Reflection/Synthesis and Instructional Plan for Óscar

Reflection/Synthesis Across Domains

It has been a very educational process to observe and analyze Óscar's oral language, reading, and writing development in both Spanish and English throughout this course. As a sequential bilingual child, he is proficient in speaking Spanish since this was the language to which he was mainly exposed since birth. When speaking in Spanish, his responses are generally longer and somewhat complex. He can retell stories and events with detail. He also uses appropriate vocabulary for a child his age; he is still learning more technical/academic vocabulary like the rest of his kindergarten peers. Occasionally, Óscar makes grammatical errors in Spanish (ie: "Están moridos" instead of "Están muertos"), which is developmentally normal for a young child in his/her first language. These types of errors (which are rare) do not hinder the meaning of what he is trying to communicate. I characterize Óscar between a Level 4/5 (Expanding/Bridging) on the WIDA Speaking Rubric since he is still developing his vocabulary and grammar in Spanish (because he is still a young child).

Because of his interactions with peers in a bilingual preschool program as well as growing up in English-dominant surroundings outside of his home, Óscar also maintains high levels of speaking abilities in English. He has acquired a fair amount of informal vocabulary in English (ie: "I'm gonna paint it."). When speaking during the designated Spanish instructional time of the day, I have noticed that Óscar will occasionally code-switch by inserting, "I mean," into his sentences. For example, he has said, "Fui a la tienda-- I mean-- al cine con mi papá." According to Kathy Escamilla in her article, Bilingual Means Two: Assessment Issues, Early Literacy and Spanish-speaking Children, code-switching is a natural part of communication, especially among young children learning two languages. I also noticed that Óscar employs false cognates in his English speech (ie: "I'm gonna paint it" instead of "I'm gonna color it"). Overall, I believe Óscar is at a Level 3 (Developing) on the WIDA Speaking Rubric since his responses in English include both shorter and slightly more expanded sentences. His communication is understandable, and he continues to acquire more vocabulary in English.

Óscar's strong oral language abilities in both Spanish and English are certainly reflected in his writing skills. Óscar enjoys writing stories and often chooses personally relevant moments about which to write. In analyzing his writing in both languages, I would characterize him as at the "Phonetic stage" according to the stages presented in Rubin and Galván Carlan's article, Using Writing to Understand Bilingual Children's Literacy Development. Óscar knows all of the letter sounds in Spanish and usually writes all of the letters for the sounds he hears in his words. His stories span several pages and generally contain one long sentence with the word "y" ("and") connecting parts of the sentence. As his writing develops in Spanish through more exposure to speaking and reading Spanish books, he is well on his way to the "Conventional stage" of writing where he will correctly spell most of his words (including more challenging words in Spanish which contain sounds represented by multiple letters-- ie: "ella").

Since I do not usually have the opportunity to see my students' writing in English, I was impressed by Óscar's writing skills in his English writing sample! Again, he chose a topic which held personal meaning for him (a trip to the circus) and wrote a shorter sentence about it. He transferred his knowledge of Spanish letter sounds when writing in English, as evidenced when he wrote, "dey" for "day" and "ay" for "I." Óscar continues to work on including spaces between words when writing in both English and Spanish. According to Kathy Escamilla, this tends to be a common issue for Spanish-dominant students since they often divide words by syllables rather than the whole word. Ultimately, Óscar demonstrates advanced skills for a kindergartener in writing in both English and Spanish. With continued support and encouragement in writing about ideas that hold meaning for him, he is sure to flourish as a bilingual writer.

Similar to his writing skills, Óscar's strong oral language skills have a positive effect on his ability to read in both Spanish and English as well. Since he was a baby, his mother has exposed him to books in Spanish. This has certainly inspired him to feel excited and motivated to read-- his reading abilities are continuously improving at such a rapid rate! In mid-January, Óscar was reading at a Text Reading Level 2 in Spanish. Currently, he is reading at a TRL 11! When reading in Spanish, Óscar frequently self-corrects when the errors he makes do not make sense. Also, he often pauses to reflect and make personal connections with the texts he reads-- a strategy we have been working on as a whole class (which he independently applies to his own reading), as recommended by Freeman, Freeman, and Mercuri in Dual Language Essentials For Teachers and Administrators. As the texts get progressively more complex, Óscar pays closer attention to longer, unfamiliar words and his reading becomes less fluent; however, despite this lack of occasional fluency, he still fully comprehends what he has read.

Even though he has not had any formal instruction in reading books in English, Óscar is still reading at a TRL 4 in English. Since some of the words and sentence structures were unfamiliar to him, his reading was less fluent. He did not make as many self-corrections in English-- this is probably because he did not realize he made mistakes since English is his second language. He was still able to comprehend the texts he read in English, providing shorter responses to the comprehension questions than his responses to the Spanish texts.

Instructional Plan

After analyzing Óscar's biliteracy development and observing his strengths as well as areas of growth, I have created an instructional plan that will hopefully benefit him (and his peers) with regards to their oral language, writing, and reading development. In terms of continuing to develop his speaking abilities in both Spanish and English, I intend to be more intentional about explicitly teaching and defining academic vocabulary using visuals, as recommended by Tara Fortune's Immersion Teaching Strategies Observation Checklist. Also, as I learn more about Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) strategies for teaching Spanish vocabulary using visuals and Total Physical Response methods, I will begin to incorporate these strategies into my teaching. Furthermore, I plan to incorporate more cognates into my own speech and teaching to assist in the process of cross-linguistic transfer. As mentioned earlier, I noticed that Óscar said (in English), "I'm gonna paint it" instead of "I'm gonna color it." Many of his Spanish-dominant peers use the verb "pintar" interchangeably with "colorear." I wonder if I use the word "colorear" more frequently if Óscar might make the connection that "colorear" and "color" mean the same thing. This works with many other words between both languages, which can reduce the occurrence of false cognates.

In addition to my own modeling of Spanish vocabulary usage, I also want to include more opportunities for cooperative learning. If Óscar is encouraged to work with English-dominant peers, he will continue to be exposed to the language and develop his English speaking abilities. Likewise, he will serve as a positive Spanish language model for his English-dominant peers.

In terms of further developing Óscar's writing abilities, I will continue to keep the focus for him on creating meaningful stories, as recommended by Freeman, Freeman, and Mercuri. He has become very skilled at writing personal narrative stories. I want to teach Óscar and the rest of the class how to write in other types of genres (ie: fiction, informational writing, persuasive writing, etc.). In Mary Levant's article titled Meeting the Challenges of Second Language Writing Development in the Immersion Classroom, Levant states that teachers need to provide opportunities for students to write throughout the day, every day. Using this recommendation, I will incorporate writing into the daily curriculum for Óscar and his classmates through our morning message, word study, the writing block, literacy centers, guided reading groups, the language workshop, math, social studies, science, and even rest time! (Óscar is one of a few students who never seems to want to rest during rest time-- this will be a good time to present a journal for him in which he can free-write.) Finally, since I noticed that Óscar sometimes makes spelling errors when writing words that contain sounds which are represented by multiple letters, I want to explicitly teach frequently-used words that contain these letters. Specifically, as recommended by Kathy Escamilla, I plan to create a word wall that compares words with similar sounds (ie: "ll" vs. "y" words; "b" vs. "v" words; etc.). In making this explicit for Óscar and his peers, he will hopefully remember which words contain the correct letters and thus make fewer spelling errors.

In addition to a plan for developing Óscar's speaking and writing abilities, I also intend to work with him in furthering his reading skills. Since Óscar has shown such an interest in getting his hands on new books in the classroom, I want to keep his book box full of new books which he can read independently. Most students' book boxes contain the books that we have read as a small guided reading group. The book goes in their book box when they have "mastered" that text. However, I think Óscar (and some of his peers) are ready and eager for the challenge of tackling a new book independently. Additionally, I noticed that Óscar was incorporating some of the reading comprehension strategies that I have explicitly taught to students as he read aloud. I plan to continue teaching these strategies (ie: creating mental images while reading books, asking questions, inferring, synthesizing, etc.) and providing opportunities for Óscar to apply them to his own reading. Finally, I observed that Óscar made occasional errors in his reading by inserting words or mistaking some words for others (visual miscues). I want to encourage him to slow down when reading to make sure he is catching everything he reads. I want him to point to the words he reads. When I see that he has made an error, I will ask him to go back and re-read that part of the text.

I am grateful to have Óscar in my classroom this year. His excitement and motivation towards learning inspires me to further his biliteracy development in all three domains. I look forward to working with Óscar throughout the rest of this school year and into the future as he continues to thrive as a bilingual learner.

Óscar's Reading Analysis

It was truly fascinating for me to observe Óscar's reading abilities and behaviors in both English and Spanish this week. I had always known that Óscar was advanced in Spanish and that he already possessed bilingual capabilities in terms of his speaking and writing; I was stunned to discover that he can also read and comprehend at high levels in both languages!

I worked one-on-one with Óscar as he read several books from the Spanish Primary Language Arts Assessment (SPLAA). While he read, I evaluated his reading and comprehension through the use of Running Records. Last month, Óscar was reading at a Text Reading Level (TRL) 2 in Spanish. When I worked with him this week, he progressed to beyond a TRL 5! (We didn't have time to go beyond a level 5, but I plan to do so sometime next week.) By the end of kindergarten, students are expected to be reading somewhere between TRL Levels 3-7. At this rate, I am confident that Óscar will go well beyond this expectation.

In terms of Óscar's comprehension of the texts he read, he demonstrated that he truly understood them and also added his own thoughts/connections to the books. As he read, he sometimes stopped to reflect on what he read and to make predictions about what would happen next. (Often, his predictions were accurate!) As a class, we have been focusing on making text-to-self and text-to-text connections with the books we read. I noticed that Óscar independently applied these comprehension strategies as he read aloud to me. For example, in one of the books, a little boy searches for his teddy bear before bedtime. One of the comprehension questions asks, "¿Qué hubiera pasado si no encontraban a Osito?" Óscar responded by saying, "Él no se podía ir a dormir porque a veces mi hermanita no se puede dormir porque tiene miedo. A veces ella viene a mi cuarto para dormir conmigo." He made a clear connection between his little sister and the boy in the story because both of them feel scared at night without having something (or someone) to sleep next to.

In addition to fully comprehending the books he read aloud, I also noticed that Óscar utilized many more problem-solving and self-correcting strategies than I have ever seen him use before. When he made a mistake, he often recognized his error right away and re-read in order to fix it. Many of his errors were visual; he also used structural and meaning cues to self-correct. For example, in one story-- which is told in the past tense-- Óscar read, "Osito Marcos dice..." He quickly realized that it didn't make sense structurally because the rest of the story was in the past tense, so he re-read, "Osito Marcos dijo..." (This could also be an example of using visual cues.) In looking back at his first Running Record from the beginning of the school year, I notice that he did not make any self-corrections. I am so proud of the progress Óscar has made in reading since then!

In order to conduct the reading analysis with Óscar in English, I requested the help of my school's Instructional Resource Teacher (IRT) since the DLI program model does not allow me to speak with Óscar in English. She asked Óscar to read several books from the PLAA (the English version of the SPLAA) and conducted Running Records while he read. I was quite surprised by how advanced Óscar's decoding skills proved to be in English as well! In English, he appears to be at an instructional TRL Level 4.

Óscar comprehended the books he read in English; however, he needed more prompting from the IRT to provide more in-depth responses to the questions she asked at the end of each story. While he read, he seemed to focus more on the specific words in the text in order to read them correctly. Thus, he did not make time to stop and add his own opinions about the stories as he did with the books in Spanish. His responses to the IRT's questions were somewhat limited, and he did not independently make any personal connections to the stories. After reading the stories in English, Óscar commented, "I think I can read better in Spanish. Reading in English is a little bit hard for me." Nevertheless, he appears to have already transferred many reading strategies from what he has learned in Spanish in order to read in English.

It was equally interesting to observe the difference between Óscar's use of problem-solving strategies while reading in Spanish and English. While he often re-read and self-corrected in Spanish, he did not do this as much in English. As I looked over the Running Records in English (as well as the IRT's observational notes), I noticed that Óscar often made errors without looking at certain words. He often said an incorrect word in English without noticing that it didn't sound right or make sense. I would imagine many ELLs would make errors while reading in English without much self-correction because they might not recognize they made an error in the first place. For Óscar, it was much easier to self-correct in Spanish because he immediately knew when a certain word/sentence structure didn't make sense or sound right. As his language abilities in English continue to develop, I predict that his ability to discern errors in reading in English will also improve.

Óscar's English Writing Sample

Óscar's Spanish Writing Sample

Óscar's Writing Analysis

I sat with Óscar as he wrote one of his many stories in Spanish during our 30-minute writing block. For several months, students had been learning to write short personal narratives (1 or 2 sentences). Recently, we learned how to write a story across several pages. Óscar decided to write a story about a time when he wanted to play video games at home. I would categorize his writing in Spanish as being at the “Phonetic Stage.” He has a clear idea and message for his writing, and he is able to articulate it through writing almost all of the letter sounds he hears (instead of just one letter per syllable). When writing words that contain sounds which are made by multiple letters, Óscar often substitutes an incorrect letter for the correct one. For example, he writes, “eya” for the word, “ella” since the consonant /y/ makes the same sound as the consonant /ll/ in Spanish. He also writes “ce” for “que” and “cunputadora” for “computadora” since this is what he hears when he says these words out loud.

In analyzing his writing sample, Óscar appears to be a very strong writer in Spanish. He enjoys hearing stories read aloud to him and pays close attention to print when he reads. His mom has read him books in Spanish since he was a baby. As a result of all this exposure to written text in Spanish (as well as his own motivation to write creative stories), I believe Óscar demonstrates such strength in his writing. I know he will continue to grow in becoming a successful writer as he simultaneously develops his skills in speaking and reading in Spanish.

In terms of the ideas for his writing piece, Óscar chose a topic that is appealing for many kindergarteners—video games! It is evident that this story personally happened to him because he had a lot to say about it. The vocabulary he uses in his story is developmentally appropriate for a student his age (ie: “yo,” “mami,” “papá,” etc.). He also attempts longer words (ie: “cunputadora”) as well as brand names (ie: “Xbax” = “Xbox”). Most of his sentences are grammatically correct with proper syntax. It is interesting to note that he incorporates quotation marks in his own writing (“Puedo usar la cunputadora”). (As a class, we have been discussing quotation marks and rayas as we observe them in various texts.) Óscar accurately spells almost all of the words in his writing, with some errors in the words with sounds that are represented by multiple letters (as mentioned above). He continues to work on spacing between words and punctuation.

When conducting a miscue analysis of Óscar’s writing, I notice that he engages in some code-switching. For example, he writes, “So yo le dije a mi papá…” He uses the English word, “so,” as a transition for his next sentence. I notice that he wrote the letter “i” (“and”), but then edited by crossing it out and writing “y.” This tells me that he initially listened for the sound he heard (a spelling approximation) but then remembered that he knew how to write the word for “and” in Spanish.

Óscar begins his story with “primero,” and then he continues to write one long sentence across three pages. He connects all of his ideas with the word “and” (“y”). This, coupled with the informal tone of his piece, is very characteristic of writing in Spanish (as defined by María Rosario Montaño-Harmon).

It is very interesting to read Óscar’s writing in English and to make comparisons between his writing in Spanish. Óscar worked on his English writing piece with an English-dominant substitute teacher in my classroom. He wrote about his trip to the circus over the past weekend.

In English, I would categorize Óscar at the beginning part of the “Phonetic Stage.” He was able to come up with an idea for his story and he wrote it independently in English. He continues to “stretch out” his words and write multiple sounds for each word. Interestingly, he did not produce as much writing in English as he did in Spanish, even though he had the same amount of time. It seems as though this proved more challenging for him.

Once again, Óscar chose to write about a topic that involved him personally and which he found exciting (“the circus”). He has many more spelling approximations in English than he did in Spanish. He definitely uses his knowledge of letter sounds in Spanish to assist him in writing the letters in English. For example, he writes, “dey” for “day,” “tu” for “to,” and “de” for “the.” The vocabulary he uses involves simple, short words. He also experiments with writing the word, “srces” (“circus”). His grammar and syntax are accurate in the sentence he wrote—he uses the past tense appropriately. He also structured his sentence in a basic, coherent manner.

Óscar’s writing piece in English begins with an opening (“oun dey” = “one day”) and it is a short sentence. The tone feels slightly less personal than his story in Spanish, perhaps because he did not include any dialogue or detail. I think he may not have written as much in English because he is not accustomed to writing stories in English. All of the writing we do in our classroom is in Spanish. He may have felt “stuck” in his writing and did not know what else to write or how to write it.

Oral Language Development

Óscar seems to be a sequential bilingual student. Both of his parents speak to him in Spanish, and his step-father occasionally speaks to him in English. He began learning English through a Head Start bilingual preschool program. For a kindergartener, Óscar is very strong in his oral speaking in both Spanish and English. Since he spent the first few years of his life only hearing and speaking in Spanish with his parents, his oral language is more dominant in Spanish.

I video-recorded Óscar speaking in Spanish in our DLI classroom. We had a conversation about the things he enjoys doing at home with his family. In terms of linguistic complexity, Óscar understood all of my questions in Spanish and carried out fluent, detailed responses with a variety of sentence lengths. He used comprehensible and appropriate vocabulary to convey his ideas. With regards to language control, he had occasional grammatical errors (ie: "Entonces esa persona tiene que decir, -quién le gusta algo asqueroso?-" instead of, "A quién le gusta algo asqueroso?") He also explained a videogame and said the main characters "Estaban moridos" instead of "Estaban muertos." These errors may also simply be typical developmental errors for any five-year-old in his/her dominant language. Overall, I believe Óscar is at about a Level 4 ("Expanding") on the WIDA Speaking Rubric in Spanish.

In addition to recording his speaking abilities in Spanish, Óscar's Science teacher also recorded his oral language development in English. During the activity, students were experimenting with writing and coloring on different types of paper to see which ones were easier to write/color on. Óscar was excited about this "experiment" and had a lot to say about it! He appears to be developing (Level 3 on the WIDA Speaking Rubric) in his linguistic complexity, vocabulary usage, and language control. He understands questions and responds appropriately in English using both simple and expanded sentences. During the activity, he did not revert to Spanish; however, he did use some semantic expressions/false cognates (ie: "I'm gonna paint it" instead of "I'm going to color it"). All of his sentences were comprehensible and he has acquired quite a bit of informal language in English (ie: "gonna"). Occasionally, he made some syntactic errors (ie: "You have to paint it and see how it looks like") as well as semantic errors (ie: "This is a really tricky question-- you can't paint all of it so fast"). I know that Óscar understands and appropriately uses the word "pregunta" in Spanish, so it is interesting that he misused this same word in English. It is equally fascinating that he included the adjective "tricky" in his sentence-- here, he accurately describes the challenging task of coloring on corrugated cardboard!

Óscar appears to have a positive attitude towards speaking in both Spanish and English. He is very in-tune to the dominant languages of his peers and often accommodates for them by switching between English and Spanish. For example, if he has a question for an English-dominant peer, he will often ask him/her in English (and vice versa for Spanish-dominant peers). When speaking to me (his "Spanish" teacher), he only uses Spanish. When speaking to his "English" teachers, he only uses English. Óscar has many Spanish-dominant and English-dominant friends, and he interacts with all of them fairly equally.

Presentando a Óscar

Este semestre me gustaría trabajar con Óscar-- uno de mis estudiantes bilingües. Óscar está en mi clase de kinder en Leopold Elementary School en Madison, Wisconsin. Nació en los Estados Unidos. Su mamá nació en México y su papá es de Nicaragua. Al principio del año escolar, sus padres le inscribieron en una clase de kinder en donde la maestra habla inglés. Después de un par de días decidieron cambiar del programa y le pusieron en el programa de doble inmersión porque querían que él aprendiera a hablar, leer y escribir en español. Óscar tiene muchos amigos en nuestra clase y es un líder para todos. Es muy inteligente y está en un nivel avanzado de la lectoescritura. Le interesa el fútbol, los videojuegos, mirar películas, leer y jugar en el parque con sus amigos.