consonants, I have seen my struggling students struggle less with this method than with the ma-me-mi-mo-mu method.  

I can honestly say that I have yet to work with a student who has not been able to learn letter sounds and blend syllables when I consistently used the Estrellita method.  It is systematic and it works and provides the perfect springboard for moving your students along in their journey of reading!

This week, we are featuring a giveaway of one of Estrellita's resources for allowing students to practice the program at home.  The giveaway closes on Friday afternoon.  Find out more information here!

Butterflies on my brain: El ciclo de vida de las mariposas

I have had butterflies on the brain lately.  Apparently, there is a park not too far from my home where moms and teachers love to collect milkweed with caterpillar eggs.  Every day on Facebook, I see new pictures of hatching caterpillars and beautiful chrysalises.  So, when I was at the public library last week with my girls and came across this book, Butterflies on Carmen Street/Mariposas en la calle Carmen, I had to share it with you because maybe butterflies are on your brain too.

I have always loved books by this publisher and Monica Brown does an excellent job of embedding the life cycle of a butterfly in a simple, sweet narrative about a girl and her grandfather.  This book would be perfect for first through third grades and probably Kindergarten too at this point in the year.

There are tons of resources out there for English instruction on the butterfly life cycle but I thought I would do a little digging for some Spanish resources.  Here are some Spanish fiction and nonfiction books that look perfect for the primary grades.








Some other resources from the good ol' WWW:
El ciclo de vida de la mariposa monarca - In both Spanish and English, this site offers a photo slide show with short text explanations for each picture.  It would make a great sequencing activity or could be used to match the text with the appropriate photograph.
Ciclo vital de la mariposa - This site has beautiful pictures of the stages of the life cycle with brief explanations in both Spanish and English.
Mi Escuelita Montessori describes hands-on unit of study on the butterfly's life cycle.


Your students can practice sequencing the stages of the butterfly's life cycle using this Scholastic game in Spanish or English.

And if you just need to see and hear something precious, check out this video about a butterfly's life cycle narrated in Spanish by first graders.

When you are ready to put it all together, you can make this craft by Educarpetas.

And, for you dual language classrooms, here is a perfect GLAD chant in English from a first grade classroom and another song from a second grade class to practice the English vocabulary of the life cycle.

So, are butterflies on your brain this spring?  Please let me know if you use any of these resources or if you find some more that I should add here!

Giveaway: Estrellita Reading Resource

If you have been a bilingual teacher for any amount of time, you have surely heard of Estrellita.  Created by a bilingual teacher for bilingual teachers, Estrellita has been around for over twenty years.  I was first introduced to this accelerated beginning Spanish reading program in 1999 when I was student-teaching in a first grade bilingual classroom in West Chicago.  

While Estrellita has long been a mainstay in the bilingual Spanish classroom, it is now becoming a valued resource in the Dual-Language classroom for teaching Spanish literacy to non-Spanish speakers.  For an excellent explanation of the similarities and differences in English and Spanish literacy, check out this article by Estrellita's author Karen Meyer titled Supporting Early Spanish Literacy in Dual Language Classrooms.  

Because I love this program so much (I will share my reasons later this week), I contacted them to ask about sharing one of their resources with you.  I am receiving no compensation other than the pure joy of giving rather than receiving!  :)  

The wonderful people at Estrellita are offering you their English Parent Packet (value of $44) that is a supplement for the K-1 Beginning Reading Program.  If you already have the K-1 Program, you should have the Parent Packet in Spanish.  This English supplement contains English instructions for the English dominant parents of students in Dual Language programs.  

So would you like to win this resource?  Here is how you can increase your chances with up to four entries (one comment per entry):

• Become a follower of I Teach Dual Language (see the right margin of this blog) and leave a comment here that you did or that you had already joined.

• "Like" I Teach Dual Language on Facebook and leave a comment here that you did.

• "Like" Estrellita on Facebook and leave a comment here that you did.

• Do you use Estrellita in your classroom?  Leave a comment on Estrellita's Facebook page telling them how it has helped your students.  Leave comment here that you did.

Anonymous entries cannot win because, well, that makes announcing the winner a bit difficult!  The giveaway will close at 5pm CST on Friday, April 27th and the winner will be announced by 9pm.  Good luck!  ¡Buena suerte!

ITDL is now on Facebook!

I Teach Dual Language is now on Facebook!  Please visit me there for more opportunities to continue our conversation and stay up to date on the latest resources and links available to support you!

Literacy Lesson: Chato y su cena (Visualization & Metacognition)

Gary Soto is one of my favorite authors of children's books and short stories for grown-ups.  His writing is funny and relevant and beautiful...even when writing about cats! 


If you are a second, third, fourth grade teacher, you really must share a read-aloud of Chato y su cena with your students.  It is a perfect book for practicing the strategy of visualization.  As I mentioned last week, visualization is so crucial to developing strategic AND avid readers. 

I love Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis's book Strategies That Work and I have found so effective their method of zooming in on text and modeling a think aloud with a specific strategy and then allowing the students to practice the method on a structured handout or with sticky notes. 

I did this lesson as a demonstration for a third grade bilingual classroom.  It was my first time working with these students and, according to their teacher, the first time for them to do an activity like this.  As I read the book aloud, I stopped at the really juicy (perfect moments for visualization) parts and did a think-aloud about what I was visualizing.  The illustrations in this book are fantastic but we discussed how they are still just one person's interpretation of the text.  We compared and contrasted our own visualization with the book's illustrations just like you might compare and contrast a book with its movie version (I just did this last Saturday night at my book club with The Hunger Games!). 

I used the handout below to gradually release responsibility for visualization over to the students.  They pretty much copied my illustration with the first text example.  With the second one, they discussed and drew with a partner while I walked around.  The final example was on their own and I was totally hands-off to see what they could truly do by themselves.     


















Before seeing Harvey and Goudvis demonstrate some of their strategies, I would have just ended my lesson there.  However, several years ago, I had the opportunity to hear them in person and see one of their videos.  I realized that I had only been doing part of the lesson.  The crux of the lesson comes when you ask the students how this strategy will help them to be better readers. 

I admit that I was skeptical about trying this with students that I didn't know and because I was modeling it in front of a group of teachers sitting at the back of the room.  But, I forged ahead and, after the students had shared their final mental images, I asked them to flip their papers over and write about how they thought this strategy could help them be better readers.

I was AMAZED by how well these third graders were able to articulate their own metacognition.  A few of them wrote and wrote like they had just been waiting for me to ask. 

Ever since, I try to leave 2-3 minutes at the end of any lesson (reading, math, science, etc.) to allow for that thinking about WHY and HOW.  Sometimes I forget and sometimes we're already late for P.E.  But, when I do take the time to allow for that processing, I always see a return on the investment later in the day or week as the students show evidence of having really internalized the learning.

If you would like to try out a visualization mini-lesson with Chato y su cena, you can download this handout for free here.  I would love to hear how it goes so please come back and share!  Just don't forget to use the backside of the paper for some reflection!

Novelty & Responding to Reading

I just bought a $3 shirt from Target and I can't wait to wear it tomorrow.  It's really not that special but it's NEW to me.  Don't you just love novelty?  The smallest new thing can brighten our days. 

Kids love novelty!  If you need a novel way to get them writing about their reading, try using your chart paper in this way.  Spread the paper across the table of desks and each student gets a quadrant and a marker to write with.  We wrote about text-to-self connections earlier in the week in Spanish and then used the same format to write later in the week in English.  I have always found that it is helpful to repeat the format but change the text when switching from one language to the other within the same week.  While novelty is a good tool, some amount of familiarity sure helps keep that affective filter low!

 

Do you have a good idea for adding some novelty at this point in the school year?

And the Survey Says...

Since the name of this blog is "I Teach Dual Language" and most of you that find your way here are dual-language teachers, I have a question for you:  How do you DUAL?  As I coach and consult with dual-language campuses that are just getting started, the first question that teachers ask is, "Who else is doing it this way?"

So, would you please take a second to share with us how your program is configured?  There is a lovely little survey posted at the top right of this blog until the end of April.  Inquiring teachers want to know:  

• Do you teach both languages or do students visit one teacher for Spanish and a different teacher for English?  
• Do you teach all subjects in both languages or do you teach specific subjects primarily in Spanish and others primarily in English?

I'm planning a giveaway/linky party in the next couple of weeks to feature all of you beautiful dual-language teachers out there.  For now, be thinking about what you would want to share about the key elements that make your dual-language program work!  I can't wait to learn from you!

Literacy Lesson: Spanish Poems for Visualization

In the Exploring Nonfiction Teacher Resource Notebook that came with my Time for Kids Exploring Nonfiction kit, I read these words: 

Experienced educators recognize the truth in the old adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words."  Visualization -- seeing the words of a text as mental images in the mind -- is a significant factor setting apart proficient readers from low-achieving ones.  Studies have shown that the ability to generate vivid images while reading strongly correlates with a person's comprehension of text.  However, research has also revealed that 20 percent of all children do not visualize or experience sensory images when reading.  These children are automatically handicapped in their ability to comprehend text, and they are usually the students who avoid and dislike reading because they never connect to text in a personal, meaningful way.




Wow!  I read those words ten years ago and have since kept them in my big binder of reading strategies.  That 20% statistic just stuck with me.  It just makes me so sad to think of those kids that do not enjoy reading because they have never experienced the ability to create their own mental images of the text they read.

Enter Shel Silverstein and his awesome poems for visualization.  They are perfect for helping elementary students create mental images!  You can see these poems below that I used on English days to model my own visualization and then the students practiced with the Spanish poems from Silverstein's book Batacazos and Donde el camino se corta.  We had so much fun!  Of course, I forgot to take pictures of their work but you can download the poems here for free!  I would love to see what your students come up with!

 

 

 

 

BOMBA: Una canción para redondear

Now I have said before that I am not much of a singer, but I should also add that I am not much of a dancer either...in public!  Put me by myself in a room and close the door and I can have some really good moves! :)

All of this makes what I am about to share even more funny.  But, this is all in the name of education, right?  In the summer of 2003, I was on staff with Teach for America at their summer institute in Houston, Texas.  That same summer, a song called "La Bomba" was very popular on the radio.  Being a part of Institute is like being in a teaching incubator.  I learned so much from my fellow TFA staff and was so inspired to return to my classroom and try out some new methods for helping my students achieve.  

One afternoon, as I heard "La Bomba" for like the thousandth time, the lyrics about moving your body up and down made me think of rounding numbers.  I'm telling you...it was HOT in Houston in 2003!  I decided to rewrite the PG-13 lyrics and created a song to help my third graders remember the key concepts about rounding numbers.  Here are the lyrics I came up with:

BOMBA (una canción para redondear)

Versión Matemática por la clase de Miss Bounds

(Bomba) Un movimiento inteligente

(Bomba) Un movimiento muy fácil

(Bomba) Un movimiento muy fácil

Y aquí se vienen los alumnos con el baile que es una bomba

Para estimar esto es una bomba

Para contar esto es una bomba

Para sumar esto es una bomba

Y los alumnos lo bailan así, así, así, así

Todo el mundo

Una línea en la decena

Una línea en la decena

Un movimiento fácil

Un movimiento fácil

Un círculo a la derecha

Un círculo a la derecha

Un movimiento fácil

Un movimiento fácil

Y ahora empiezo a redondear

4 o menos para abajo, para abajo, para abajo

5 o más para arriba, para arriba, para arriba

4 o menos para abajo, para abajo, para abajo

5 o más para arriba, para arriba, para arriba

(Bomba) Un movimiento inteligente

(Bomba) Un movimiento muy fácil

(Bomba) Un movimiento muy fácil

Y aquí se vienen los alumnos con el baile que es una bomba

Para estimar esto es una bomba

Para contar esto es una bomba

Para sumar esto es una bomba

Pero este problema se acaba, acaba, acaba, acábalo.

Now tell me you aren't singing this to yourself and dancing!  My students loved it and rounding was truly "un movimiento muy fácil"!

Making TAREA Work for Everyone

Last night while I was cooking dinner, I overheard the news anchorman say, "We're talking about homework.  How much is too much and is it even necessary at all?"  You can see the video from the broadcast here.  (Updated 8/21/13: The original video is not available but here is a link to a similar report.)

As a teacher, I have never been a huge fan of homework.  It brings up so many questions:  What assignment do I give?  How much do I give?  What horrible thing logical consequence happens to those that do not do their homework?  How do I grade homework?  Do I grade homework?  How much weight do I give the homework grades?

After processing those questions for many years and working through my Masters in Reading where I read lots and lots of research, I developed my own personal philosophy about homework. 

Homework SHOULD NOT be:
- a time where I expect the parents to do the job that I should have done during the school day

- the boring work that I do not want to make time for in my schedule
- an assignment that has never been practiced with my guidance in class
- unexpected and unpredictable
- frustrating for parents, children, and the teacher!

Homework SHOULD be:
- congruent with my beliefs about what good teaching and instruction should look like in my classroom
- a reflection of the learning that we are doing in school
- consistent and predictable so that families can plan for their lives outside of school
- a time for the student and the parent(s) to bond with each other as they talk and learn from each other
- challenging but rewarding for both the parents, children, and the teacher!

Based on this philosophy, I made this weekly homework packet for my second graders.

In class, my students and I kept individual dialogue journals about their reading during self-selected reading time.  "Lectura en casa" was a miniature extension of these journals. 

The entire packet was turned in on Monday mornings and a new packet was sent home on Monday afternoon.  I did not check the packet every day.  Wait a minute!  I know what you're thinking!  What if they just filled in the whole thing over the weekend?  That probably happened but there are only so many things you can control.  I read this article and it confirmed my decision. (Update 8/21/13 - The linked article is now only available to Choice Literacy subscribers.  Sorry!  However, this more recent article by Kathy Collins is excellent!)

While the majority of the writing in our classroom was in a writing workshop format where the students could choose the genre and topic, for "Escritura en casa", I would write a simple prompt that would ideally inspire some discussion at home before writing.  I asked students to tell how they got their name, to share their families' funniest moment, to retell a special memory with a relative, etc.  This was my favorite sheet of the homework packet because it really gave me a window into my students' lives and the anecdotes provided a means for me to build relationships with the parents.  It was amazing how a comment about one of these stories could quickly light the mood at a parent-teacher conference!

Spelling homework!  Ahhhh!  Since I have entered the world of parenthood, I hear more horror stories from my friends with school-aged children about the dreadfulness of spelling homework.  I think spelling is the area of more teacher malpractice than any other subject area but that is a whole other bowl of frijoles!  Anyways, I use the Words Their Way method for spelling during the school day so that spills over into homework.  On Mondays, students sort their Spanish words according to the patterns for that week.  On Tuesday, they do a no-peeking writing sort with the Spanish words.  On Wednesdays and Thursdays, they repeat the process with their English words.  

All in all, it is a pretty painless process and my students' scores on the Friday assessment were much better than they had been when I required things like writing sentences, rainbow spelling, pyramid spelling, alphabetical order, etc.  To all of my former students who were required to do those assignments, please consider this my open letter of apology!  

My math assignments varied throughout the school year.  This page was in the packet for the majority of the first semester while students were working on automaticity with their sums.  During class, we discussed various strategies for visualizing numeracy.  We played several different games and made flashcards.  Students were to use those flashcards as well as playing cards or dice to practice their sums at home.  Embedding the table as an assessment tool was helpful in keeping the parents informed about how well their children really knew the facts.  This is one of those concrete tools that parents really love because they can see progress over time.  I got a lot of good feedback from this page.

Because my total packet was three pages front and back, I alternated between using the Science and the Social Studies pages each week.  Most of the time, I would write a question asking students to apply our unit of study to their lives at home.  I would often find the questions or prompts in the textbook teacher's guides.  The topics were sometimes imaginative (What would it be like today in your house if electricity had never been invented?) or exploratory (Make a list of five items in your house that are attracted to your magnet.).

So, there you have it!  It's not perfect and I will continue tweaking it to make sure that homework is truly purposeful and powerful in bridging learning from school to home.  If you would like to download my homework packet for free, you can do so here.  Let me know what you think!  I would love to know how you make homework work for you in your classroom!