Decoding Unfamiliar Texts

To complete this assignment I went into my school library's Spanish section and chose books at a variety of reading levels. I have a very limited amount of experience with Spanish. I learned a little fifteen years ago in high school; however I was never able to even say a complete sentence fluently. I hear my students speak Spanish and I have figured out a few phrases through listening to them. My only other prior knowledge of Spanish comes from watching Dora and Diego with my two year old.

The three books I was able to get ranged from first to sixth grade reading levels. I began with the most difficult Los Cien Vestidos by Eleanor Estes. When attempting to read this book I felt I was able to decode somewhat successfully (my students would have thought it sounded quite funny). I was able to use what I know about phonics to try to figure out the reading. I most likely said several words wrong as the result of differences in the language, even with my unfair advantage of knowing the vowel sounds. My comprehension of this story was zero. Other than picking out a few words I recognized I could not understand the story at all. There were only pictures at the beginning of each chapter so I was unable to use them as clues. The book I chose at mid third grade level went very similarly to this one.

The last book I read was El Primer Halloween De Clifford by Norman Birdwell. This book is considered a first grade text. While reading this book I had many more advantages. First of all I am familiar with the subject of the book. I already have knowledge of both Clifford and of Halloween. This background knowledge was extremely helpful while reading the book. This was a good reminder of how important it is to check background knowledge before beginning a new book with students. The second thing that helped me was how closely the pictures related to the story. When I was unable to make meaning from the text I was able to look at the illustrations and back at the text and eventually make some meaning of it. Even with these advantages in comprehension I still struggled with some of the words and ideas.

I enjoyed doing this activity. I am always amazed at how quickly children learn English. Most of the ELL students in my school come into preschool or kindergarten as monolingual Spanish speakers. By the time I get them in second grade they are doing quite well. At the school I work in there is virtually no gap between these students and non ELL students on 5th and 6th grade CSAP. Doing this activity was a good reminder at how hard these students must work to achieve this.