Blog Post 8 - Sheltered Instruction

The video(s) we watched this week highlighted a teacher teaching a sheltered instruction lesson on Esparanza Rising to a group of older middle school students.  The class was taught in a Home Ec room, which is fairly typical from what the narrator said and in my experience as well.  Some classes need to be taught where there is room and using a classroom which is unused during a given period makes sense, if space is unavailable for a dedicated ESL classroom or where there are multiple ESL levels being taught during a given period.

On to discussion of the content of the video.

Intro Section:
It was brought to our attention that these were not beginning ELL students and that we were watching a sheltered reading instruction lesson. This section was helpful and reminds me that I need to introduce the lesson to my students instead of just jumping in.  The intro reminded us what to look for when watching the videos.

Pre-reading
Verbally stating the objectives as well as having the objectives written down is helfpul not only to tell the students what they will be learning but also, as stated in the video, this can make students more comfortable and less anxious about the lesson.

The teacher also had vocabulary words written on the board as well as pictures of those words on poster board which she passed around.

During Reading
The teacher stopped at intervals to check comprehension and help students make connections. It was clear she'd pretaught what making connections looks like and taught the students do it. She also asked the students which strategies they would use at different sections of the reading. I also noticed the teacher was working with a five page section of the book. This would allow for the time she took to make connections and work with concepts with the students.  The lesson wasn't about reading an entire chapter or seeing how far they could get. She had a very set number of pages and was teaching a lesson which utilized the reading, she wasn't trying to "finish a chapter."

After Reading
The teacher gave very explicit instructions on what to do, including the sticky notes, reviewed (from the board) the categories she wished them to use.

Reflections
I found this section useful where the teacher reviewed her strategies and why she used them. I was particularly struck by how she said her students often had fairy high language skills conversationally and were struggling to phrase questions about the reading.  This reminds me to structure my lessons more and to be more explicit when I teach/give instructions.

Summary
Overall the lesson was very effective and I found several strategies I will be using. I will take the strategies one at a time when I add them, as adding too many new strategies at a time tends to be overhelming and not a useful teaching strategy.

1. I will increase my use of written objectives and going over them verbally before a lesson
2. I will be more intentional about "tying up" a lesson with explicit review and directions.

I took away more than those two things from the videos, but those are two things I can start to use every day.  I do work with vocabulary daily as well. We are working with Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, in 6th grade. This is a complex piece of writing and we are taking it in small bites.