DL WORD STUDY SURVEY-YOUR VOICE IS NEEDED!

If you haven't yet, please take the Dual Language Word Study Survey  

https://forms.gle/c4g27vyDmMoEAQcr7


UPDATES:
DL Word Study First Grade: Word Study Lesson are for 3-4 Weeks, sometimes months are longer than that.  First grade teachers should feel empowered to review the skills of the month for mastery based upon writing samples that reveal continued need amongst student groups.

DL Word Study Units 4-6:  Units are underway.  Your comments have been very, very helpful to support our team with essential feedback to make these lessons as strong as they can be.  Please continue to share your experiences.

DL Word Study 1st Units Survey

The Dual Language Word Study Units are new and refreshed for 2019-2020.  All Word Study Units are aligned to Common Core Standards for the grade level in Spanish with adaptations to the Word Study Continuum in English to accommodate for the start of English Reading in 2nd grade and the Biliteracy transfer that our students bring to all of their literacy.

The Units are intended to be used as Universal Instruction and there may be students who are not yet ready to master all of the skills.   Mastery at the individual level occurs within a student's zone of proximal development; however, we all believe all of our students deserve access to grade level standards and instruction.

This month, third grade students have been learning a lot about words "esdrújulas y sobreesdrújulas".  These skills are review skills in fourth grade.    Next year, fourth grade teachers will be in for a treat when their students have these skills because of consistent instruction the year before.

Let us know how the units are going!  Your feedback is critical!  Also, please contact your coach to model any of the units-we want you to be successful in this much needed area of instruction for our Dual Language Learners!


Please take the Dual Language Word Study Survey https://forms.gle/c4g27vyDmMoEAQcr7

Update Spanish Reading Assessment Pilot: ENIL

In the 2018-2019 school year, a skilled team of Dual Language teachers came together to explore the potential of leaving STAR reading behind.  As a department, we felt that we needed better information about our students reading, the kind that was diagnostic enough to situate the needs of our learners around standards based skills to move them ahead.
The settled on the ENIL: Evaluacion del Nivel Independiente de Lectura.

Last week, teachers from Heyer, Butler, Les Paul and Horning took a deep dive into baselining our students using the ENIL. What we discovered was AMAZING!  The tool allows teachers to dig very deeply into the places that might be holding our students reading comprehension back. And, what we found, was that many of our students struggled with the Tier II and Tier III academic vocabulary and language they need to read successfully, with literal and inferential comprehension much above a 3rd or 4th grade level.  We also know, that with the implementation of our word study units- we will be closing the gap for our students, gaps that keep them from choosing to read in Spanish because they simply cannot comprehend deeply!  ENIL is different from Rigby in its intention to secure independent reading levels, create agency and aficcion por la lectura en espanol, and in its specific diagnosis and then direction for teaching points in small groups, conferring and in independent practice.
Below, a video of a student engaged with the ENIL Assessment and the visual of the Developmental Reading Taxonomy.  More to come on ENIL as it unlocks pandora's box around what real reading could be for a bilingual kid.

Content Based Paired Biliteracy: New Social Studies Standards

The School District of Waukesha has adopted the 2019 Wisconsin Social Studies Standards.  Within the standards, we are expecting to address some major shifts that will impact our Content Based Paired Biliteracy curriculum in Dual language. 

We are fortunate to celebrate that we have aligned CCSS Reading and Writing Standards and expectation to our current curriculum, and that we have several units that address standards within the grade level.  The challenge is that some whole grades and several units within grades do not meet the standards of the grade.   No worries! Our state social studies representative is very happy we are teaching with the old standards for now.   As new standards are developed, new learning and perspectives on the vision of graduate also develops-and will require us to shift, change, and enhance our work. We have found great value in the texts choices made in our BUFs and CLM units and hope to continue the conversation about how learning coalesces for kids across their daily and annual experiences in our classes.


I want to recognize the contribution of each of you in developing a curriculum made with our learners in mind. Because our work has been such a team effort, I felt it extremely important to understand how we could continue to leverage it and access it as we move ahead to implement standards rather than adopting a new curriculum without our work in mind.  So, a team got together Monday, September 30th to complete a cross walk between our current Social Studies content and the new standards.  One teacher per grade level collaborated cohesively across grades 2-5 to map out SS standards in the areas of History, Geography, Economics, Poli. Sci. and Behavior.   As a result of this work, this team is clearer about suggestions to move forward. The work completed this week will inform a larger team on the potential of using Dual Language Curriculum for all learners, as well  as adaptations, enhancements or renewal that must occur to ensure that our students are college and career ready.
A social studies multidisciplinary team is meeting throughout this year to continue the work over the
next few years: these members include administrators, coaches, and teachers K-12.  
Link to SS Standards

What is your name story?

My Name, My Identity

Take the challenge: Tweet your name story @sdwduallanguage #mynamemyidentity

DL Updates September 13, 2019

WELCOME BACK EVERYONE!!

I hope that you are braving the heat and enjoying connecting with your students!  This update will be a quick one.  Don't forget to check out this weeks BLOG (Is "Good Teaching" Enough?).

WEEK IN SCHOOLS-AVID Excel 8th grade-Horning Middle School

With great expectation comes great support-then they achieve! AVID Excel explicitly attends to the language demands our students need to master as they succeed into high school and beyond.  This is just one way it is done.  Look at the volume and complexity of this writing by an English learning student-do you expect the same?  do you get it?  More to come on this Excel Routine!

News for you!

NEW TEACHER Changes in MENTORING:  This year, our grant allows for us to bring you skilled mentoring as always, however, your mentor will likely be your building literacy coach, rather than another building colleague. 

• Minerva is DL Spec Ed Mentor K-8
• Jamie, Lisa, Marlene, Carina are “DL Mentors K-8”
• Barbara Sanchez FORT Mentor

NEW TEACHER PD AND SUPPORT: New to teaching?  In your first three years?  if you answered YES! you will be invited to participate in these trainings to support your learning.  Your secretary and principal will help to support you in getting a substitute!

• Classroom Management Training October 15
• Data Based Instructional Planning Nov 13
• Progress Monitoring February 7
• Foundations of Reading, Wednesdays in Spring TBA

NEW and RETURNING TEACHERS:  All new Bilingual Teachers are required to attend Teaching for Biliteracy-Metalinguistic Awareness.  Returning teachers, your expertise is welcomed.  If you want to brush up or just share in our community of learning, contact Sara Orcholski to sign up.  (new teachers-I signed you up already)

• TDP-Required Teaching for Biliteracy Metalinguistic Awareness

Language Routines

The Importance of Routines

As classrooms around the district start the first week of school, dual language classrooms are focused on  developing classroom routines and procedures that students will use and follow to facilitate their learning this year in halls, bathrooms, lunch rooms etc.

We’ve thought of everything, but have we?

The strength of a Dual Language Program rests in our collective ability to ensure Bilingualism and Biliteracy, and if we do this we get Academically and Multiculturally proficient students.  Have we thought about teaching our students procedures to maintain their linguistic higiene?  Our students code switch because they can, but what would happen if we taught our learners a procedure to grow their language.  It’s very simple!

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Procedure: ¿Cómo se dice?

Instead of only using the code-switching to navigate new language, it is appropriate for us to teach our students to use ¿Cómo se dice?.  

 ¿Cómo se dice? solicits linguistic support from the listeners when the speaker is searching for what or how to say it-reinforcing listening engagement, cognition and problem solving, and increasing the status of the partner’s linguistic abilities.  It indicates linguistic meta-cognition-key to growing language and ensuring the outcomes we want. If we explicitly teach and model ¿Cómo se dice? With our students, and set the expectation that they use this procedure-we will ensure bilingualism that is transferable anywhere in the world!