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Magic Paper – page 1 Running Head: Magic Paper Magic Paper: Using a modified Language Experience Approach To Teach Sight Words and Vocabulary. Richard M. Oldrieve, Ph.D. Bowling Green State University 529 Education Building Bowling Green, Ohio 43403 28359 Center Ridge Rd. Westlake, OH 44145 [email protected] cell phone: 440-463-4031 home phone and FAX: 440-892-1409 Magic Paper – page 2 Magic Paper: Using a modified Language Experience Approach To Teach Sight Words and Vocabulary. Abstract Students enrolled in special education classes often struggle to read sight words quickly and accurately, consequently they also struggle to read passages for comprehension. Yet, overfocusing on fluency can mean teachers devote less time to comprehension. Magic Paper is designed to help students learn sight words and meaning vocabulary through a modified Language Experience Approach. Since the students construct the sentences in a group effort, they gain experience with using the vocabulary words within a meaningful context. Furthermore, by reading LEA sentences written by previous reading groups, students gain experience with reading vocabulary words in slightly different contexts. More importantly, Magic Paper lessons are designed to prepare students for reading a particular basal story or leveled trade book for comprehension. In one year, students using Magic Paper read as many words as Juel (1988) has reported for “high” reading groups. Introduction Scott and Nagy (1997) found that merely presenting the definition of a word and/or using it in sentence did not help students use words better. Instead, they cited several studies (Baufmann & Kameenui, 1991; Beck & McKeown, 1991; Stahl, 1986) in which providing definitions and contextual information is necessary to increase reading comprehension. This article will describe how to teach sight words and vocabulary words within an appropriate contextual setting using a modified Language Experience Approach (LEA). Each Magic Paper lesson plan cycle leads to students reading a basal story or leveled book for comprehension. The purpose in combining LEA with reading for comprehension is to eliminate Magic Paper – page 3 the problems with both. When teaching comprehension lessons, special education teachers often find that their students don’t read sight words fluently enough to understand the story. Conversely, in critiquing Stauffer’s version of composing LEA stories, Tierney and Readence (2000) declare, “If reading for understanding is our goal, the approach should place less emphasis upon word-perfect reading and the acquisition of single, known words and should give more emphasis to reading with understanding (p. 224).” The multi-day format of a Magic Paper lesson tries to bridge the gap between acquiring sight word fluency and reading for comprehension by: (a) holding a pre-discussion about the story that contains the words, (b) learning the definitions of sight and/or vocabulary words, (c) composing LEA sentences containing targeted sight and/or vocabulary words, (d) reading the LEA sentences to fluency, (e) reading the sentences of other groups to fluency, (f) reading the individual sight and/or vocabulary words to fluency, (g) unscrambling LEA sentences, and most importantly, (h) reading the basal story or leveled book for comprehension. This article describing Magic Paper will concentrate on steps a through g. For directions on how to teach a comprehension lesson, I recommend that teachers use variations of the Directed Reading Thinking Activity described by Tierney and Readence (2000), and for teaching phonics, I recommend the spelling and reading technique that I’ve described in (Author, 1997). Magic Paper Technique: As noted earlier, a Magic Paper lesson plan is designed to help students learn their sight and/or meaning vocabulary words so that they can focus on comprehension when reading a controlled vocabulary basal reader or leveled trade book. The lesson plan can also be used for teaching new vocabulary words in a content area subject. The format of an a Magic Paper LEA Magic Paper – page 4 lesson differs from a standard LEA lesson in many ways, but the most important difference is that students are not writing a collective story, instead they are composing sentences with sight and meaning vocabulary words from a story, book, or chapter that they will be reading for comprehension later in the week. My students gave my lesson plan the name Magic Paper, because they were mesmerized when I wrote LEA sentences onto the top sheet of a stack of carbonless paper, and then these sentences appeared on all of the other sheets. For most adults, carbonless paper is most familiar when encountered in credit card transactions. The cash register will print out a white, pink, and/or yellow receipt and then the customer signs his or her name on the white copy and keeps the bottom yellow or pink copy. Carbonless paper is made by several paper companies such as Mead and NCR. The locally owned paper supply store near me sells the 3M Scothmark carbonless paper made by the Imation Enterprises Corporation. I have also found versions in the catalogues of Office Max. When writing sentences, please realize that there is a “butter side up” to the paper, and if some sheets of paper are inverted, then the copies will contain mirror writing. Also, realize that transcribing the sentences onto a computer and instantly printing out a copy for each student would serve the same function as Magic Paper—albeit with a little less personal warmth and feel, but with better capabilities for editing, storage, and printing. Teacher preparation of the vocabulary list: Most controlled vocabulary basal series have a list of the vocabulary words that students need to learn before they can read a story for comprehension. Leveled trade books such as those found in the Reading Recovery program (Pinnell & Fountas, 1998) may or may not contain a vocabulary list, but the procedure would be similar to the one described for a basal. The only Magic Paper – page 5 difference would be determining new words that are different from earlier books that have been taught in a particular reading group. In preparation for a week’s study of a particular story in the basal, prepare a portable “words on the wall” (P. M. Cunningham, 2000; P. M. Cunningham et al. 1977). On a word processing document that is oriented in a landscape position, type the name of the story to be studied in the upper left hand corner. Font size should be approximately 18 to 20 in a font such as Ariel or Century Gothic that are similar to manuscript printing and don’t contain the fancy curls on the a’s, g’s, and t’s. Then within a table or a columns format, in the left most column type words that are new to that week’s lesson. (Within a word list, leveled books will often highlight new words in bold print). Next, skim the story backwards while looking for words that aren’t on that story’s vocabulary list, but that you have used in a recent vocabulary list and that seem to be important sight words. In the spirit of a personal word wall, it is also good to select words that one or more students have struggled with in past lessons. Words fitting this category for first and second graders would certainly be (a) the question words of who, what, when, where, how, which, and why, (b) Dolch words such as them, could, any, there, and from (Guszak, 1972), and (c) commonly confused reversible words such as was and saw. The number of words on the personal word wall will vary from week to week, yet 24 or 32 words arranged in either 3 or 4 columns of 8 words each seems to be about right. Before the week’s Magic Paper lesson cycle begins, most of the students should be able to read all but a few of the words on the list. Please note, different students will miss different words at the beginning of the week, but all should be 95% to 100% accurate by the end of the week. Day one lesson plan: Composing Vocabulary Sentences: Magic Paper – page 6 Pre-discussion: As a prelude to composing the sentences, distribute a vocabulary list to each student and then hold a pre-reading discussion. To begin the discussion, read through the title, names of main characters, and new vocabulary words. Then discuss any words the students don’t know and what they perceive the story may be about. In most cases, beginning books revolve around themes and topics beginning readers can understand and so the conversation might go quickly. Nonetheless, be sure that students can empathize with unfamiliar themes and archetype characters by relating them to previous books and/or student experiences. After becoming familiar with the context of the story or book, students are more likely to use these themes when composing LEA vocabulary sentences. Composing, Dictating, and Transcribing Sentences: For each sentence, first read one word from the leftmost column of new words, and one word from the other columns containing review words. Call on a student to compose a sentence using the two words. If the student has made a grammatical mistake or used a new name or sight word not contained on the vocabulary list, nonchalantly ask the student to repeat his or her sentence. Upon being called upon to restate his or her flawed sentence, children will often self-correct the sentence on their own with little prompting. If a student repeats the original error or makes a different one, then without criticism or comment nonchalantly repeat the sentence with vocabulary or grammar corrected while writing it on the magic paper. If a student notices and objects to one or more of the changes, then take the time to explain why the changes were made. (Please see the below section that discusses the reasons for this rule in more detail.) Be sure to underline the two vocabulary words in the sentence. Reading the sentences in class and for homework: After all of the new vocabulary words have been used in at least two sentences, immediately give each student a copy of the Magic Paper – page 7 sentences. Then have the group chorally read the LEA sentences twice. Next, send the sentences home to be read to one or more adults. Keep top copy for future use: Be sure to keep the top sheet so that you can make photocopies if students lose their copy. More importantly, the extra copies can be used by students in future reading groups. Thus, after a group has composed LEA sentences for a particular basal story or leveled trade book, subsequent groups can not only read their own sentences, they can read the sentences of the all of previous groups. This helps these later groups see the same words used in slightly different contexts. And it helps you the teacher decide if your students will be able to read the words in the story fluently enough to comprehend it. Ground rules for Composing and Transcribing Sentences: Establish a pattern of going around the table in the same direction to call on students. This way there are no arguments as to fairness and you can better gauge which students know the words and can compose sensible sentences. In fact, instead of writing each student’s name after every sentence as is suggested in many language experience approaches (P. M. Cunningham, 2000; P. M. Cunningham et al. 1977), lock in the turn order by writing the students names in the top right hand corner and then calling on the students in the order they are written. Be judicious on choosing which words to pair together by paying attention to the abilities of individual students to be creative in their pairings. In general, the first word in the first column should be paired with the first word in the second column, and the second word in the first column should be paired with the second word in the second column, and so on and so forth. Following this pattern, each word in the first and second columns should be paired off in succession. Then, the words in the first column should be repeated so that each word in the first column is paired off with a word in the third column. Nonetheless, be flexible enough to recognize and then substitute Magic Paper – page 8 a different word when two words would be rather difficult to use in the same sentence. (For example it would be hard to compose a grammatically correct sentence with: he and are). Be sure to give students a full 10 seconds to think of a sentence that uses both words. If the student still has a mental block then either eliminate the second word or choose an alternative word. When a called upon student seems to be blocked, be wary of helping students too much, because many reading disabled children have language disabilities too, and these students need practice coming up with novel sentences that are appropriate to the context of a given story. In fact, composing Magic Paper sentences over several months begins to establish a portfolio of sentences that can be shown to parents at IEP meetings to demonstrate a student is progressing from composing simple 3 or 4 word sentences comprised of an article, subject, verb, and possibly adjective to composing 10 and 11 word sentences that contain conjunctions, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases. The Dangers of Blurting: If a student who wasn’t called upon blurts out an answer, that sentence should NOT be written onto the Magic Paper—even if the student who was called upon repeats the sentence verbatim. In many groups, this blurting can become a dominance issue where a dominant student stakes out his or her territory by blurting more words and sentences. In turn, if the teacher allows this blurting to continue over several months, a Matthew Effect (Stanovich, 1986) can be established because the dominant student will slowly get better at composing sentences while the non-dominant student will be left further behind. In other groups, the game of blurting answers can be one of covering up each other’s ignorance of the meaning of the words. Thus, a student, who knows how to use a particular pairing of words may blurt out a sentence early in the lesson, and then later this same student Magic Paper – page 9 might get stuck and wait patiently for someone else to blurt out a sensible sentence. Thus, in both of these cases, the student who was originally called upon should be given a chance to compose a different sentence, or if necessary he or she should be given a different set of words. Should a blurting student repeatedly blurt out sentences, warn the student and skip his or her turn until he or she stops blurting. On the other hand, after the assigned student has had a chance to offer his or her sentence it is also important to let students discuss the meaning of words and possible alternative wordings to a given sentence. These discussions can lead to an improved sentence or a couple of alternative sentences being recorded onto the paper. Placing limits on vocabulary and grammar: As noted earlier, many modern versions of LEA (Tierney and Readence, 2000) suggest that teachers should copy down exactly what students say. The theory being that imposing grammar and vocabulary controls is humiliating to a student’s sense of self. And certainly, teachers must never crudely criticize a student’s grammar, vocabulary, and/or familial background by making snide comments such as: “Didn’t your parents teach you any better?” But in Magic Paper, I recommend that when students don’t seize the opportunity to selfcorrect mistakes, teachers should respectfully make three types of changes to grammar and vocabulary: Rule One: Only allow current or previous names from the story, basal, or book: Students should not use their own names, a name of a friend or relative, or the names of anyone in the class or school. One reason is that limiting names to those found in the basal or leveled book ensures that future reading groups won’t stumble on the names. Another reason is that it stops Magic Paper – page 10 students from dictating sentences that make fun of another member of the group. What starts out as a simple Johnny loves Samantha, becomes increasingly nasty and gross in a tit for tat war. Rule Two: Only allow current or previous vocabulary or sight words from the story, basal, or book: When students are reading in the pre-primers, this rule of using only previous vocabulary words should be followed with no exceptions. As students move up into the first, second, and third readers the rule can be relaxed to allow inclusion of common words such as “house” “store” or “school”. Then, as students have mastered the alphabetic principal and can decode unknown one and two syllable words the rule can be abandoned. The limited vocabulary rule serves two functions. First, I have found that students with learning disabilities will often forget the exact wording of their own sentences. So even in the purest sense of LEA, I have found that there is little value in a group of students stumbling over unique words that they themselves have included in their spoken sentences and then forgotten by the time it comes time to read them. Second, because other groups will eventually be reading the same sentences the vocabulary must be limited so that future students can read the sentences quickly and accurately. Now, forcing students to compose sentences using a limited vocabulary, can make the composing process go rather slowly for the first few weeks of the school year, but I have found that after only three or four LEA cycles the students get used to substituting in more familiar words when asked. For example, a student may have said, “Sara can look for an elephant.” I will then mention we haven’t had “elephant” as vocabulary word yet, and the student will switch to an animal we have had before such as “cat”. Substituting words becomes second nature especially, when the students have a vocabulary list in front of them with 24 or 32 words on it. Additionally, students are working Magic Paper – page 11 frequently with the same words, and they eventually just start composing sentences that fit the context of their most recent stories. It is also important to note that research has found that students make the same types of substitutions when composing sentences that they themselves are writing down. Finally, being limited to the Dick and Jane vocabulary of a basal reader helps the student and teacher better understand the constraints of the author and begin to compose sentences that sound like Dick and Jane readers. Which in one way is odd, but in another does prepare students for the language of books which requires a narrator and phrases of attribution such as “He said…” and “…said mom.” Rule Three: Judiciously change the grammar of students’ sentences: Never criticize a student’s poor grammar and try not to draw attention to it. Instead, merely ask students to repeat what they just said. Many times, the students will self-correct on a second dictation. But if they don’t, then make a judgment call by either verbally pointing out their error or by quietly writing down the sentence using good grammar. Some students never notice the change and others appreciate not having the issue made into a confrontation in front of their classmates. At times I have wavered in my resoluteness and written down ungrammatical sentences, but too many times this backfires when one or more students in the group will stumble over the ungrammatical sentence and question why it was written wrong. Ironically, I have found the very student who said the ungrammatical sentence will often be the one to make the query. Furthermore, changing the grammar protects your credibility with parents and administrators since the sentences are often sent home. Finally, in educationally and politically correct circles, correcting a student’s grammar might be the most controversial of the three rules, but I have found that it is the one rule students Magic Paper – page 12 challenge the least, because most elementary school students expect that learning good grammar is one reason to go to school. Day Two Lesson Plans--Reviewing vocabulary sentences and vocabulary: For students reading in pre-primers and the first couple of readers, individual students should be called up to the teacher’s desk to orally read three sets of the vocabulary sentences. Some students need to read their own set of sentences twice before moving onto reading one or two sets from previous reading groups. After reading the three sets of sentences, students should be asked to name the underlined words in the sentences. This helps scaffold the students before they read the lists on the word walls on Wednesday. Students in higher books can often read through three sets of vocabulary sentences, go over the underlined words within the sentences, and then read the words from vocabulary list. The teacher needs to balance time considerations and student abilities when determining exactly how much reading each individual student should do. Calling all the members of a reading group up at the same time merely exposes the slowest and most error-prone students to ridicule. Day three lesson plans—more review On Wednesday, most students should read through three sets of vocabulary sentences, read the underlined vocabulary words, and then read the vocabulary words on the word list. Students in a high reading group may be able to read through the vocabulary list once and skip right to reading their basal story for comprehension. Students in a lower group might need to work on the vocabulary sentences and vocabulary within the context of sentences for several more days. In general, students should read the story for comprehension the day after they successfully read all the vocabulary words from the word list in any order the teacher chooses. Magic Paper – page 13 Day Four: Reading silently for comprehension. Again, my recommendation is to use one of the Directed Reading Thinking Activities (DRTA) described in Tierney and Readence (2000), because these comprehension lessons fit the format of learning the vocabulary first, and then reading the story. Guided Reading techniques such as those described by Pinnell and Fountas (1999) often have students cull the vocabulary words from the text as they listen to the teacher read the story. I believe this form of guided reading is most useful for helping students understand vocabulary words and extract phonetic patterns such as rhyme and alliteration from stories that the teacher reads aloud for student enjoyment, phonemic awareness, and possibly comprehension. It is important to reiterate, no student should be moved into reading the story for comprehension until he or she can read the vocabulary list with 95 to 100% accuracy, because no student should be forced to suffer the double jeopardy of being required to read a story for comprehension if they cannot read the individual words. Yet it is also important to remember that if a student forgets how to decode a word while reading a story for comprehension, then in order to allow the student to maintain his or her train of thought and concentration on comprehension, the teacher should instantly tell him or her how to say the word and explain its meaning if necessary. The teacher can review the word for decoding and vocabulary purposes after the lesson. Students who don’t master a given week’s vocabulary sentences and vocabulary sentences by Thursday, should spend Friday reading previous basal stories and/or leveled trade book for fluency. Then on the following Monday, these students should compose a new list of vocabulary sentences for the same words. Day five: Review day Magic Paper – page 14 Because comprehension lessons are so valuable, and there are so many holidays and field trips that cut a week down to four days, Magic Paper is designed for a four day cycle. Then for those weeks when there is a fifth day, individual students can be called upon to orally re-read their basal story and then try to re-tell it with passion and detail. Students may also be given the opportunity to choose which trade book or basal story they would prefer to re-read orally. Then, the more advanced students may be asked to read a completely new book on a slightly easier reading level either for comprehension or for oral fluency. Seatwork: Scrambled Sentences Other than reading a basal story or leveled book for comprehension, the best way to gauge whether students understand how to use their sight and meaning vocabulary words in context is to have students unscramble the vocabulary sentences that they had composed earlier in the week. An even better gauge is if students can unscramble the sentences of other groups. When scrambling the sentences of students reading at a pre-primer level, edit long sentences so that they contain no more than 4 or 5 words. Also, put the first word in the sentence first. As students became more comfortable with reading sight words and unscrambling sentences, the sentences can be gradually increased in length and the first word moved. When grading the papers, any viable sentence that uses all the words should count for full credit. Similarly, a student should receive full credit if he or she only leaves out a minor word such as the, a, or of. Modified Language Experience Approach for students beginning the first pre-primer: When working with students who are true beginning readers, the version of Magic Paper described above may prove to be too difficult. For these students, copy all of the words from the first pre-primer story onto flashcards. Then test each student to see which words the student may Magic Paper – page 15 already know. These “known” words need to be set aside into one pile, and the unfamiliar words into another pile. If possible, the teacher should form the known words into a baseline sentence and have the student read the sentence. If the student does not know words that can be formed into a sentence, the teacher should select as few unknown words as possible to form a good baseline sentence that can be re-formed into other baseline sentence. For example, when I was teaching students with learning disabilities in the Cleveland Municipal Schools, I kept a copy of the first pre-primer from an older basal series (Clymer & Venezky, 1984). In Little Dog Laughed the first three stories are about some students going to the school’s theatrical play. For these stories, I would start with the base sentence of “Sara can come to the play.” Then I would substitute in words from the known words list that could be fit into the baseline sentence to form new sentences. Thus, follow-up sentences included: “Jim can come to the play.” “Ken can come to the play.” Similarly, “Sara can come here,” could be transformed into “Jim can come here,” and “Ken can come here.” In general, students shouldn’t be expected to “learn” more than 2 or 3 sight words per day. After the student has about 15 words in his or her pile of known flashcards, the student can be encouraged to make up his or her own sentences. After accumulating 30 to 40 words on flashcards, the student will be ready for standard Magic Paper lessons. Conclusion: The advantage of Magic Paper is that it allows students to compose their own sentences within the context of a theme for a given week’s basal story or leveled book. Furthermore, Magic Paper helps students practice reading sentences to fluency. Admittedly, students are not focusing on comprehension, nor are they learning their phonics. Nonetheless, Juel (1988) found that good first grade readers will read 18,681 words in their basals and poor ones will read 9,975 words. Magic Paper – page 16 And in the spirit of the No Child Left Behind Act, students who read 6 Magic Paper sheets per week for 38 weeks, with 100 words per sheet, will read 22,800 words per year even before they read books and stories for comprehension and fluency. Magic Paper is not a silver bullet, but reading a few hundred words per day with 98% percent accuracy, at a steady cadence, and without any pictures on the page is a solid way to raise self-esteem and give students the opportunity to practice their reading. References Author (1997). Baufmann, J.F., & Kameenui, E.J. (1991). Research on vocabulary: Ode to Voltaire. In J. Flood, J. Jensen, D. Lapp, & J. Squire (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts (pp. 604-632). New York: Macmillan. Beck, I., & McKeown, M. (1991). Conditions of vocabulary acquisition. In R. Barr, M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, & P.D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research: Volume II (pp. 789814). New York: Longman. Clymer, T., & Venezky, R. L. (1984). Little Dog Laughed. Lexington, MA: Ginn and Company. Cunningham, P. M. (2000). Phonics they use: Words for reading and writing (3rd ed.). New York: Longman. Cunningham, P. M., Arthur, S. V., & Cunningham, J. W. (1977). Classroom Reading Instruction: Alternative Approaches. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company. Davidson, J. L. (1997). Pathways to modern reading instruction: A ersonal perspective of trailbreaking concepts, creators, and contributors. Session presented at the Annual Convention of the International Reading Association in Atlanta, Georgia. Magic Paper – page 17 Davidson, J. L. (1999). The history of language experience: A U.S. Perspective. In O. G. Nelson & W. M. Linek (Eds.), Practical Classroom Applications of Language Experience: Looking Back, Looking Forward. (pp. ) Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Duling, V. P. (1999). Literacy development of second language learners with technology and LEA. In O. G. Nelson & W. M. Linek (Eds.), Practical Classroom Applications of Language Experience: Looking Back, Looking Forward. (pp. 1-11). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Guszak, F. J., (1972). Diagnostic Reading Instruction in the Elementary School. New York: Harper and Row, 1972; Learning Disabilities Center, University of Texas. Juel, C. (1988). Learning to read and write: A longitudinal study of 54 children from first through fourth grades. Journal of Educational Psychology 80, 437-447. Lamoreaux, L. A. & Lee, D. M. (1943). Learning to read through experience. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. Lee, D. M. & Allen, R. V. (1943/1963). Learning to read through experience. (2nd edition). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts a division of the Meredith Publishing Company. Mohr, K. A. J., (1999). Variations on a theme: Using thematically framed language experience activities for English as a second language (ESL) Instruction. In O. G. Nelson & W. M. Linek (Eds.), Practical Classroom Applications of Language Experience: Looking Back, Looking Forward. (pp. 1-11). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Padak, N. D. & Rasinski, T. V. (1999). The Language Experience Approach: A framework for learning. In O. G. Nelson & W. M. Linek (Eds.), Practical Classroom Applications of Language Experience: Looking Back, Looking Forward. (pp. 1-11). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Magic Paper – page 18 Pinnell, G. S., & Fountas, I. C. (1998). Word matters: Teaching phonics and spelling in the reading/writing classroom. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann Scott, J. A., & Nagy, W. E. (1997). Understanding the definitions of unfamiliar verbs. Reading Research Quarterly, 32, 184-200. Stahl, S. (1986). Three principles of effective vocabulary instruction. Journal of Reading, 29, 662-668. Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew Effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-407. Tierney, R.J. and Readence, J.E. (2000). Reading Strategies and Practices: A Compendium (5th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.