Scaffolding Active Reading Strategies

Me: What was the article we read yesterday about?
Student: Free-something.
Me: Hmmm…right…I wonder how you DO pronounce it? We just sort of muddled through yesterday. I’ll do a quick YouTube search. [Play it.] Okay—now we know how to pronounce it: friluftsliv. What does the word mean?
Student: Outdoor living.
Me: Yes—what country does it come from? [Silence. Finally…]
Student: Sweden?
Me: Close—the one next door.
Student: Finland? 
Me: Close! The other side. [More silence.] The first letter is N.
Student: Nigeria?

This conversation took place the day following our first reading of “‘Friluftsliv’: How an idea of outdoor living could help us this pandemic winter” from the website Newsela (originally from National Geographic). I had chosen this article because the textbook topic was “happiness,” so I searched Newsela for a related article that (a) I could adjust to students’ reading level and (b) makes global connections (see my post "Becoming a Globally Competent Teacher"). 

I was really excited about the text itself, but I’ve been struggling a bit with getting advanced middle school EFL students to use active reading strategies that move past only asking meaning of vocabulary. I’ve been trying to use strategies from Larry Ferlazzo’s book The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox, and while some have been great (see here, here, and here), others haven't worked as well. My faulty implementation, I’m sure, and I’m not giving up. This week I may have hit on something of a breakthrough. 

For instance, I realized during the conversation above that I hadn’t even questioned and researched how to pronounce the Norwegian word in the title, though it only took a 30-second investment. Also, while it had occurred to me to make sure students connected the adjective Norwegian with the noun Norway (the way English forms adjectives from country names is in no way intuitive for a language learner!) and even to extend the lesson to additional countries and their adjectives (love the website TeachThis), it hadn’t occurred to me to question whether students could picture the location of those countries. (As a result, I searched and found this cool site where you can look at a world political map and click on any country to go immediately to a map of that country!)

Most significantly, I realized, I hadn’t provided scaffolding between the “I do” and “you do.” We had read the text once together for comprehension—defining words and summarizing paragraphs. We had gone over a list of reading strategies (from The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox). I had even modeled doing some of them myself. Then I'd asked students to annotate the text. 

That’s when I remembered a strategy from Teaching Argument by Jennifer Fletcher that I’d used with 11th and 12th graders earlier this year. I typed up the ways my brain was using a reading strategy to interact with the first section of text. I printed the list, sliced it up, and distributed the questions and comments to the students:

• Where is Norway? What is it like?
• The picture reminds me of Alaska where I visited my aunt--those big, snowy mountains are beautiful.
• How do you pronounce “friluftsliv”?
• How can you celebrate time outdoors no matter the weather? I mean, last Saturday and Sunday was great for celebrating time outdoors, but Monday wasn’t so nice.
• Why is it natural for Norwegians?
• This is current! We have all had our lives changed! I really miss getting together with people. I wonder if this article can help? 
• I know some people who do unsafe things, and some who are staying at home going crazy. 
• The Norwegian way of enjoying life outdoors no matter the weather could help people deal with Covid-19.
• Sounds like my relatives in Minnesota! They love the winter because they love outdoor winter sports like ice skating and skiing. 

Then I told the students, “I’m going to read the introduction, stopping at the end of each sentence. The person who has the question or comment related to that sentence should raise their hand and read their paper. These are the kinds of questions and comments I’ll be looking for you to come up with on your own for the next section.”

The next section I read aloud and asked students to write down their own 3 questions or responses and share them in a group. Then I sent them home with the assignment to come up with 3 more responses on the next section on their own, and we’d discuss them the next day. We had a better discussion the next day. Though one “what does it mean?” question still came up. I’ll take that as a sign that more uncovering rather than covering of meaning—whether it’s vocabulary, grammar, or reading strategies—still has to happen. And as long as we’re all still asking questions, it will.