Strategies for getting ELLs and remedial readers to write – Secondary

By Lillian Mongeau (RGV ’05)

This is a short list of techniques that I used with my ELL and remedial reader students in my general classroom. Many of these techniques were applicable across the board and I taught whole class lessons on how to use the technique, but it was my ELLs and remedial readers who benefitted the most.

  1. Have Confidence: Remember that your ELLs and remedial readers have a lot to say, they just struggle to convert their very logical and in depth thinking into standard English. Remembering this and conveying to your students that you know how smart they are and how hard they have to work to get their thoughts onto paper is your first, and arguably most effective, tool.
  1. Using Pictures: The act of reading involves using the words on the page to create a picture in your head. Writers do the opposite, they have pictures in their heads and use their words to create those “pictures” on the page. Your students’ heads are full of pictures! Use them!
  1. Film Strip Outline: This technique revolutionized my writer’s workshops and helped create major breakthroughs for a number of my struggling students.
  2. Have your student fold a piece of paper lengthwise and then widthwise to create four boxes.
  3. Label the boxes: Intro/Rising Action/Climax/Conclusion
  4. Instead of a written outline have your students draw a picture in each box demonstrating what is happening in their story or narrative. They can use dialogue boxes, thought bubbles, anything that will help them hold the details in their minds while they are writing.
  5. Have the students write a first draft that simply describes what is happening in each picture. Each picture box equals one paragraph.
  6. You have a draft! Work with this draft and the original drawing to get your student to revise their draft once, adding more details, etc, and you have a full piece of writing!
  1. Wordless Book Activity: have your students flip through a storybook like The Snowman that doesn’t have any words. Have them write a sentence or two for each page. Show them that this has created a story. The key is to get the student to connect images and words.
  1. Illustrated Vocab Flashcards: Have students draw pictures to illustrate their vocabulary words as they are learning them. Check out these vocab techniques, by Constantine Polites (RGV ’05).
  1. Illustrated Vocab Review: You can also do vocab reviews using pictures. Flash a powerpoint slide with someone looking angrily at someone else for the word “hostility,” etc. This won’t slow down your higher-level students and it will give your ELLs and remedial readers a much better chance of feeling up to speed with their peers because images are easier to interpret than text. Not to mention, it will give them a great mnemonic device!
  1. Color Code: Okay, true confession, I am OBSESSED with color coding. I use it on my wall calendar, in my weekly planner, on my gmail labels; my classroom was a veritable rainbow. I’d color code my dresser drawers, blue for socks, red for t-shirts, if it wouldn’t make me look totally insane. Still, I’m convinced that color coding helps ELLs and remedial readers to write. Here’s how:
  1. Ratiocination: This is a technique that uses color coding to get students to identify patterns in their writing and effectively target places to revise. Use it to help students check their use of adjectives, the length of their sentences, repeated use of certain words, etc. Use this power-point by Lindsay Brown (RGV ’05) to introduce yourself and your students to ratiocination.
  1. Highlighting: Have students highlight details of their outline that they want to remember to include in their drafts. Have them highlight parts of their drafts that they want to expand in their revisions. Have them highlight all of the grammar corrections they or their peer found while editing. When they are reviewing their completed work, have them highlight their favorite sentence or paragraph and tell you what they like about it. Point out this section to them of an example of the success the can have when they work hard!
  1. Writing Conferences: Writing conferences are important for all writers from developing writers to professionals, but they can make or break a writing project for an ELL or remedial reader. Allowing your students to explain their ideas to you verbally gets their thoughts flowing, and gives you a better idea of where they are going. Anything you can do to avoid that “is it an elephant?” moment, as if you are looking at a two year-old’s drawing, is important. When you conference with your ELLs and remedial readers:
  2. Don’t give too many suggestions, just keep asking your student questions about his story. Be VERY animated and curious. Act like you can’t wait to read this incredible story yourself.
  3. Be respectful of your student’s subject matter and if she is writing about something you don’t understand or know much about, tell her this. Let her know how important her voice is in telling this story. No one can tell it like she can.
  4. Share with your student how confident you are in his ability to pull this off. That added boost of confidence before starting an assignment is huge.
  5. Take copious notes during the conference. When it is over, give your student your notes and say, “Here’s what you just told me. I’ve just written it down so that you’ll remember. I hope this helps you write your story because I can’t wait to read it!”
  1. Think-Aloud and Model the Writing Process: As you go through each step of the writing process with your class, think-aloud and model your own process. You should always be writing for the same assignment you’ve given your students. Document readers and overhead projectors are great for this.
  2. Show the class your brainstorm and say, “Hmm, I really like telling my friends about my PSP, but I don’t know if I could really write a story about it. I need to find something where I can write a beginning, middle, and end. The time I got lost in my cousin’s neighborhood might be good. We were playing hide and seek and when no one found me, I came out after hiding and I didn’t remember how I’d got there. There are a lot of sensory details I could explain too, like how hot it was. Okay, that’s it. I’ll write about the time I got lost.”
  3. Dramatically circle this idea on your brainstorm page and write it again at the top of a fresh page to start your outline.
  4. Have your students take a minute to select an idea from their sheet, then do a think-pair-share with a partner to explain why they picked what they picked.
  5. Do this much modeling for EVERY step of the process.