In this 3rd Grade lesson plan, Erin Affronti engages her students by blending reading comprehension skills with earth and space science content knowledge. With the goal of having students interpret informational texts to learn about volcanoes, Ms. Affronti successfully differentiates her language objectives to meet the needs of her level 2 ELLs. Check out how she promotes the acquisition of tiered vocabulary through the use of the 7-Step Vocabulary Process and a Word Wheel, and how she engages all learners through the use of Cloze readings, the Language Experience Approach, Sentence Frames, and explicit instruction around text features.
Melissa Carter's Health lesson on characteristics of healthy and positive friendships is well-adapted to meet the needs of the 8 ELLs in her classroom, who range in language proficiency from Level 1 to Level 3. In addition to well-planned tiered vocabulary instruction using the 7-Step Vocabulary Process, Ms. Carter incorporates numerous other strategies to support ELLs in their accessing of the curriculum. These include Turn & Talk, Think-Pair-Share, Venn Diagrams, Vocabulary Roundtable, a Word Wall, Sentence Starters, and Paragraph Frames. Check out Ms. Carter's thoughtful reflection at the end of her lesson on the success she had implementing these strategies and how she would continue to adapt her instruction in the future.
In this lesson plan on reading scientific notation, Kristen Perrault makes complex curriculum accessible to all learners, including the 8 ELLs in her classroom, who range from Level 2 through 5. Her front-loading of tiered vocabulary using the 7-Step Vocabulary process enabled students to access the content from day one. In addition, this lesson seems particularly student-centered, as students engage in partner reading, small group work, and reciprocal teaching.