How to Use Sentence Frames in ELD

This is not a new idea, but I wanted to show you how engaged my ELD kiddos were the other week.

Our objective was to compare and contrast two different regions (oceans, deserts, mountains).

I started the lesson by generating and reviewing our vocabulary on the carpet, like always, but then moved to my computer for the sentence frames.  With the kiddos, I wrote the sentence frames into the powerpoint and projected it onto our white board.  I frequently use the whiteboard with the document camera projected on it.

I modeled a few examples using our vocabulary (you can see it on the left) and then asked student volunteers to model a few examples.

After we practiced a few times, I printed copies of the same set of sentence frames for students to fill in.

Almost all of my students were successful because we had used exactly the same sentence frames on the whiteboard as I printed out.  They saw the exact same thing in the same format.  Although I use the same sentence frames on the carpet as I do for their “take it to writing” portion, it looks different, format-wise.  I think my kiddos need things to look exactly the same so they can create the sentences.

Do you teach ELD as a separate subject time during your day?  We’re required to do 30-45 minutes of ELD and group our students by their ELD level.  How do you teach English to your students?