Activating Prior Knowledge: Alphaboxes/Cuadros del alfabeto

According to Stra-tiques (which you still have a chance to win TODAY), "Alphaboxes is an activity that expands vocabulary and supports critical thinking on a given topic."  Similar to using the familiar K-W-L chart, Alphaboxes invite students to brainstorm words related to the topic of which they are about to read and study.

What preparation do you need?  Just a big ol' sheet of chart paper (I think chart paper is always the most expensive line item in my class budget...that AND sticky notes!) and markers.  Draw a 5x6 grid and write one letter of the alphabet in the top corner each of the squares.  You'll only actually use 26 of those 30 squares so don't stress if you find yourself with a few leftovers!

With younger students, I recommend having the class meet together on the floor to brainstorm aloud as you think through words related to the topic one letter at a time.  Be warned that this can take a LOONNNGGG time the first few times that you do it.  Learning to quickly activate one's own schema is a skill.  You may receive lengthy pauses as little minds try to skim through their mental file folders and locate relevant information.  Students, even the young ones, will get better and faster at doing this the more you give them the opportunity.  If needed, brainstorm part of the alphabet one day and come back to it the second day.  While it may feel like you are losing instructional time, you will definitely see the benefit in the long run of teaching your unit.

With older students that have experience doing Alphaboxes, let them work in small groups on their own charts.  After allowing them a set time, have them post their charts around the room and then have the students move in carousel format around the room from chart to chart.  They can read and discuss words on the chart as well as add in even more words to their classmates' charts.

Just as you would with a K-W-L chart, an Alphaboxes chart definitely becomes an anchor chart for your unit of study that you will continue to revisit throughout the entire study.  Words may eventually be crossed out if they are determined to be irrelevant and new words should definitely be added.  You might even choose to assess students' individual growth at the end of the unit by having them complete their own mini-Alphaboxes chart.

You can see below other ways that teachers have used Alphaboxes:

• Martin Luther King, Jr. Alphaboxes completed with computer clip art by 4th and 5th graders
• Lori @ Conversations in Literacy explains how she uses Alphaboxes charts with small groups in K-5th grades to boost vocabulary and comprehension.

Have you tried using Alphaboxes in your own classroom?  If so, please leave a comment here with any tips or ideas you may have.  Have a post about Alphaboxes?  Leave a link here too!

Daily Five & Dual Language???

I first read The Daily Five in the summer of 2006.  I had just finished my Masters in Reading and was ready to implement all sorts of new ideas.  I loved the book and spent June and July dreaming up ways to rearrange my classroom.  I even bought a super ugly but comfy chair off of Craigslist.  My husband thought the guy should have paid us to take it from him instead of vice-versa but I knew my students would love it.  August came and I was asked to leave my classroom and work as the bilingual facilitator for my district.  While I was excited about my new job, I was sad to leave my dreams for my classroom behind and sad to not have the opportunity to implement the Daily Five with my own students.

From all of the teacher blogs that I visit, the Daily Five is still very much alive!  How's that for a rhyme?  This past fall, while I was coaching in another school district, I found this Kinder teacher beginning implementation of the Daily Five with her little ones.  These pictures were taken on September 20th.  I think that is impressive!

















































In the past few weeks, I have come across these bilingual blogs with resources and thoughts about implementing the Daily 5 in both Spanish and English:

• http://multilingualmultiage.blogspot.com/2012/06/dual-daily-five-i-pick-en-espanol.html
• http://dualkinderteacher.blogspot.com/2012/06/daily-5.html
• http://firstgradewithatwist.blogspot.com/2011/10/daily-five-success.html
• http://thesecondgradesuperkids.blogspot.com/2012/07/super-five-bookmarks.html (added 7/23/12)

Have you written a post about implementing the Daily 5 in your bilingual or dual classroom?  Please leave me a comment here and I will add you to my list!

Poetry...it's not a joke anymore!

I am the worst joke-teller alive and that is one of the many things I learned about myself in college. Recognizing my weakness in this area, I decided to learn to tell one joke really well. And I did. It is awesome. But, it requires motions so it must be told in person and I won't risk my one good joke failing here in writing!

When I spent the summer before my senior year of college in Spain, I decided that I needed to be bilingual in my joke telling. The other joke is a play on the English langauge so it would not work in translation. My good friend, Jimmy, taught me this joke, "¿En qué se parece un tren a un plátano? El tren no espera y el plátano no es pera."

Okay, I will wait for you to pick yourself off of the floor from laughing so hard...

My jokes may be really bad but I am a sucker for playing with language. In fact, this is my favorite radio show and I believe it should be required listening for all teachers of English language learners but that is for a whole other post!

Historically, poetry and related language play have been reserved for the final six weeks of the year in most curricular scope and sequences.  In part, because it was not tested and, in part, because it is often misunderstood, poetry has been one of those extraneous genres that was often skipped or treated very superficially.

While poetry may not seem as "meat and potatoes" to the reader's diet as realistic fiction, poetry develops that elusive skill of inferring that we are constantly seeking to develop in our students.  Poetry, by its very nature, makes us look more closely at the text with the presupposition that there must be another layer of meaning that we as the reader must search out. 

Texas's revised ELAR/SLAR standards and new STAAR test are putting a spotlight on poetry:

3.5 Analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about theme and genre in different cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding (2008 TEKS)

Figure 19 D

Make inferences about text and use textual evidence to support (2008 TEKS)

In the fall, I saw this anchor chart in development in a third grade dual-language classroom in Stephenville:

We are starting to pay more attention to poetry but, for you bilingual and dual-language teachers, my question is this:  Who are your favorite Spanish poets for children and what are your favorite poems and/or anthologies?

I was in a second grade bilingual classroom last year and observed a group of students practically fighting over several poetry anthologies by Maria Elena Walsh.  I would like to compile a list on this site of more favorite poets.  Please let me know your suggestions!

Becoming Cognizant about Cognates

If you've read any book or attended any training on Second Language Acquisition, you've heard about the importance of cognates.  You are also aware of the blank stares you are likely to receive if you were to ask students what these words have in common:  científico, scientist. 

Cognates are really helpful to adult language learners but their usefulness often eludes our school-age students.  They just don't see them!  One of my theories is that these young learners are still new to reading itself.  Because of this, their ability to scan a text is still very limited.  Their eyes are still learning to visually capture more than one or two words at a time. 

My other theory is that we as teachers just don't make a big enough deal about them.  Think of all of the other things that our students aren't cognizant of before they come to our classrooms.  Yet, because we make such a big deal about capital letters and punctuation and important letters or words, they begin to see them in everything they read or write.

This cognates chart is from a first grade classroom in Mesquite ISD where the teacher decided to be intentional about helping her students pay attention to cognates.  Notice how the teacher underlined the similarities between the English and Spanish spelling. She told me that this had made a significant difference in her students own writing and reading as they are really beginning to understand how Spanish and English can support one another.  As their reading ability increases, these first graders are going to be so well prepared to use their understanding of one language to aid in their understanding of the other.  These guys are truly going to be college-ready!