As you prepare your classroom for the new school year and think about all the exciting ways you might grow your students’ love for reading—while also nurturing their literacy skills and learning autonomy—take a moment to consider using rotating reading stations. Rotating stations offer both flexible learning spaces and student choice, which promotes active learning, independence, and engagement, as well as increasing students’ intrinsic motivation to learn (Digital Promise, 2017a, 2017b).

TESOL recently partnered with Microsoft to create a free guide that outlines multiple ways teachers can use Microsoft’s new literacy tools (Immersive Reader, Reading Progress, and Reading Coach) to boost language and literacy development in tandem. The guide provides concrete, practical classroom activities across a range of contexts and student proficiency levels for use in classrooms with multilingual learners of English (MLEs).

The following activity, from the guide, uses the 5E instructional model in tandem with Reading Coach to help students see for themselves where they have literacy gaps, and to help them learn to self-correct.

About the 5E Instructional Approach

The 5E instructional approach to teaching and learning helps students build understanding through their own experiences and critical thinking. Utilizing the 5Es—engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate—may generally assist teachers in structuring lessons efficiently and getting students involved in the learning process. It offers a structure for teachers to convey material in a motivating and relevant way while also allowing for flexibility and modification to meet the needs of individual learners.

About This Activity

This activity takes place in a diverse high school. The 15 MLEs in this class are from different backgrounds and have varying proficiency levels, though the majority of students are at a proficiency level of CEFR A2. The teacher has determined that students need help with reading comprehension, so decides to use Reading Coach in Teams as a station during reading rotations. Students spend 20 minutes at each of four stations during reading rotations.

Utilizing this activity, students will be able to identify areas of improvement in their reading and critical thinking skills.

Download the Activity:

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References

Digital Promise. (2017a). Mobility and flexibility. https://bplawassets.learningaccelerator.org/images/Mobility-and-Flexibility-PK-3-Reading-Digital-Promise-Global-v2.pdf

Digital Promise. (2017b). Student choice. https://bplawassets.learningaccelerator.org/images/Student-Choice-PK-3-Reading-Digital-Promise-Global-v2.pdf