Lotta Lara Practices in an Intermediate Linguistically Diverse Classroom

Maria UribeJuanita Stevenson

Lotta Lara Background

Action Research done by Estelle Lara & other 1st grade teachers at Farmers Branch Elementary.

They created their reading routine based on ideas from 2 Reading Teacher articles:

Kuhn, M. (Dec. 2004/Jan. 2005). Helping students become accurate, expressive readers: Fluency instruction for small groups. Reading Teacher, 58(4), 338--‐344. 2. Pikulski, J. & Chard,D. (2005). Fluency: Bridge between decoding and comprehension. ReadingT eacher, 58(6),510--‐519.

Lotta Lara Principles

Literacy Squared Research started to use “Lotta Lara” as a strategy to:

Develop comprehension, oracy, and reading fluency

Increase comprehension

Develop biliteracy whole group strategy

Read same text 10 times with 9 student fluent reads

Explicit instruction oracy/comprehension after repeated readings

Lotta Lara at Greenlee Elementary

A relationship

Why did the principal and the teacher choose the group?

Increase fluency and comprehension with a group of fifth graders who were reading significantly below fifth grade level (Between K- 3)

Self motivation

Self confidence

# Language Interest Comprehension Fluency Phonics Vocabulary1. 1 Mai Mai Comics

Books Difficult to identify details and express

them with their words

Not at grade level

Good sound identification

N/A

1. 2 Spanish/ Read and

Write

Football Books

Difficult to identify details and express them with their words

Below Grade level

Good sound identification

N/A

1. 3 Mandingo Moli/English

Basketball Difficult to identify details and express them with their words

Below Grade level

Good sound identification

N/A

1. 4 English Biographies Difficult to identify details and express them with their words

Below Grade level

Good sound identification

N/A

1. 5 Spanish Funny Books Difficult to identify details and express them with their words

Not at grade level

Good sound identification

N/A

1. 6 Spanish read write

Funny Books Difficult to identify details and express them with their words

Not at grade level

Good sound identification

N/A

1. 7 Spanish read

Scary Books Difficult to identify details and express them with their words

Not at grade level

Good sound identification

N/A

# Language Interest Comprehension Fluency Phonics Vocabulary

1 Spanish Actors difficult to identify details and express

them with their words

Below Grade level

Good sound identification N/A

2 English Mysteries Very difficult to identify details and express

them with their words

Below Grade level

Good sound identification N/A

3 Spanish Animal Language intervenes so sometimes is hard

to understand

Below Grade level

Using Spanish but well does except for the letters that

do not transferred

N/A

4 Spanish Football Very difficult to identify details and express

them with their words

Below Grade level

No sound word recognition N/A

5 Vietnamese Funny Books

Very difficult to identify details and express

them with their words

Below Grade level

No sound word recognition N/A

5 English Football Very difficult to identify details and express

them with their words

Below Grade level

Using Spanish but well does except for the letters that

do not transferred

N/A

7 Spanish Football Language intervenes so sometimes is hard

to understand

Below Grade level

Using Spanish but well does except for the letters that

do not transferred 

N/A

Day 1

Oracy and Background Knowledge

Power Point: The purpose of showing the students the PPT is to build background knowledge, activate the language necessary to accomplish the task and the language students need to control and to be able to communicate the purpose of the lesson.

It is important to have ready the dialogue you will present to the students, the language structures you want the students to learn or practice and the academic vocabulary that you want the students to use.

The Dialogue: The students watch the PPT and at each of the slides we stop to talk about what they know and the new information. It is important to hear all of the students, at least the acknowledgement of the conversation, this will indicate that they are listening to the conversation.

Language Structures and Language Structures:

T: The character Jackie Robinson successfully accomplished different tasks in his life, such as …………what do you think he wanted to show people?

S. I think that Jackie Robinson successfully accomplished different tasks because…………….

T. If you were Jackie Robinson what would you be feeling or thinking about all of these accomplishments?

S. If I were Jackie Robinson I would ………….

T. If you were Jackie Robinson what would you do with all of the awards?

S. If I had all of the awards that Jackie Robinson received I would………………

T. Often there’s other ways of looking at a situation. What would you be thinking if all of this would have had happened to you?

S. If ………. happened to me I would have …

Jackie Robinson

Jackie Robinson& the Civil Rights

Movement

Ryan L. & Jared B. Horace Greeley High School

Jackie’s Youth

Born: January 31, 1919 Cairo Georgia Jerry Robinson (Father) was making $12 a month as a

sharecropper Jack Roosevelt Robinson was the fifth child in the Robinson family When he was born his parents had to find a way to make more

money Jerry Robinson asked his boss, Jim Sasser, for more money

Sasser allowed Jerry to work as a half-cropper.Half-cropping- receiving half the crops to sell in market

Jerry Robinson Disappears

When Jackie was 16 months old, his father said he was going to Memphis is search for a job

Jerry Robinson never returned

Mallie (Mother) moved the family to Pasadena Cal. where her brother in law, Uncle Burton, lived.

Pepper Street

Lesson Plan

Read Aloud: The first reading by the teacher allows the students to read the entire text fluently mainly to understand the story as a whole.

Echo Reading: The teacher reads and the students repeat. The purpose of this reading is for the student to read fluently a sentence or a paragraph. We will do part of the story for the purpose of the observation but you need to do the whole story the first time.

Partner reading: The students will read the story with a partner, the first time they do echo reading and the second time they use choral reading. The purpose is for them to practice fluency and for them to learn listening skills.

Using the dialogue bubbles (attached) you can close the lesson for the day.

Did Jackie Robinson Have More of an Effect on Civil Rights as an Athlete or as a Political Activist?

Day 2

In day two students will do the echo reading one more time of the whole story. In our case we will need to finish the story.

After doing the echo reading focus is on the content objective (main idea).

The process to teach the main idea is to focus first on each of the paragraphs. After writing the main idea of each of the paragraphs the students will find the common theme on each of the paragraphs and conclude the main idea. Using this process the students learn that the main idea needs to be supported by the details of the story. It is easier for them to be able to scaffold the story, and then find the main idea.

Scaffolding the Paragraph:

It seems like there’s a lot of information but what have we read so far?

On this paragraph the author is talking about……..

Let’s look at this paragraph, give me details of it…

What new information did we learn so far?

More Questions

How do you compare the ideas…?

How would you prioritize…?

How would you prioritize the facts…?

What would you cite to defend your point…?

What data was used to make the conclusion…?

What information would you use to support your view…?

Based on what you know and what the story says how would you explain…? 

Independent Reading: Depends where the children are, you might want to do another echo reading, then the reading with a partner. My prediction is that this group, with the exception of one child in the morning and two in the afternoon, could do the choral reading with a partner. I would do the echo reading one more time with those kids separated while the others read independently.  

Writing the Main Idea: Using the dialogue and notes from the day before, students will write the main idea of each paragraph. You could do it independently or as a shared activity first. I did it shared since this was the first time I worked in writing with these students.

After writing the main idea of each paragraph then we talked about what is the common theme between all of the paragraphs and we concluded the main idea.

The students then can write the summary using the main idea and important details.

Note: As the classroom teacher you could extend the activities after the students are able to talk, read and understand the text. You can always use a book, however I used a passage to practice texts for TCAP.

Day 3

I Break Stuff for a Living 

Lesson Plan

Monday’s Question: What lesson does the narrator learn about breaking things? Give examples from when the narrator was a child, high school student, and an adult.

Tuesday’s Questions: What did the narrator break? What does the author mean when he said “Eventually, curiosity and

a hot summer day got the best of me?” What did the narrator’s dad help him figure out? What did the narrator learn about breaking things as a child?

Wednesday’s Questions:

Why was the narrator perplexed about? Answer-Because he didn’t understand why a teacher would break

something. Why did the narrator help the teacher break the computer? What did the narrator and the teacher learn after breaking the

computer after a couple of weeks? What did the narrator learn about breaking things as a high

school student?

Wednesday’s Questions: (cont)

What led the narrator to create a prototype?Why did the narrator become a Q.A.? What from

the narrator’s childhood led to this type of job?What did the narrator’s team learn about using

the prototype?What did the narrator learn about breaking

things as an adult?

10 questions and re-ask the same question from MondayWhat lesson does the narrator learn about

breaking things? Give examples from when the narrator was a child, high school student, and an adult.

Friday Assessment Test:

Final Thoughts

Students were confident with grade level text

Students were motivated

Students improved in all areas of reading

Students improved their writing

A = PPS = UM = PPA = PPC = PD= PL = PP

A = PP A = UD = UI = UG = UR = UJ = U