Building Background : One Piece at a Time

1. Building Background: One Piece at a Time SAMUEL II

2. I’m Mary and I’m from Birmingham… Icebreaker Activity Adding to the Circle Adapted from Dr. Susan Spezzini IPOT strategies

3. Today We Will… Content Objectives: • Discussthe importance of building background knowledge to lesson concepts. • Discuss and practice strategies for building background knowledge. • Discusshow to teach keyvocabulary and incorporate vocabulary developmentactivities into lessons.

4. Building background Self Assessment What level are you?

5. Assign Roles

6. Building Background What we know… Fill in chart based on group responses.

7. Building Background • WHAT? • Links new content to students' background experience and prior learning. Learning opportunities build vocabulary related to specific content as well as to general academic language. • WHY? • In order to activate schema they must have prior knowledge or background must be built. This provides a foundation for new information to be built upon. • HOW? • Activities, speakers, videos, questioning and virtual field trips. • Emphasize and break down key content vocabulary. • Help students make explicit connections to new vocabulary and content.

8. Building Background Linkconceptsto students’ background experiences. Bridgepast learning to new concepts. Emphasizekey vocabulary.

9. What is Sheltered Instruction? “Sheltered Instruction is an approach to teaching content to English language learners in strategic ways that make the subject matter concepts comprehensible while promoting the students’ English language development.” --Echevarria, Vogt, and Short

10. Components to Sheltered Instruction • Lesson Preparation • Building Background • Comprehensible Input • Strategies • Interaction • Practice/Application • Lesson Delivery • Review/Assessment Echevarria,Vogt and Short, Making Content Comprehensible for English Language Learners, 2004

11. Quick Write • Time 1-2 minutes • Write Everything You know • Phrases, Words, Brainstorm • Share

12. Activating Prior Knowledge vs. BUILDING BACKGROUND

13. Discussion • Did you feel limited in your wealth of background knowledge to explain what was happening in the photograph? • What could a teacher do in this case to help students understand the topic better? • Could you use a photograph to introduce a new concept/topic in your class?

14. Discussion THE GREAT GATSBY

15. Discussion 1920s Timeline • Bubonic Plague in India • First Commercial Radio Broadcast Aired • Harlem Renaissance Begins • League of Nations Established • Prohibition Begins in the U.S. • Pancho Villa Retires • Women Granted the Right to Vote in U.S.

16. Reviewing Features for Building Background • Concepts explicitly linked to students’ background experiences • Links explicitly made between past learning and new concepts • Key vocabulary emphasized (e.g., introduced, written, repeated, and highlighted for students to see)

17. How Crucial is Background Knowledge for Reading? • English language learners do not have the same knowledge that their native English speaking peers do. • Background knowledge is the experience and knowledge that a student brings to classroom learning.

18. Schema Activity Complete the cloze activity on the next slide by yourself Handout #1

19. The questions that p_____ m_____ face as they raise ch_____ from in_____to adult life are not easy to an_____. Both f______ and m______ can become concerned when health problems such as c______ arise any time after the e______stage to later life. Experts recommend the young ch______ should have plenty of s______ and nutritious food for healthy growth. B_____and g_____ should not share the same b_____or even sleep in the same r_____. They may be afraid of the d_____. Scaffold Activity Cloze Technique

20. The questions that p_____ m_____ face as they raise ch_____ from in_____to adult life are not easy to an_____. Both f______ and m______ can become concerned when health problems such as c______ arise any time after the e______stage to later life. Experts recommend the young ch______ should have plenty of s______ and nutritious food for healthy growth. B_____and g_____ should not share the same b_____or even sleep in the same r_____. They may be afraid of the d_____. What did You Need to Know? Scaffold Activity Discussion Cloze Technique

21. The questions that poultry men face as they raise __ chickens from incubation to adult life are not easy to answer. Both farmers andmerchantscan become concerned when health problems such as coccidiosis arise any time after the egg stage to later life. Experts recommend the young chicksshould have plenty of sunshine and nutritious food for healthy growth. Banties and geese should not share the same barnyard or even sleep in the same roost. They may be afraid of the dark. Answers to passage

22. Schema…Knowledge of the World “…provides a basis for understanding, learning, and remembering facts and ideas found in stories and texts. Individuals with knowledge of a topic have better recall and are better able to elaborate on aspects of the topic than those who have limited knowledge of the topic.” Echevarria, Vogt and Short, Making Content Comprehensible for English Language Learners, 2004

23. Schema… Is like Velcro to the brain.

24. Think-Pair-Share Reflection To what extent is there discrepancy between students’ experiences and what you believe they have experienced?

25. Building Background Video

26. Video Reflection

27. Links to background knowledge Remember… • Students from different cultural/socio-economic environments will not have had the same prior personal experiences.

28. Building Background Link NewConcepts To PreviousKnowledge

29. How do we build background knowledge? • We can build background knowledge physically, visually, and with sentence frames.

30. IN the Classroom… • You need to provide them with opportunities to build more background knowledge for every text and concept you introduce. • You need to engage them in reading comprehension. You need to appeal to what they already know. • Plan for student to student interaction

31. Physical and Visual Support • Use concrete objects to introduce or reinforce a theme. • Examples: If the concept is baseball, bring in a baseball, a mitt or a bat. • Brainstorm around a concept.

32. Sentence Frame Supports • Do you know anything about (topic)? • "I'm not sure, but I do know _____." or "I think it could be _____ because I learned _____." • "I think the next topic will be _____ because our last lesson was _____."

33. Sentence Frame Ideas • I am like this _____( ) because I am _____ ( ).

34. The Research Robert Marzano

35. Building Background for Academic Achievement Building Background Robert Marzano, Building Background for Academic Achievement

36. Lesson Closure Activity Each group member reads the Building Background Knowledge handout . Then-as a group- complete the “Lesson Closure “ Activity Handouts 2-3

37. “Corridor of Voices” Activity

38. Building Key Vocabulary For English Learners

39. Building Key Vocabulary • Identify key vocabulary essential to understanding the content • Pre-teach these essential words • Provide experiences • Introduce framework

40. Process for teaching new vocabulary • Step 1: Provide a description, explanation, or example of the term, as well as, a non linguistic representation of the word • Step 2: Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words • Step 3: Ask students to construct a picture, symbol, or graphic representing the term

41. Steps 4-6 • Step 4:Engage students in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the terms in their notebooks • Step 5: Periodically ask students to discuss their terms with each other • Step 6: Involve students in games that allow them to play with terms

42. Ask yourself… • What vocabulary must the students comprehend prior to my instruction? • How will I teach the vocabulary words so that all EL students understand?

43. Teachthe Student the word if: • It represents a new concept • Crosses content areas or has multiple • Important for students outside of the activity

44. Tellthem the word and move on if: • The word does not represent a new concept • Students need to understand for this activity but are not likely to need it again

45. Activity… • Underline or highlight the vocabulary students must know to understand the content of the passage. • Based on what we have learned today about the process of pre teaching new vocabulary, explainhow you would teach the vocabulary that you highlighted from the passage • Then, turn and talk • Share out-whole group Handout #4

46. Strategies for Vocabulary • Read a teacher-made book with key concepts and academic vocabulary about the topic of study • Pre-teach key vocabulary and concepts prior to reading a textbook or beginning a unit of study • Teach common prefixes, suffixes, root words and cognates and make associations with other words in the topic of study that have similar morphological pattern.

47. What is the Topic? precipitation Condensation The Water Cycle evaporation

48. What Words Don’t Fit? hatch seedling vegetables Plants germinate seed coat nest

49. BRAIN DUMP

50. Multiple Meaning Words Face Tree Cone Plane What subject area might you find these words used with different meanings? What can the teacher do to help clarify content-specific vocabulary? CMS Ivanna Mann Thrower 2007