The Reading Teacher, 64(5), pp.

383386 2011 International Reading Association

DOI:10.1598/RT.64.5.14 ISSN:0034-0561 print / 1936-2714 online 383
ENGLISH LEARNERS
ENGLISH LEARNERS
Promoting Literacy Development
for Beginning English Learners
Eurydice Bouchereau Bauer, Juliana Arazi
R
esearch shows that the number of immigrant
students in the United States is increasing
(National Clearinghouse for English Language
Acquisition, 2008). Despite this, not enough is known
about these students. Some researchers have called
for studies that consider all immigrant students, in-
cluding those who have recently arrived (Paez, 2008;
Szente, Hoot, & Taylor, 2006; Wang & Aldridge, 2007).
Addressing the needs of immigrant students means
considering linguistic and cultural resources they
bring to school. Doing so will not only benefit stu-
dents and their parents, but it will help schools offer
better education to these students at all grade levels.
Studies show that teachers struggle with meeting
the needs of immigrant students, especially recent
arrivals (Szente et al., 2006; Tadesse, Hoot, & Watson-
Thompson, 2009). To some extent, this is due to the
instructional method and to a curriculum that is un-
familiar to students. Here we present one teachers lit-
eracy instruction with a newly arrived English learner
(EL) as he developed his language and literacy skills.
Teaching Language Through
Literacy Instruction
Reading comprehension is a complex cognitive pro-
cess that requires simultaneous use of rapid word
recognition and semantic and syntactic cues in order
to construct meaning using personal knowledge and
the content of the text (Gibbons, 2002). For second-
language (L2) learners to read effectively, they must
have good vocabulary development. However, the
type of comprehension and vocabulary instruction
provided to ELs is dependent on each childs acquisi-
tion of literacy in his or her native language. Children
who have well-developed oral and written skills in their
native language are able to proceed with the acquisi-
tion of L2 reading much faster (Lanauze & Snow, 1989).
Emer gent Engl i s h r eader s l i ke Cheung
(pseudonym)a newly arrived third grader who
possesses strong written and oral skills in his native
Chinese (and our target student in this article)are
able to start the L2 reading process if they have some
understanding of letter sounds in English. Cheung en-
tered third grade in the United States late in the aca-
demic year with an emerging phonemic awareness
and lettersound knowledge in English that enabled
him to decode some basic English words. However,
he could not connect the words he could pronounce
orally to their actual meaning.
Juliana (second author), Cheungs ESL teacher,
helped him acquire a sufficient amount of vocabulary
words and understanding of grammatical structures
in order to support his reading of his first storybook
text in English, the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk.
This story was selected because most children across
different cultures come to school having heard it in
their native language. When ELs are introduced to
these fairy tales in English, they already possess
some background knowledge about the characters,
the plot, and the major events in the story, acquired
in their native language, which will transfer to their
comprehension of the text in English.
Steps in Making English Text
Comprehensible
Previewing
Cheungs initial exposure to the fair y tale Jack
and the Beanstalk came in the form of actively
384 The Reading Teacher Vol. 64, No. 5 February 2011
previewing the target vocabulary through a picture
walk. Juliana would selectively bring Cheungs atten-
tion to certain pictures on the page with the goal of
eliciting talk that would lead to developing vocabu-
lary and making personal connections. For exam-
ple, the first picture in the book was an illustration
of a cabin on top of a hill overlooking a nearby town.
During Julianas interaction with Cheung, they dis-
cussed and labeled the home in the forest a cabin.
Juliana and Cheung would then engage in talking
about how a cabin looks, if they had ever seen one
in real life, and so on.
Words like cabin, hill, town, old, young, small, big,
dog, cat, and cow became sight words. Cheung wrote
the target vocabulary words in his notebook along
with a translation of the words in his native language.
He then read the sight words or phrases in his note-
book and used his new language to write simple sen-
tences like the following:
Cheung is thin and young.
The cow is thin and old.
These sentences personalized the connections
between Cheungs life and the vocabulary words
from the text. In addition, Cheung made connec-
tions between himself and the main character in
the text. During each instructional lesson with
Cheung, Juliana targeted 10 vocabulary words that
related to the fairy tale that Cheung would eventu-
ally read.
Bilingual Dictionary
As Cheung acquired new vocabulary in English, he
created his own personal bilingual dictionary with
all the new language he was learning. This dictionary
extended beyond writing down nouns and phrases.
Each time a new verb was introduced, Cheung add-
ed his verbs to his verb bank (see Figure 1). The bilin-
gual dictionary aided Cheung in connecting what he
already knew in his native Chinese with what he was
learning in English. Cheungs expanding dictionary
was always available to him during a lesson so that
he could refer to it when he was trying to communi-
cate a verbal message or when he needed to create
a sentence.
Bringing Content to Life
As a content-based ESL teacher, Juliana is well aware
of the physical connection new ELs need to make
to what they are learning in order to better develop
their reading vocabulary. For example, in an effort to
connect science and literacy, Cheung planted a bean
seed in soil as he was learning some of the target vo-
cabulary for the chapter in the fairy tale. As a result
of these interactions, Cheung created sentences such
as the following:
I planted a bean in a pot.
The bean grows.
I can eat the bean.
Cheung wrote many such sentences with grow-
ing complexity as the year progressed, for both
schoolwork and homework. These types of pat-
tern sentences were expanded when new vocabu-
lar y words were added to Cheungs repertoire.
Interactive writing of this sort allows beginning ELs
to write meaningful messages that grow from the
language they know and the language they are able
to generate.
Figure 1
Cheungs Verb Bank
L1 language Present tense -ing form Past tense
[Chinese for stop] stop/stops stopping stopped
[Chinese for write] write/writes writing wrote
[Chinese for take] take/takes taking took
385 Promoting Literacy Development for Beginning English Learners
comprehension questions about the reading. At this
point, the students should know the story structure
well enough to be able to retell the events in chunks.
As Cheung read a section of the text and became fa-
miliar with it, he was asked to orally retell that sec-
tion. Juliana used their teacherstudent interaction to
nudge Cheung forward in his development.
Juliana: [references the cow] Why is it thin?
Cheung: No milk.
Juliana: [puts all of his ideas together] The cow is
thin because it doesnt have any milk. Lets
write this sentence down.
This exchange between
student and teacher is
vital to Cheungs cog-
nitive growth, be-
cause it provides
ongoing scaffold-
ing that enables
him to acquire in-
creasingly sophis-
ticated language
rules. Vygot skys
(1978) t heor y of
the zone of proximal
development suggests
that cognitive growth is de-
pendent on feedback and mod-
eling from others in the persons environment. At the
onset of these retellings, Juliana played a visible role
in supporting the process. However, Cheung gradu-
ally became more independent.
In the following exchange, Cheung and his teach-
er are discussing his writing and the text. Cheungs
written sentence at this point in the teacherstudent
interaction read, Inside the box there was a magic
bean.
Cheung: They trade the cow.
Juliana: Now make a sentence. What do they do?
Jack and the man....
Cheung: [starts writing using his memory, his note-
book, and his personal dictionary] Jack
and the man traded a magic bean.
Juliana: Tell me what kind of cow.
Cheung: Old and sick.
Juliana: So make your sentence longer.
Guided Reading Instruction
Providing beginning ELs with structured guided
reading instruction is essential for effective oral and
written language development. The focus of the in-
struction should be on comprehension. In order to
support Cheungs understanding of the text, it was
first read to him in Chinese. Juliana used a number
of people to support Cheungs native language
other Chinese students in the class, a Chinese native-
language teacher, and Cheungs parents. Following
the reading in Chinese, Cheung and Juliana read
the English text chorally. The choral reading of the
text incorporated dramatic gestures and motions to
provide contextual clues. Choral reading is useful for
Cheung because it supports his development of flu-
ency and provides him with a model of proper into-
nation and pronunciation.
Given the familiarity of the text chosen, Cheung
had background knowledge as well as cultural sche-
mata to help with text comprehension. Through in-
teractive scaffolding, Juliana was able to support
Cheung to answer the wh- questions (who, what,
when, where) using complete sentences. This is a dif-
ficult task for an emerging EL, because the student
has to understand question formation and use cor-
rect word order to answer questions. Harper and de
Jong (2004) point out that comprehensible input, re-
peated exposure to the target language, and interac-
tion with native English speakers are not sufficient
for EL children to develop L2 literacy. Instead, they
suggest that teachers incorporate linguistic aspects
of the English language, such as grammar and pho-
nology, into instructional learning tasks.
Throughout Julianas interaction with Cheung,
she explicitly discussed with him approaches to an-
swering questions posed to him. Juliana would write
down her questions after stating them, and the two of
them would identify the subject and verb that need-
ed to be in the first two positions of his response,
followed by the rest of his sentence. Through these
types of interactions, Cheung slowly learned how to
formulate English sentences orally and in writing.
Story Retelling
For emergent ELs, retelling the story in paragraph
form comes af ter t he student s have had mul -
tiple opportunities to read the text and answer
386 The Reading Teacher Vol. 64, No. 5 February 2011

Link personal classroom experiences with

events and actions in the text

Use the native language to make concepts and

ideas comprehensible

Participate in guided reading instruction

Engage in story retelling and summary writing

of the text
References
Gibbons, P. (2002). Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning:
Teaching second language learners in the mainstream class-
room. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Harper, C, & de Jong, E. (2004). Misconceptions about teach-
ing English-language learners. Journal of Adolescent & Adult
Literacy, 48(2), 152162. doi:10.1598/JAAL.48.2.6
Lanauze, M., & Snow, C.E. (1989). The relation between rst-
and second-language writing skills: Evidence from Puerto
Rican elementary school children in bilingual programs.
Li ngui st ics and Educat i on, 1(4), 323339. doi:10.1016/
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National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition. (2008).
NCELA frequently asked questions. Retrieved September4,
2010, from www.ncela.gwu.edu/files/uploads/9/growing
LEP_0708.pdf
Paez, M.M. (2008). English language proficiency and bilingual
verbal ability among Chinese, Dominican, and Haitian im-
migrant students. Equit y & Excellence in Education, 41(3),
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Szente, J., Hoot, J., & Taylor, D. (2006). Responding to the spe-
cial needs of refugee children: Practical ideas for teachers.
Early Childhood Education Journal, 34(1), 1520. doi:10.1007/
s10643-006-0082-2
Tadesse, S., Hoot, J., & Watson-Thompson, O. (2009). Exploring
the special needs of African refugee children in U.S. schools.
Childhood Education, 85(6), 352356.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher
psychological processes (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner,
& E. Souberman, Eds. & Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Wang, X.C., & Aldridge, J. (2007). Re-examining diversity issues
in childhood education. Childhood Education, 83(5), 258259.
Bauer teaches at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, USA; e-mail ebbauer@uiuc.edu.
Arazi teaches at Martin Luther King Elementary
in Urbana, Illinois; e-mail jarazi@usd116.org.
Cheungs sentence now reads, Jack and the man
traded a magic bean and the old and thin cow.
Cheungs entire passage reads, The man had a box
in his hand. Jack and the man traded a magic bean
and the old and thin cow. This small passage rep-
resents a short part of the paragraph that Cheung
wrote. It took Cheung a little more than two weeks
to complete his summary of Jack and the Beanstalk.
Closing Thoughts
It took two months to read and complete the preced-
ing activities with the book Jack and the Beanstalk.
Although it took a long time, this approach support-
ed Cheung on his path to literacy in his second lan-
guage. Cheung received well-paced instruction that
held his interest as a third grader. Juliana created a
multilayered learning environment that aided Cheung
to gradually develop and enrich his language skills in
English. Explicit instruction provided Cheung with a
systematic approach to language development and
encouraged him to be an active learner. As a result, an
EL newcomer like Cheung, with no speaking and very
few literacy skills in English, significantly improved
his academic literacy development within a couple of
months of his arrival in an American school.
Although Juliana is an ESL teacher, regular class-
room teachers can incorporate some of the talk and
activities found in this article. Specifically, teachers
should

Support students to preview the text and discuss

key vocabulary words

Write short sentences that connect personal in-

formation with that of the character in the text

Create bilingual dictionaries that support word

learning, simple expressions, and English gram-
matical structures
The department editors welcome reader comments. Eurydice Bouchereau Bauer teaches at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; e-mail ebbauer@uiuc.edu. Patrick C. Manyak
teaches at the University of Wyoming, Laramie, USA; e-mail PManyak@uwyo.edu.
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