Teachers train to help struggling learners
February 3, 2010
By Laura Geggel
NEW — 10:50 a.m. Feb. 3, 2010
Teacher on special assignment Jan Formisano (standing) exchanges ideas with Cascade View Elementary School second-grade teachers Kellie Smith (left), Marilee Carter and Joyce Delurme while they meet to discuss their GLAD training. (Photo by Laura Geggel)
Snoqualmie Elementary School teacher Natalie Campbell has a new way to teach vocabulary to her students.
“Segregation,”Campbell said, standing at the front of the room.
The third-grade class needed no more prompting.
“Segregation,” they repeated as they held their hands close together and then moved them apart. “To keep separate.”
The word, a lesson from Martin Luther King Jr. Day, is one of many the children have recently learned. When she introduces a new word,Campbell breaks her class into small groups and asks them to guess its meaning. Once they determine the word’s definition, she teaches them an accompanying action.
The actions helps the children remember the words,Campbell said.
Her vocabulary strategy came straight from a new teaching strategy administrators are implementing in Snoqualmie Valley School District.
The strategy is called GLAD — Guided Language Acquisition Design — and is making its way through Snoqualmie Valley elementary schools. Of 145 elementary teachers, 100 have already received training.
Two California teachers began GLAD in the early 1990s as a solution to help struggling learners, many of who were not fluent in English. The teachers developed 28 strategies for teaching students at any level, but especially struggling students.
Karen Schotzko, an English language learner teacher at Mount Si High School, emphasized she can teach English Language Learners English literature, but she has trouble teaching them areas outside of her expertise. GLAD gives all trained teachers strategies for how to better teach students, she said.
“Our ELL numbers are growing, but we don’t have ELL teachers,” said Jan Formisano, a Snoqualmie Valley School District teacher on special assignment and GLAD trainer. “The teachers really need to have the tools in their toolbox.”
Snoqualmie Valley schools administrators are implementing GLAD’s equivalents at the middle and high school levels, Schotzko added.
Of the methods, one strategy has children learn through song. Another has children organize information into charts and diagrams before they assemble the information into paragraph form.
This repetition helps the students better learn and retain the material, Formisano said.
“Personally, I like the idea of the chants and helping kids learn that way,” substitute teacher Jill Waskom said. “If you put it in a song, I know I’ll learn it.”
GLAD employs strategies with highly visual components and uses multiple ways to present the information, Formisano said. It also allows teachers to present lessons in a fast-paced yet supportive environment and has shown results — students tend to remember more information as compared to traditional methods in research-proven studies, she said.
Campbell said the strategies have invigorated her classroom.
“For the units I’ve incorporated the GLAD strategies into, there is more student involvement and more engagement just because of the way the information is presented,” she said. “With other ones, it creates a situation where they need to use a lot more teamwork and cooperation with each other in their table groups.”
Formisano and Campbell observed GLAD training in the Highline School District south of Seattle before bringing it to Snoqualmie Valley. Since spring, Formisano has trained teachers at all five elementary schools in voluntary three-day workshops.
Teachers received $195 if they completed all three classes.
Teachers are not normally reimbursed for training time, Formisano said, but the need to better teach struggling students was so great, the district wanted to offer a financial incentive for teachers.
During the training, Formisano sent the teachers to their rooms so they could devise lesson plans with the GLAD strategies fresh in their minds. The second-grade team at Cascade View Elementary School immediately began making a large picture book to help students learn about Africa.
Formisano said GLAD has gotten off to a good start.
“If they’re learning things and they’re having fun, they’re going to remember it better,” Formisano said.
Laura Geggel: 392-6434 ext. 221, or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.
Comments
One Response to “Teachers train to help struggling learners”
Got something to say?
Before you comment, please note:
- These comments are moderated.
- Comments should be relevant to the topic at hand and contribute to its discussion.
- Personal attacks and/or excessive profanity will not be tolerated and such comments will not be approved.
- This is not your personal chat room or forum, so please stay on topic.
I am from another district and I will be attending GLAD training in July. My question is what are some of the best ways to ensure that EL’s are getting the information in a non threatening setting. I was using choral response, pair-share; but I was told that picking sticks is the only way to make sure students are learning. What is the GLAD response to that?