In my early elementary world, ESL can be exciting but also a big challenge! In addition to teaching a new language, we are teaching the most basic skills and concepts and building the background knowledge and providing experiences that students will use in the rest of their educational career and lives! I did my literacy circle fieldwork with Kindergarten students who all had one year experience in school as former Pre-K students. I worked with 4 students, and I think the process can be really great for the students. They really enjoyed being the "stars" and sharing with each other their thoughts about the stories. Implementing the literacy circles with Kindergarteners is certainly a challenge because there are certain functions they will not be able to perform independently. We still read aloud the selection at this point in the year and some of the research function. If I were redoing this fieldwork, I would have probably started with something other than Christmas, because I was a little limited on some of the literary elements I could discuss. For example, I did not want to touch Fiction v. Reality. ;-)
As a foundation for literacy discussions and for future literacy circles in subsequent grades, the process can really benefit the younger students. I think it would be a great concept to implement across classrooms, content areas and grades. This type of activity would also benefit non-ESL students, and if it was a school-wide process, the students would become so efficient with the process. Their discussions could become really in-depth and great learning opportunities.
In implementing literature circles, I would urge teachers to remain patient! It's a learning process for teachers and students during the implementation process! I imagine that the students will get much better as they have more practice and being comfortable and confident in the process!
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