Summer Leadership Institute

Summer Leadership Institute

Summer Leadership InstituteOral Language Development: Closing the Gap to Meet the Demands of the Common Core Standards

Jackie Atkinson and Stacy Williams

August 9-10, 2012

1Common Board Configuration Summer Leadership Institute

Date: August 9, 2012Bell Ringer: List the ways your school currently implements oral language development.Learning Goal: Learners will understand that Oral Language is essential for the mastery of a range of skills and applications throughout the Common Core Standards.Standard: Given the Common Core Standards learners will identify instructional implications for Oral Language Development.Objective: By the end of this session the participant will be able to answer the following questions:What is oral language development?What does research tell us about oral language development?What are the components of oral language that will facilitate mastery of the Common Core Standards?What is the role of oral language instruction in the classroom?

Essential Question: What does my school need to do to ensure a greater emphasis on Oral Language Development as it pertains to the Common Core Standards and classroom instruction?Vocabulary: High Effect Indicators, 21st Century Skills, Dialogic Reading, World Knowledge, Word KnowledgeAgenda: Gradual ReleaseI Do: Presenting definition, research findings and components of Oral Language Development.We Do: Examining Common Core Standards as it pertains to Oral Language Skills.You Do: Instructional Leaders Responsibilities Scale.Summarizing Activity:Essential Question ReflectionParticipant Scale- Ticket OutHomework: Complete and reflect on the High Effect Indicators Planning sheet.Student learning needs and faculty and leadership development needs will vary from school to school and from district to district. However, contemporary research reveals a core of instructional and leadership strategies that have a higher probability than most of positively impacting student learning in significant ways. The indicators below link formative feedback and evaluation to contemporary research on practices that have a positive impact on student learning growth. Research on the cause and effect relationships between instructional and leadership strategies and student outcomes address the effect size of a strategy: What degree of impact does it have? In the context of district instructional and leadership evaluation systems, effect size is a statistical estimation of the influence a strategy or practice has on student learning. Effect size calculations result from statistical analyses in research focused on student learning where the correct and appropriate use of a strategy yields better student learning growth than when the strategy is not used or is used incorrectly or inappropriately. In research terms, those strategies often identified as high effect size are those with higher probabilities of improving student learning. Classroom teachers need a repertoire of strategies with a positive effect size so that what they are able to do instructionally, after adapting to classroom conditions, has a reasonable chance of getting positive results. As school leaders and mentor teachers begin to focus on feedback to colleagues to improve proficiency on practices that improve student learning growth, emphasis should be on those strategies that have a high effect size. Where every Florida classroom teacher and school leader has 2

Lake County SchoolsVision StatementA dynamic, progressive and collaborative learning community embracing change and diversity where every student will graduate with the skills needed to succeed in postsecondary education and the workplace.Mission StatementThe mission of the Lake County Schools is to provide every student with individual opportunities to excel.

Lake County Schools is committed to excellence in all curricular opportunities and instructional best practices. This focus area addresses closing the achievement gap, increased graduation rate, decreased dropout rate, increase in Level 3 and above scores on the FCAT, achieving an increase in the number of students enrolled in advanced placement and dual enrollment opportunities and implementing the best practices in instructional methodology.


321st Century Skills Tony Wagner, The Global Achievement Gap Summer Leadership Institute

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Collaboration and Leadership Agility and Adaptability Initiative and Entrepreneurialism Effective Oral and Written Communication Accessing and Analyzing Information Curiosity and ImaginationCritical Thinking and Problem Solving: To compete in the new global economy, companies need their workers to think about how to continuously improve their products, processes, or services. The challenge is this: How do you do things that haven't been done before, where you have to rethink or think anew? It's not incremental improvement any more. The markets are changing too fast.Collaboration and Leadership: Teamwork is no longer just about working with others in your building. Technology has allowed for virtual teams. We have teams working on major infrastructure projects that are all over the U.S. On other projects, you're working with people all around the world on solving a software problem. Every week they're on a variety of conference calls; they're doing Web casts; they're doing net meetings.Agility and Adaptability: Ability to think, be flexible, change, and use a variety of tools to solve new problems. We change what we do all the time. I can guarantee the job I hire someone to do will change or may not exist in the future, so this is why adaptability and learning skills are more important than technical skills.Initiative and Entrepreneurialism: Taking chances and being a risk-taker. I say to my employees, if you try five things and get all five of them right, you may be failing. If you try 10 things, and get eight of them right, you're a hero.Effective Oral and Written Communication: The ability to be clear, concise, focused, energetic and passionate around the points they want to make. We are routinely surprised at the difficulty some young people have in communicating: verbal skills, written skills, presentation skills. They have difficulty being clear and concise; it's hard for them to create focus, energy, and passion around the points they want to make. If you're talking to an exec, the first thing you'll get asked if you haven't made it perfectly clear in the first 60 seconds of your presentation is, What do you want me to take away from this meeting? They don't know how to answer that question.Accessing and Analyzing Information: The ability to know how to access and analyze large quantities of information. There is so much information available that it is almost too much, and if people aren't prepared to process the information effectively it almost freezes them in their steps.Curiosity and Imagination: The development of young people's capacities for imagination, creativity, and empathy will be increasingly important for maintaining the United States' competitive advantage in the future. People who've learned to ask great questions and have learned to be inquisitive are the ones who move the fastest in our environment because they solve the biggest problems in ways that have the most impact on innovation.

4High Effect Size Indicators Summer Leadership Institute

The Departments identified set of indicators on high effect size instructional and leadership strategies with a causal relationship to student learning growth constitute priority issues for deliberate practice and faculty development.

-Florida Department of Education, 2012Student learning needs and faculty and leadership development needs will vary from school to school and from district to district. However, contemporary research reveals a core of instructional and leadership strategies that have a higher probability than most of positively impacting student learning in significant ways. The indicators below link formative feedback and evaluation to contemporary research on practices that have a positive impact on student learning growth. Research on the cause and effect relationships between instructional and leadership strategies and student outcomes address the effect size of a strategy: What degree of impact does it have? In the context of district instructional and leadership evaluation systems, effect size is a statistical estimation of the influence a strategy or practice has on student learning. Effect size calculations result from statistical analyses in research focused on student learning where the correct and appropriate use of a strategy yields better student learning growth than when the strategy is not used or is used incorrectly or inappropriately. In research terms, those strategies often identified as high effect size are those with higher probabilities of improving student learning. Classroom teachers need a repertoire of strategies with a positive effect size so that what they are able to do instructionally, after adapting to classroom conditions, has a reasonable chance of getting positive results. As school leaders and mentor teachers begin to focus on feedback to colleagues to improve proficiency on practices that improve student learning growth, emphasis should be on those strategies that have a high effect size. Where every Florida classroom teacher and school leader has 5Learning Goal with ScalesTracking Student ProgressEstablished Content StandardsMulti-tiered System of SupportsClear GoalsText ComplexityESOL Students Summer Leadership Institute

School LeadershipHigh Effect IndicatorsClassroom TeacherHigh Effect IndicatorsFeedback PracticesFacilitating Professional LearningClear Goals and ExpectationsInstructional ResourcesHigh Effect Size StrategiesInstructional InitiativesMonitoring Text ComplexityInterventionsInstructional AdaptationsESOL Strategies

6Discussion How will you in your current position ensure that the 21st Century Skills and the High Effect Size Indicators are embedded in the learning environment?

Summer Leadership InstituteDiscuss with your elbow partner.Ask participants to think for 10 seconds about the answer to the question.Have them turn to their elbow partner to discuss the answer.

7Summer Leadership Institute

What do you see?

What is this about?Ask participants to take a look at the picture and think for 10 seconds about the answer to the questions. Have participants turn to their elbow partner to discuss the answers. (2 min.)Come back as a whole group to discuss answers.Let participants know that as a result of their prior knowledge and oral language ability, they were able to discuss the picture the way they did.So, as we continue we want to take a look at what we know about the importance of Oral Language Development (next slide).8What do we know about the importance of Oral Language Development?

First we want to take a look at what we already know about Oral Language Development. 9What is Language? The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) defines language as . . . A code made up of rules that include what words mean, how to make words, how to put them together, and what word combinations are best in what situations. Speech is the oral form of language. www.asha.org/public/speech/developmentSummer Leadership Institute

10Defining Oral Language DevelopmentThe Duality of Learning LanguageReceptive LanguageExpressive LanguageThe ability to understand spoken language(By age of 4 children understand between 6000-8000 words)The ability to use words to convey meaning(By age of 4 children use around 1500 words)


11Defining Oral Language DevelopmentVocabulary is made up primarily of two elements:

World Knowledge: the experiences on has in his/her life that one learns from that develops vocabulary.

Word Knowledge: the mental dictionary/thesaurus, the words in your head that you use to figure out whats going on in the world.Vocabulary is made up primarily of two elements; that children learn vocabulary based on world knowledge and word knowledge. World knowledge is experiential. Its the experiences that you have in your life that you learn from that develop vocabulary. Word knowledge is the mental dictionary; its the thesaurus, its the words in your head that you use to figure out whats going on in the world around you. You have to have both in order to have a strong vocabulary. Children take their world knowledge and their word knowledge, put them together, and develop vocabulary. Thats what vocabulary is. When we see children who have poor vocabularies, if theyre not language impaired, which most of them arent, what we find is that those children dont have a lot of experiences. And so, their world knowledge impacts in a negative way their word knowledge. So, we want to be sure that kids have experiences; thats what field trips are supposed to be for. But, in the absence of a field trip, world knowledge is also learned through books. And so, the more we introduce reading to children and the earlier we introduce it to them, the more world knowledge they develop.

12Oral Language is.The foundation for reading and writing.If they cant talk about it, they cant write about it or comprehend it.


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Childrens speaking and listening skills lead the way for their reading and writing skills, and together these language skills are the primary tools of the mind for all future learning.

Roskos, Tabors, & Lenhart, 2005, p. v.


Jerome Bruner (1983) Proficiency in oral language provides children with a vital tool for thought. Without fluent and structured oral language, children will find it very difficult to think.Summer Leadership Institute

This is what we are expecting children to do at a high level without the prerequisite tools to think!15Talking Environments are Learning Environments Talk is the means through which childrens use of language occurs. Through talk with others, children build their practical knowledge of language the verbal system. They learn to talk by talking. This is how they learn new words and gain mastery of language rules. Childrens language knowledge, gained through talking, becomes the basis for developing essential reading and writing skills. Roskos, Tabors, & Lenhart (2004). p. 9.


We can not longer allow our students to learn in silence. We must provide ample opportunities for students to take part in a variety of rich structured conversations. This is the only way to ensure they reach the mastery level of Common Core Standards and 21st Century Skills.The environments in which children are exposed will have an impact on their oral language development. Lets take a look at a study conducted by Hart & Risley which illustrates the vocabulary gap developed from various environments (due socio-economics).16Hart & Risley Study By age three, the observed cumulative vocabulary for children in the professional families was about 1,100, for the working class families it was about 750, and for the welfare families it was just above 500.


17Hart & Risley Study In professional families, children heard an average of 2153 words per hour; in working class families 1,251 words per hour and in welfare families only 616 words per hour.


Hart & Risley study show that over time: Extrapolating these figures to cover 4 years of experience would give 11 million words heard by a child in a professional family, 6 million for a child in working class family and 3 million for a child in a welfare family.


Further Research:If literacy levels are to improve Oral Language skills must be taught in a purposeful and systematic way.Listening and speaking are necessary prerequisites of reading and writing.Must start in the earliest grades and continue to build throughout the grades.

(Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams, 2006; Julit, Haward, & Fahey, 2010; Pence & Justice, 2007; Stuart, Wright, Grigor, &Howey, 2002)


Listening and Speaking: Do kids these days listen or speak due to texting, facebook, tweeting, twittering!!!!20Is it possible for teachers to design instruction that will close the language experience gap?YES!Teachers can be instrumental in closing the language experience gap through daily incorporation. Students who struggle with a language deficit will need many language-rich experiences, as well as systematic and explicit instruction to help them catch up to their more verbal peers!Summer Leadership Institute

Closing the Gap: Oral Language ActivitiesThe Common Core Standards rose from the ashes of long standing research validating the importance of Oral language development.CCSS incorporated speaking and listening skills that students must master across the grade levels to ensure strong readers and writers in the 21st century.

Summer Leadership InstituteResearch to PracticeActivity: Examine the Speaking and Listening Common Core State Standards Across Grade Levels

Focal Points:What are students being asked to do?What are the commonalities across grade levels?What instructional changes will need to occur to ensure mastery?


The time line for implementation.23Summer Leadership Institute

24Creating a Language Centered Learning EnvironmentPhysical EnvironmentSocial EnvironmentEmotional EnvironmentCognitive EnvironmentSummer Leadership Institute

Developing Listening Skills: Guidelines for TeachersExplicitly teach children how to be good listeners.Model good listening skills (genuinely listen to your students).Promote active listening to solve conflicts.Schedule quiet, listening time as part of the school day.Provide interesting nooks in the classroom that encourage conversation and attentive listening. Talking Classrooms (2001) Early Literacy Fundamentals. (2005)Summer Leadership Institute

Games and Activities to Promote Good Listening SkillsListening WalkRecognize familiar sounds (prepare tape)Matching sounds (sound cans)Echo activitiesRepeat clapping patternsGame: Guess who is speaking!Game: Simon SaysGame: Whisper Down the Line


Teaching Conversational Skill: Guidelines for TeachersExplicitly teach students:School Talk (extended discourse and decontextualized language)Conversational reciprocity (turn taking)Eye contact when speaking and listeningAwareness of non-verbal communicationHow to sustain conversations Talking Classrooms (2001) Early Literacy Fundamentals. (2005)


Building Conversational SkillsEngage in conversations with students..Target students most in need (as students arrive, recess, activity centers, lunch time, etc.)Model conversational skills and provide guided practice at Circle TimeConduct interactive Read AloudsUse role-playing to teach and reinforce good conversational skillsSummer Leadership Institute

Building Auditory Memory:Guidelines for TeachersExplicitly teach children to be conscious of remembering important concepts, skills, and strategies: Metacognitive strategies such as Think AloudsPlay memory gamesModel strategies that promote memory: Visual cuesMnemonics Sound bites Rhythm, Rhyme and SongTeach poems, songs, and fingerplays.Provide organizational tools to assist memory.Graphic organizersVisual organizers: color coding, pictures and photographsTalking Classrooms (2001); Early Literacy Fundamentals. (2005)


Expanding Conceptual Knowledge and Vocabulary: Guidelines for TeachersExpand Conceptual Knowledge:Provide a learning environment that encourages curiosity and imagination.Plan authentic experiences- visits to the zoo, fire house, farm, museum, etc.Use a multisensory approachBuild Vocabulary:Explicitly teach vocabulary words that are selected from Read Alouds, content themes or other classroom activities.Practice and reinforce use of targeted words in student conversations.Bringing Words to Life (2002); Talking Classrooms (2001); Early Literacy Fundamentals (2005)


Instructional Routines that Support Oral Language Development(Conceptual Knowledge and Vocabulary)Systematic and Explicit High Quality Classroom LanguageRead AloudsDialogic Reading (Shared Reading)Storytelling and PuppetrySystematic and Explicit Vocabulary InstructionLanguage Scaffolding (conversation stretching)Socio-Dramatic PlayLanguage Experience ApproachMusic and Rhythm Activities (singing, marching, playing instruments)Activity Centers/Guided Play

From age 3 onward [a child] should build a vocabulary store of at least 2,500 words per year. [He/she] should encounter and explore at least 2 new words each day.

Roskos, Tabors, & Lenhart (2004), p. 1.


Dialogic Reading is.Effective strategy that is used with books to enhance and promote vocabulary and oral language skills.The book becomes a shared visual and verbal context in which you and your children can learn new words.A method of increasing the size and diversity of childrens knowledge about the world and the words we use to describe it.

Word ConsciousnessTo increase word consciousness, teachers should:Emphasize learning new words using elaborate and extended language throughout the dayDraw attention to specific words, their meanings, and their useRead-aloud good literature EVERY DAY!Communicate their own appreciation and love of wordsHave fun with words and language (word play)Summer Leadership Institute

Word PlayProvides opportunities for children to have fun with language.

Word play activities include:Summer Leadership Institute

Poetry and RhymesAutumn

Cornflake leavesBeneath the trees-Are they a breakfastFor the breeze?Thelma Ireland


Tongue TwistersPeter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,Wheres the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?Summer Leadership Institute

RiddlesSummer Leadership Institute

What letter makes honey?Sometimes it is short.Sometimes it is tall.Sometimes you can not See it at all.What is it? IdiomsAre you feeling blue?Its raining cats and dogs.Quick as a wink!Put on your thinking cap!Who let the cat out of the bag?Dont lose your head!Summer Leadership Institute

Analogies Summer Leadership Institute

is to

asis to

How can we ACCELERATE Oral Language Skills?Recognize the URGENCY of accelerating language growth, especially among children with poverty or with learning issues.Create language rich learning environments.Use systematic, explicit, and scaffolded instruction.Increase the intensity of instruction for struggling learners.Provide learning experiences that actively engage all students



How can Instructional Leaders Support Systematic and Explicit Oral Language Instruction?

Instructional Leaders ResponsibilitiesProvide suggestions and ideas to assist teachers in establishing and maintain language rich learning environments.Provide suggestions for instructional practice that promotes oral language development.Support instructional practice that promotes oral language development.Model effective language skills.Take the time to genuinely listen to teachers and children.Model talking with children, limiting Teacher Talk or Principal Talk.Summer Leadership Institute

Instructional Leaders Responsibilities (cont.)Demonstrate sensitivity to language and cultural differences.Monitor instructional practices for systematic and explicit instruction that build oral language development.Highlight positive classroom practices that promote oral language skills.Build a language-rich school community.Plan differentiated professional development to assist teachers in establishing and maintaining language rich learning environments.Instructional Leaders Responsibilities ScaleHow do you rate?Summer Leadership Institute

After Rating go over Essential Question (pair share).46Common Board Configuration Summer Leadership Institute

Date: August 9, 2012Bell Ringer: List the ways your school currently implements oral language development.Learning Goal: Learners will understand that Oral Language is essential for the mastery of a range of skills and applications throughout the Common Core Standards.Standard: Given the Common Core Standards learners will identify instructional implications for Oral Language Development.Objective: By the end of this session the participant will be able to answer the following questions:What is oral language development?What does research tell us about oral language development?What are the components of oral language that will facilitate mastery of the Common Core Standards?What is the role of oral language instruction in the classroom?

Essential Question: What does my school need to do to ensure a greater emphasis on Oral Language Development as it pertains to the Common Core Standards and classroom instruction?Vocabulary: High Effect Indicators, 21st Century Skills, Dialogic Reading, World Knowledge, Word KnowledgeAgenda: Gradual ReleaseI Do: Presenting definition, research findings and components of Oral Language Development.We Do: Examining Common Core Standards as it pertains to Oral Language Skills.You Do: Instructional Leaders Responsibilities Scale.Summarizing Activity:Essential Question ReflectionParticipant Scale- Ticket OutHomework: Complete and reflect on the High Effect Indicators Planning sheet.Student learning needs and faculty and leadership development needs will vary from school to school and from district to district. However, contemporary research reveals a core of instructional and leadership strategies that have a higher probability than most of positively impacting student learning in significant ways. The indicators below link formative feedback and evaluation to contemporary research on practices that have a positive impact on student learning growth. Research on the cause and effect relationships between instructional and leadership strategies and student outcomes address the effect size of a strategy: What degree of impact does it have? In the context of district instructional and leadership evaluation systems, effect size is a statistical estimation of the influence a strategy or practice has on student learning. Effect size calculations result from statistical analyses in research focused on student learning where the correct and appropriate use of a strategy yields better student learning growth than when the strategy is not used or is used incorrectly or inappropriately. In research terms, those strategies often identified as high effect size are those with higher probabilities of improving student learning. Classroom teachers need a repertoire of strategies with a positive effect size so that what they are able to do instructionally, after adapting to classroom conditions, has a reasonable chance of getting positive results. As school leaders and mentor teachers begin to focus on feedback to colleagues to improve proficiency on practices that improve student learning growth, emphasis should be on those strategies that have a high effect size. Where every Florida classroom teacher and school leader has 47Participant Scale and Reflection(Please complete and turn in) Summer Leadership Institute

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We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

Marian Wright Edelman

Summer Leadership Institute

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