EL Support Lesson
We Read Together
Objectives
Academic
Students will be able to demonstrate reading comprehension through completion of reflection activities.
Language
Students will be able to retell a story with details from the text using visual supports.
Introduction
(3 minutes)
- Gather the class together and ask students if they have ever gotten really, really dirty. Utilize the vocabulary cards for language support as needed.
- Have students pair-share what they needed to do in order to get clean ("Take a bath," "Wash," etc.).
- Ask the class to give a thumbs up or thumbs down to share how they feel about taking a bath. Then ask a few students to share out with the group their reasoning using the sentence frame: "I like/don't like taking a bath because..."
- Explain that today you will be reading a story about a bird who gets really dirty and doesn't want to take a bath.
Building academic language
Word
(12 minutes)- Review or introduce the remaining vocabulary words using the vocabulary cards and glossary as a support. Provide students with student-friendly definitions and model using the vocabulary words in a sentence to check for understanding.
- Display the cover of the read-aloud text and tell students the title and author.
- Read aloud the text.
- Pause midway through the text and ask students if they have any predictions for what will happen next. Provide students with the following sentence frame to utilize: "I predict that __ __ __ __ will happen next."
- Continue reading the story.
Sentence
(15 minutes)- Go back to the beginning of the book and ask students to think about what happened in the beginning of the story (e.g., "The pigeon was dirty and needed a bath"). Model thinking aloud to demonstrate using the text as a reference as needed.
- Repeat this process to retell (with student input) the middle and ending of the story.
- Model how to fold a paper into thirds (or pre-fold the papers), then pass out a paper and crayons to each student.
- Pass out individual copies of the text to students to reference.
- Explain that students should draw a picture of what happened in the beginning of the story.
- Repeat this process for the middle and ending of the story.
Discourse
(2 minutes)- Invite students to turn and talk to share with a partner what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story, using their pictures to help them.
Additional EL adaptations
Beginning
- Work with a small group of students to use the vocabulary cards as an aid to retell the story.
Advanced
- Encourage students to add writing to their pictures to retell what happened.
Formative Assessment of Academic Language
(3 minutes)- Informally assess students' ability to retell the story by taking note of student responses during the group work portion of the lesson.
- Formally assess if students were able to retell the major parts of the story by collecting work samples at the conclusion of the lesson.
Review and closing
(5 minutes)- Display the drawings on tables, walls or the whiteboard and use them as a reference to practice retelling the story once more.
- If time allows, ask students to share their favorite part of the story as an exit ticket.
Related learning resources
Glossary: We Read Together
Worksheet
Glossary: We Read Together
Use this glossary with the EL Support Lesson: We Read Together.
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Worksheet
We Read Together
Lesson plan
We Read Together
In this interactive read-aloud lesson, ELs listen carefully as they learn about a pigeon who doesn't want to take a bath!
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...Ready to Read
This workbook will acquaint your preschooler with reading by introducing it through a variety of subjects, such as math, science, and even art!...
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Have him read each clue (or you can read to him) and match it with a picture.
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