The Missouri Reader Vol. 37, Issue 2 | Page 22

strengths, and scaffold their language learning
burdens.
Understanding sentence structure. Meaning is
carried by the grammar of the language, so
students need to be able to understand and use
sentence structures to express their meanings.
This is a major difference between ELLs and EO.
ELLs need for explicit attention to grammatical
markers in a sentence. For example, words
such as “even though” or “nevertheless” can be
confusing to ELLs. They both signal that the
sentence which follows them offers some
contradictory meaning. Students need to learn
the meaning of such words and how they are
used to signal contradictions in the following
sentences. This work can be integrated into
guided reading discussions.
Emphasis on writing academic sounding texts
can be achieved by comparing and contrasting
lexical, structural, and discourse features of
conversational English with more formal
academic texts. An example of successful
student work is helpful. Also, students need to
be able to connect various language structures
and syntax with specific academic discourses
such as comparing and contrasting, or cause
and effect. Gaining meaning from academic
language, such as “compared to, different from,
and due to”, for example, is one skill which is
important. Students also need to be able to use
syntax to understand, articulate and write
expository prose (Dutro & Helman, 2009,
Zwiers, 2008). Learning to self-edit as suggested
above is on-going. (Lenski & Verbruggen, 2010).
Asking students to examine their writing for
verb tense problems, for example, should be a
persistent step in final editing practice.
Nevertheless, throughout their learning
trajectories, EL learners’ language will be
marked with grammatical and phonological
errors which are signs of what they have
acquired and what they still need to learn.
More intentional vocabulary instruction.
Roessingh and Elgie (2009) found that by grade 4,
ELLs’ reading comprehension can be noticeably

behind their classmates because underlying
concept development has not kept pace in their
first language. The authors cite numerous studies
which show that ELL vocabulary outcomes are
sometimes as many as three years behind EO
student outcomes. The vocabulary gap of these
learners is often masked because ELLs can pick up
oral language relatively easily if they arrived here
at an early age, and because early reading texts
have a tightly controlled vocabulary, the
significance of the vocabulary lag is not detected
early. Thus, by grade 4, early-arrived ELLs have to
use concepts that they are learning through a
language which they are still learning. So, reading
becomes harder for them. If they only speak
English at school, it is understandable that there is
a gap. As a result, reading teachers need to
augment their vocabulary study and harness
technology to help ELLs increase their vocabulary.
Understanding and using vocabulary is a
constant need for ELLs. A familiar strategy for
teaching ELLs is to begin with oral language so
that learners can hear a word multiple times.
Zimmerman (1997) asserts that learners need 8
to 10 instances of hearing a word for them to
master the phonology and meaning of a word;
moreover, ELLs need to use the word in a
conversation (Zwiers & Crawford, 2009). Hu
and Nation (2000) reported that “a second
language reader needs to know 98% of the
words in a text in order to be able to read it
unassisted and to effectively guess the meaning
of unknown words from context”(p.403). This
was verified by Nation (2006) who found that “a
vocabulary base of 8000-9000 word families is
typically necessary for comprehension of
written text such as a novel or newspaper”
(p.59). This huge task for second language
learners is compounded by the fact that word
knowledge is something that needs to unfold
over time.
Beck, McKeown, and Kucan’s (2002)
vocabulary framework is widely used to decide
which words to teach ELLs. Their three tiers of
words are: tier 1 of common occurring words,
tier 3 are words which are low frequency words
associated with special knowledge domains.
©The Missouri Reader, 37 (2) p.22