Week 10: The ELL Reader Case Study

Here is the link of my Report:

The ELL Reader Case Study

Observation Report

I have done my observation about a 10 years-old girl called Jamecia at Public School 188 ---The Island School at downtown Manhattan. P.S.188 is serving students from Pre K to the 8^thGrade. The day of school begins at 8:30am every morning and ends at 3pm from Monday to Friday. Students need to wash their hands before class which is definitely a good habit for everyone. All the students should stay in the same classroom except going to the gym or their music and science class. They have to sign on a sheet by line and get the permission from the teacher even if they want to get some water or use the restroom.

As my observation started, I was quiet and careful. With Ms. J’s help in the class, I began to walk through tables, helped to check students’ work and answer their questions. From the second time, I began to focus on a girl called Jamecia who sat nearest to me. Ms. J told me both of her parents are speaking Spanish and they know nothing about English. Therefore, Jamecia communicate with her parent in Spanish at home and communicate with peers in English at school. Jamecia didn’t have much word but was easy going. At the snack time, she said “hi” to me and even wanted to share her snack with me. Jamecia was ten years old who is quiet and a little bit passive in learning new knowledge maybe due to the lack of self-confidence. In the math class, she was able to finish most of the assignments correctly but always needed more time than the others. She never raised up her hands in class while others were quite positive in making feedback to the teacher. I paid more attention with her daily work. At first, she refused to show me her work, but later she was glad to share her confusion with me and appeared for help when meeting problems.

Jamecia is doing good in reading and writing, but a little bit weak in math. Ms. J said that she just needs some more attention, so she asked a top student called Sara to sit beside her and help her when necessary. Ms. J was actually using the method of peer tutor. More skilled student can help the others in class effectively due to better communication and interaction of the same age.

Since her main problem is lack of vocabulary, I will help her to enhance her word-base. Every time I need the sentences, I tried to read at the slow to normal speed, using an expressive tone. In order to help her with better understanding of new words, I would provide a context before explaining the definition. I will encourage her to use previous knowledge to conjecture unknown stuff. Other than that, I will try to use visual materials to assist her with better comprehension. Informal assessment is quite necessary for Jamecia. I will generate a list of questions about the content to check her receptivity of new information. I asked her to read independently and try not to rely on too much on the others, especially her ability of self-correction. Otherwise, it’s important to encourage her take part in the group discussion where she could share her idea as well as receiving the others’ thoughts

Jamecia’s English is very native as well as her Spanish. Jamecia told me before 4 years old, she only speak Spanish since both of her parents speak Spanish. After 4 years old, she began to attend the kindergarten as well as primary school and during the school time she began to learn English systematically. During the conversation, I can see that she pick up words very quickly. She told me that she like to study languages and social science subjects but math. It is because she considered math is boring and abstract and sometime it’s hard for her to understand. However, as her other classes like English, Second language, Social Science etc. She performed very well. Jamecia also told me that she likes to hang out with her friends. During the conversation I can tell that she is outgoing. However, when I asked why don’t you just raise up your hand in class. She replied that she is little afraid of speaking in public since she doesn’t want to make mistakes in front of her friends. As for her friends, all of them could speak both Spanish and English. Sometime they communicate in Spanish in school as well. However, she likes English since she likes to talk with people in other races.

The following is the my SOLOM Proficiency evaluation for Jamecia

Her total score is 23. After the SOLOM Proficiency evaluation for Jamecia is done, I also placed her in the ELL observation rubric and after the evaluation, I believe that she is at the advanced-high speaking since she can communicate as the native speaker not only in class but also at home. When talking, she was seldom stopped by anyword. She was doing great with word-pronouncing. However, she had some problems with grammar. She was only in primary school, so it’s possible that she is poor in grammar. I believe that she is at the beginning- high criteria for reading. She reads slowly and she told me she doesn’t like to read. It is same happened with her friend most of her native speaking peers are not good at reading as well. As for writing, I believe that she is at the advance - low criteria for writing since she is keeping writing dairy every day. Meanwhile, Mr. J said she has a very high score in writing assignment as well. Probably, she needs some assistance with grammar and some vocabulary but that’s not a problem. As for the listening part, I believe that she is at the advanced- High criteria for listening. She doesn’t have any problem understanding the class and talking with peers.

Overall, her English is almost native even she doesn’t communicate English at home. It is because of the schooling or TV and other factors which provide her a good study environment. Therefore her English is progressing very fast.

Basically, she doesn’t have too much grammatical structure that cause difficulty for her oral language and writing since she is Americanized and her oral language is like a native speaker. For writing part, probably she has little grammatical structures since she is only in the primary school. However it is not problem for her if her continue her study in the future. Her writing skill is progressing.

When talking about oral language and literacy skills based on the oral language, I can conclude that her oral language is good but can say her literacy skill is good. Her oral language is native but much more like casually talk. However, she is not so aggressive in academic. Her literacy skill is intermediate, for now.

The following is her reading assessment. Basically, she is in phase 4 of reading development continuum. For example, she can use the right language features like descriptive language connectives such as because, therefore, if and then at the right place; know how to structure her language. She can retell and discuss own interpretation of texts read or viewed with others, providing information relating to plot and characterization in narrative or to main ideas and supporting detail in informational text. She can selects appropriate material and adjusts reading strategies for different texts and different purposes, e.g. skimming to search for a specific fact; scanning for a key word. Besides she is efficient in using most of the following strategies for constructing meaning. For example, she knows to make predictions and is able to substantiate them; knows to self-correct when reading and have the ability to re-read to clarify meaning. Compare with content-area reading text, she likes to read narrative text since she considers it is more easily and she can read it fluently.

    In P.S.188, Ms J told me the way she used to improve those kids’ English is to give them reading assignment as homework and the second day she will ask them to discuss what they learn from the reading. She considered that since they are 4 grades already, they must have already gotten some reading and speaking skilled. She cannot teach them like a kid anymore. Therefore, she considered that the best way for them to learn by themselves, practices and the next day communicate with each other. It is for one thing to help them to build the reading skill, for another they can enhance the communication skill as well.

    Overall, it is a great experience for me to develop my research on English learning as second language. From the observation I feel like environment is key factor to improve the second language. Especially in the US, since in majority family the parents have their own languages other than English, the kids who are raised from these families need to speak 2 languages. For example, when they are in public, they need English and when they are at home, they need their language. Therefore, the kids’ English will be getting better when they go to school. To help the kids learn English ASAP, we need to communicate with the kids to assemble what kind of help she/he is in need of and then try to help them with listen, read, talk, and write.