Overview and Objectives-9 In this module, you will share your initial findings with your peers via a discussion post. Make sure you are clear on what option you are working on and give your peers the

SENTENCE STEMS IN THE ELAR CLASSROOM

Utilizing Sentence Stems in the English Language Arts and Reading Classroom

Schreiner University

Abstract

Teachers are always searching for ways to improve their students’ retention of concepts by utilizing meaningful learning experiences. One of the most imperative experiences a student can have in the classroom are the classroom discussions with their peers. The research that I conducted will provide data and literature support from various authors to answer the question: How will the implementation of literacy based sentence stems in the English Language Arts and Reading classroom foster students’ meaningful classroom discussions?

Throughout this process, I used various strategies within my own classroom to foster daily discussions in the third grade English Language Arts and Reading classroom, which will in turn lead to the increased use of academic language within the classroom. The overall outcome of this research focused on the students’ growth in using sentence stems, participation in meaningful discussions, and the use of academic vocabulary to retain literacy concepts such as main idea, theme, topic, character traits, and more.

One of the greatest assets within the classroom are the students. Their input is valuable and once students can engage properly with one another, then greater learning will ensure.

Keywords: sentence stems, academic language, discussion, retention, meaningful learning

Every classroom is diverse in its own way, and I have found that over the last five years of my teaching career, my classroom has only become more unique with my students’ many needs. Despite the differences between my students, they all seem to have the same difficulty, which is retaining the important key literacy terms needed to successfully interpret literature, think outside the box, and have meaningful discussions about the text we are covering. From the start of the year, I feel like I am teaching concepts they should already know. I remember asking the students what the main idea of our first weekly story was and not a single hand was raised. I gave hints and an example from another text, but I still received nothing. How could students forget something they have been hearing since first grade?

I was listening to a literacy coach speak about how useful sentence stems are in the classroom to aide ELLs, or English Language Learners, in their vocabulary and language acquisition. He went on to explain how these sentence starters can be useful to many students because it creates a common language in which the students learn to use certain terms in a way that makes it natural in their everyday discussions in the classroom. Students lose the language they do not use often. If a teacher is simply giving the literacy term themselves and not holding students accountable for using the language, the language will be lost, therefore, leading to these frustrating classroom discussions, or lack thereof, that seem to go nowhere.

That being said, my goal was to improve literacy term competency and the academic language used in my third grade English Language Arts and Reading classroom by the use of sentence stems to help with the retention of these imperative literacy concepts they are required to understand by the end of the school year. Once students are prepared to utilize the sentence starters, their classroom discussions over literature will improve, leading to even greater retention of these concepts. I researched the benefits of sentence stems as well as ways to

incorporate them into my lessons so my students can create a routine of using them in classroom discussions. There are many strategies of utilizing sentence stems, and I will continue discovering the best techniques for my classroom to elicit growth.

How will my implementation of literacy based sentence stems in the English Language Arts and Reading classroom foster students’ meaningful classroom discussions?

I want my students to retain and use the concepts I teach them in my classroom to help them grow and prosper throughout their entire school career, but more importantly, I want them to have the knowledge of how to engage in classroom discussions that lead to deeper thinking and connections to literature. I want my students to use these literacy sentence stems regularly in the classroom so they are accustomed to using the language, therefore forming a habit of using these sentence starters. This process will in turn benefit all students, especially ELLs and students in Special Education because they will have the vocabulary needed to respond to and interpret the ideas of their peers. I believe that if I alter my teaching style to include the use of sentence stems, everyone in my classroom will benefit because they will improve their retention of these important concepts as well as have the tools to participate in deeper academic discussions.

Education is moving away from teacher-directed classrooms to student-driven rooms where students take charge of their learning. Our students are coming to us eager to learn but lacking the essential tools and skills needed to drive their learning into something more meaningful. An area where students need more assistance is student-led classroom discussions. Students are accustomed to teachers asking the questions and then they answer with the hopes of

a right answer and a fear of getting the wrong answer. What if teachers gave the students the instruments to begin putting their thoughts into words and share their academic thinking as well as question themselves and others in a way that leads to greater understanding and thoughtful conversations as an entire peer group?

Language is vital to retention and meaningful learning. If the students have an opportunity to talk through a topic and listen to the ideas of their peers, then they are much more likely to remember and utilize the information being presented. Fisher, Frey and Rothenberg elaborate on why talk in important in classrooms, “Language, in other words, is how we think.

It's how we process information and remember. It's our operating system.” (2008). This processing through group collaboration is imperative if we are to expect our students to be able to retain what we are teaching them. Discussions need to be more than just one student talking and a classroom of students listening. It needs to be a collective process in which each student is sharing and feeling valued.

Sentence starters have always been a common strategy to use in language acquisition for English Language Learners, or ELLs. In an article about scaffolding ELLs in the classroom, it was stated that, “English Language Learners (ELLs) can benefit early on in their English development from sentence frames/starters to help them understand the type of content they are being asked to talk or write about. Sentence frames help students who are new to English by providing vocabulary and structure that they wouldn’t be able to produce on their own.” (Student Achievement Partners, n.d.). Having structured lessons that support this technique of sentence frames and providing ELLs ample time to become used to the language used in classroom

discussions will be a great benefit for them. The vocabulary-building portion of sentence stems is a vital part of their education.

In conclusion, providing all students with the ability to communicate, with confidence, with their peers helps them to feel valued in the classroom. Students of all levels and all language backgrounds can benefit from the implementation of sentence starters in the classroom. Cruz- Wiley with Houston ISD supports that stems, “serve two purposes, to help students speak academically and in a logical sequence. When students use the sentence frames or sentence starters, they can participate in class and this fact increases their self-esteem.” (2010). Building a student’s self esteem is vital for success and having meaningful input in classroom discussions while utilizing academic vocabulary will lead to a greater feeling of accomplishment.

In the reading classroom, students need to develop critical thinking skills and connect with the literature in a deeper way that leads to a more in-depth understanding of literature itself. “Literacy instruction should teach learners how to read for deeper meanings or big ideas and support their interpretations and inferences with textual evidence, elaboration, and explanation” (Nachowitz & Brumer, 2014). Nachowitz and Brumer (2014) argue for the idea that higher level of dialogue is directly connected to a student’s grasp of literature and will lead to this deeper connection students need to make.

Constructive talk and proper ways to build on the ideas of peers need to be scaffolded and modeled by the teacher before a class can successfully hold these conversations among themselves. Sentence starters, or stems, are an effective method for introducing the proper discussion techniques. These stems can be posted and practiced as part of the daily routine. As time goes on, the students will become so confident in their dialogue use that the teacher can sit

back and be an observer or facilitator in the discussion rather than the leader. “Sentence starters serve to both focus attention on critical content as well as provide students with the language support needed to engage in academic discussions. It also increases the likelihood that students will apply previously taught lesson terms in their formal writing and speaking” (Feldman & Kinsella, 2005).

Students need to be taught how to properly have classroom discussions. It is a common frustration in classroom that when you ask students to discuss what was just read or their thoughts about a certain topic, the two minutes that follow are full of students either goofing off or completely at a loss for words. “Teachers must explicitly teach the communication skills that create productive discussion and prepare students for collaborative work.” (Vilen, 2017). Vilen continues the article with three suggested rules to follow that help teach proper discussion skills. One of the rules recommended was teaching and reviewing accountable talk norms, which are in itself sentence stems that allow the communicator to have a prearranged tool kit of terms to build their discussions around.

It has been agreed upon that having the proper language in these classroom discussions leads the students to perform better in their writing. Many times, there is a gap between what is spoken and what is written, but with the use of sentence stems to boost the levels of academic language being utilized, the students will begin applying the same thinking skills to their written work. This is very common for ELLs, English Language Learner, who are still building their English vocabulary and are unable to recall the proper academic words needed in order to respond both verbally and especially in their writing. “There is a need to provide ELLs the scaffolding to practice meta-cognitive strategies while responding to text reading. Sentence

frames may offer a path for ELLs to more efficiently respond in writing to content” (Reyes, 2015). If all students have practiced these stems and are accustomed to using them in their discussions, this language will be easily recalled when given the same prompts in their writing, leading to success in this area as well.

In a high school’s article titled, Higher-Order Thinking through Daily Academic Discussion (2016), the Metropolitan Diploma Plus High School suggests that, “Collaborative academic discussion can transform a classroom. Indeed, research indicates that when students regularly speak and listen to their classmates about the meaning of complex texts, the result is improvement in higher-order reading and writing skills as well as increased academic engagement.” (Metropolitan Diploma Plus High School, 2016) This idea backs up the concept that teacher need to embrace the benefits of supporting and developing classroom discussions. The article continues to provide supplementary aids and advice of how to implement stems into the classroom to facilitate discussion. Practice is key, which I believe to be very true in the classroom. The team continues to explain that, “As students become more accustomed to the phrases, they begin to view them only as a formula for articulating ideas, but more importantly as a way to construct knowledge verbally and in writing. As the year progresses, students internalize the stems to use academic language independently.” This is why I will provide many daily opportunities to practice this skill throughout this process.

Analysis:

• I anticipate that causes .

• I think that will happen because .

• I think might because I know that

• If then .

Explanation:

• One reason may occur is because .

• Another reason may occur is because .

• At first I thought but now I think

because .

• I like how the author uses to show .

• I like/don’t like because .

• My opinion is because .

• The most important message is because .

Cause and Effect:

is the most likely cause for .

When happened then occurred as a result.

I think was caused by because . The effects of were .

The reason for was .

occurred, and consequently . That wasn’t caused by because . (Student Achievement Partners, n.d.)

To answer my proposed research question, I planned on utilizing the following sources to maintain my data: lesson plans, a data collection sheet, a researcher’s journal, student reflection journals, and walkthrough notes.

The lesson plans that I created for myself ensured that I have a whole group modeling opportunity for every lesson at the beginning stage. This allowed for my students to observe me using the correct terminology being used, followed by them having an independent opportunity to write one of the sentence stems and fill it in, and finally engage in a classroom discussion using the stems in our whole group talk. I wanted to be intentional and focused when making these lesson plans for reading.

I developed an appropriate data collection sheet where I will track how many times certain terms are being used by the students. I used the tally method, so I could quickly assess any increase of the usage of these literacy terms.

I kept a researcher’s journal, so I could reflect on progress and create more sentence stems as the need arises. I tracked and compared the data from the collection sheet in this journal so I have easy access to my notes and data throughout my day. The journal also helped me maintain focus on my research question. I also jotted down dialogue that I observed between students. It was my hope that they would be using the language in small group discussions.

Students kept a reflection journal on the story that we read where they will write down their inferences, predictions, character traits, setting and other important elements in literature. I tracked the students’ word choices and check for meaningful connections. They wrote in these journals after classroom discussions of the weekly story.

Finally, I got an outside perspective regarding my classroom discussions as a whole. I asked a fellow teacher to observe one of my current classroom discussions and then requested that they revisit the room after a month. I liked to hear their opinions, and hopefully, they would see an improvement in our classroom’s use of academic language and the utilization of literacy terminology.

I planned on collecting data weekly and reflecting prior to the week’s conclusion. I continued this plan for a month due to time constraints, but I believe that students need ample time to learn the expectations and then practice before I would expect to see immense results in their discussions without any teacher prompting.

The data recorded is from a month long observation period beginning from the implementation phase of practicing sentence stems and ending with the final application of classroom discussions. I observed my homeroom class, which consists of 23 students. I used a basic document to tally the results as they were observed during each weekly activity. After the

first week, 70% of the students where using sentence stems in their responses to the teacher when asked questions about a text. I saw a continuation of growth in week two, with 95% of students responding using sentence starters and the remaining 5% needing to be reminded to use a stem. In week three, students were to engage in small group discussions over a small text and use stems to start their responses. By day two, one-third of students in each group used at least four stems in their responses or questions to their peers. By day four, two-thirds of students used four or more stems. The remaining one-third required prompting due to lack of participation.

This number did not increase in day five.

In week four, the final week, day one was used as a modeling day where I shared my expectations and we did a readers theatre type of lesson with example responses and questions among students to represent the type of language and talk they need to be engaging in. In day two, there were only four students who actively participated in back and forth discussion with one another and used at least three stems in their communications. Another six students commented at least one time using at least one stem. On the final day of data collection, I recorded ten students who actively participated more than two times with another seven students participating at least two times. The remaining six students either responded one time or not at all. Many of these students are the ones that do not typically like to participate unless called upon. Since I wanted my students to hold their own discussions, I only prompted them with thoughts or questions two times to encourage the discussion to continue. I also refrained from calling on any particular student during this exercise. The entire discussion lasted almost 15 minutes.

Using sentence stems to encourage and practice the use of academic language in classroom discussions was an overall success. I saw growth in all areas that I was focusing on including, use of academic language, students leading their own peer discussions, and an increased conversation-like interaction between teacher and students. In turn, I did see an improvement in comprehension test scores over the weeks of collecting data, which was not a focus of mine, but is a very important development.

The gradual increase of the usage of the stems was the foundation the students needed to form their thoughts. As expected, it took awhile to break the common thinking that the teacher asks a question and a student is expected to answer. Once conversation was encouraged and practiced in a small group setting, then the whole group discussions also developed, but this took a lot longer than originally expected.

Since I began with the implementation of sentence stems, our main focus for the first two weeks was using these stems to answer questions aloud and in writing. With daily practice, it did not take long for students to use this language when being questioned by the teacher, when given a prompt question by a peer, or in their writing. Once the academic language expectations were set, then the students began practicing the use of this dialog within a small group setting using prompt questions. I had to push students to all communicate with each other and not just be a listener. Some students were more successful at this conversation piece than others were. I was hoping to see more growth in this aspect because it is my goal for each of my students to grow in their discussion skills.

The final week was the most difficult portion to implement because I wanted the students to interact with one another through a whole class conversation where I begin with an idea, and the other students respond to one another as well as ask each other questions, which would lead

to a strand of dialog about that one idea. There was definitely growth in this area, but they need more time to practice this skill.

In the future of my teaching career, I want to continue facilitating the growth of academic classroom discussions, but I would like to begin it at the beginning of the school year so that students have more time to practice and utilize this benefits for a longer period of time. I will use these results to share with other teachers the benefits and strategies that I used to help my students grasp this concept. I believe that other teachers would find this teaching strategy very helpful and productive. I think that over time, teachers that use sentence stems and push academic language and discussions will see an improvement in students comprehension abilities and ultimately test scores.

Cruz-Wiley, C. (2010). Vocabulary Strategies. Retrieved from https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/TX01001591/Centricity/Domain/26922/Vocabular StrategiesDocument.pdf

Feldman, K., & Kinsella, K. (2005). Practical Strategies to Improve Academic Discussions in ...

Retrieved from https://www.ode.state.or.us/wma/teachlearn/commoncore/structuring acad-discuss-.pdf

Fisher, Douglas, et al. Content-Area Conversations: How to Plan Discussion-Based Lessons for Diverse Language Learners. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2008.

Metropolitan Diploma Plus High School (2016, September), Higher order thinking through daily academic discussion. Retrieved from https://www.springpointschools.org/media/2018/10/higher_order_thinking_through_ academic_discussion.pdf

Nachowitz, M., & Brumer, N. (2014, September). Teaching the talk, not the Text. Retrieved from https://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/VM/0221 sep2014/VM0221Teaching.pdf

Reyes, J. P., Jr. (2015, August). The Impact of Sentence Frames on Readers Workshop Responses. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.hamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=hse_all

Student Achievement Partners (n.d.) Scaffolds to Support English Language Learners in Writing and Discussion. Retrieved from

https://achievethecore.org/content/upload/ELL%20Supports%20for%20Writing%20an

%20Discussion.pdf

Vilen, A. (2017, November). What makes a collaborative classroom work? Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol13/1305-vilen.aspx