This book is one of the few that focuses on oral language development, a crucial but often overlooked component of academic development for ELLs. It helps fill a gap in the professional resources teachers need to help their English language learners reach high levels of oral and written English proficiency.
—David and Yvonne Freeman
Authors of Teaching Reading in Multilingual Classrooms and Essential Linguistics
Oral reading is powerful enough to simultaneously support every student’s comprehension learning and scaffold English language learners’ progress toward proficiency. But not just any kind of oral reading will do. To help everyone in your class, you need effective, engaging strategies that can motivate all readers and help them learn to make meaning with texts—the kind you’ll find in Comprehension and English Language Learners.
The 25 oral reading strategies in Comprehension and English Language Learners support students with differing levels of English proficiency during regular reading instruction—from beginners to those completely comfortable with their new language. Michael Opitz (coauthor of Goodbye Round Robin, Updated Edition) and Lindsey Moses help you go beyond oral reading activities such as round robin or popcorn reading that have no research base and that can actually inhibit reading progress. With their strategies, you’ll instead help English language learners:
- develop and monitor reading and listening comprehension
- evaluate texts and engage with authors
- learn social and academic vocabulary
- connect writing, reading, speaking, listening, and viewing
- get motivated to read on their own.
In addition, Opitz and Moses make determining students’ level of English proficiency easier with a primer on effective ELL assessment. They show you how each strategy can work within or across levels to help English learners make progress or consolidate gains. Each strategy is clearly presented and ready to use today with teaching suggestions, classroom examples, suggested children’s literature, and online resources.
Supplement your silent-reading program with oral reading that works. Read Comprehension and English Language Learners and teach with its strategies. Then listen to your English language learners to hear how powerful oral reading can be for developing comprehension.
A former elementary school teacher and reading specialist, Michael Opitz (@MichaelOpitz4) is professor emeritus education of reading at the University of Northern Colorado where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses and supervised doctoral dissertations. He is now a literacy consultant and author well known to individual teachers, instructional leaders, and researchers as the author of numerous professional and curricular resources and through his extensive work in schools nationwide. TEACHER PROFESSIONAL BOOKS Titles with Heinemann - Accessible Assessment: How 9 Sensible Techniques Can Power Data-Driven Reading Instruction (2011) - Classroom Catalysts: 15 Efficient Practices That Accelerate Readers' Learning (2014) - Comprehension and English Language Learners: 25 Oral Reading Strategies That Cross Proficiency Levels (2009) - Do-able Differentiation: Varying Texts, Supports and Groups to Reach Readers (2008) - Good-bye Round Robin (1998/2008) - Books and Beyond: New Ways to Reach Readers (2006) - Listen Hear! 25 Ways to Enhance Listening Comprehension (2005) - Reaching Readers: Flexible and Innovative Strategies for Guided Reading (2001) - Rhymes and Reasons: Literature and Language Play for Phonological Awareness (2000) - Reading Diagnosis and Improvement: Assessment and Instruction, 6th ed. (Allyn & Bacon, 2011) - Literacy Lessons to Help Kids Get Fit and Healthy (Scholastic, 2010) - Don't Speed. Read! 12 Steps for Smart and Sensible Fluency Instruction (Scholastic, 2007) - Flexible Grouping in Reading (Scholastic, 1998) - Literacy Instruction for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students (IRA, 1998) - Getting the Most from Predictable Books (Scholastic, 1995) - Learning Centers: Getting Them Started, Keeping Them Going (Scholastic, 1994) CORE, SUPPLEMENTAL, AND RTI PROGRAMS - Pair-It Extreme (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), a supplemental reading program aimed at engaging boys with reading - Literacy by Design (Rigby, 2008), a supplemental literacy and RtI program - Intervention by Design (Rigby, 2009), an intervention program tailored to children who need additional help with reading - Summer Success Reading (Great Source, 2007), a reading program designed to help children who need additional help with reading - Afterschool Achiever's Reading Club (Great Source, 2003) - Daybooks, Grades 3 - 5 (Great Source, 2008, contributing author) ARTICLES Mike is the author of more than 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals such as: - The Reading Teacher - Literacy Research and Instruction - Reading Horizons AWARDS AND HONORS Mike has received more than 15 awards for his teaching, scholarship, and service to professional organizations, including the Fannie Stabenow Award from the Colorado Council of the International Reading Association. LEADERSHIP ROLES - Editorial Boards of The Reading Teacher and Reading Horizons - Former Chair of IRA's Teacher Educator Award Committee - Numerous committees in CCIRA PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Michael Opitz provides on- and off-site professional development through Heinemann Professional Development.
Lindsey Moses is an assistant professor of literacy education at Arizona State University. A former elementary teacher, Lindsey works with classroom teachers around the country supporting the implementation of effective literacy instruction in diverse settings. Her research focuses on elementary literacy instruction and English learners. Lindsey is the coauthor of Comprehension and English Language Learners and author of Supporting English Learners in the Reading Workshop, which provides research-based, teacher-tested instruction and differentiation ideas that facilitate success for diverse learners.
