Tips to Make Texts Accessible for ELLs

Once students reach the upper elementary grades, much of the information we share with them is provided through written texts. Whether it's a reading passage, directions for an assignment, or important information about classroom procedures, there is content we expect them to read and understand on their own.

For English Language Learners (ELLs) at lower proficiency levels (e.g. Levels 1-3), they can only make meaning from key words or possibly short excerpts of text. So how do we present written information to them so they can understand? Do we have to have everything read to them or shorten it up so much that it lacks all detail? No, there's a better way!

Steps for Making Texts Accessible to ELLs

1. Remember the different levels of English language proficiency? Take a look at materials provided to you such as the ESL roster at your building and the poster from Differentiating Instruction and Assessment for English Language Learners by Fairbairn & Jones-Vo. Reasonable expectations based on a student's proficiency level by sub-score (e.g. reading, writing, listening, or speaking) are explained in more detail on the poster and in the book. This will help you determine which types and how much text the ELLs in your class can comprehend.
2. Collaborate with an ESL expert such as your building ESL teacher or the district ESL instructional coach. You can check not only about the levels of the ELLs in your class but also how you might best support your ELLs.
3. Sometimes you'll determine that you need to provide a version of the text with additional supports or scaffolding. If that is the case, there are several different approaches. Consider the following:

• Add visuals (Actual photos with students are awesome but even clipart or icons are helpful.)
• Use laddered text sets (texts at different levels about the same concept). The K12 ESL Lending Library has some materials aligned to content areas that Ames teachers can borrow by request.
• Elaborate the text using a site like Rewordify. (See previous blog post for tips on how to maximize use.)

Elaborated Text Using Rewordify.com

One issue that content teachers deal with frequently is finding appropriate, adapted text to use with students who have lower English proficiency levels. Using adapted text allows English Language Learners (ELLs) at lower levels to still have access to core content. The concern is where to find text that doesn't "dumb down" the content but instead uses scaffolding or supports to make complex content accessible to students at lower English proficiency levels. 

This is where the Rewordify website comes in. It allows you to copy and paste (or type in) a text, and then it automatically "rewords" or elaborates the text. An elaborated text is one that contains additional information such as definitions of challenging vocabulary or phrases, images, charts, maps, graphs, or other supports. This allows ELLs to be exposed to academic vocabulary and complex syntactical patterns while providing additional explanations to help them understand. 

Rewordify has multiple styles to display the adjusted text, but I recommend either Inline or Two Column. For more details including a step-by-step description of how to elaborate text, see the document below. 

Example text