ELA/Literacy and ELD Vignettes
The following ELA/literacy and ELD vignettes illustrate how teachers might implement the CA CCSS
for ELA/Literacy and the CA ELD Standards using the framing questions and additional considerations
discussed in the preceding sections. The vignettes are valuable resources for teachers to consider
as they collaboratively plan lessons, extend their professional learning, and refine their practice. The
examples in the vignettes are not intended to be prescriptive, nor are the instructional approaches
limited to the identified content areas. Rather, they are provided as tangible ideas that can be used
and adapted as needed in flexible ways in a variety of instructional contexts.
ELA/Literacy Vignette
In vignette 3.3, the teacher uses a five-day planning template to guide his instruction in building
students’ abilities to make meaning, develop language, and express themselves effectively.
Vignette 3.3. Interactive Storybook Read Aloud
Integrated ELA/Literacy and ELD Instruction in KindergartenBackground
Mr. Nguyen reads aloud to his students daily during ELA instruction. He intentionally
selects storybooks that have an engaging and fun plot because such books promote extended
discussions. He also ensures that his 30 kindergarteners, half of them ELs, are exposed to
books containing rich language, including academic vocabulary. Most of the EL children in Mr.
Nguyen’s class are at the Expanding level of English language proficiency. However, three are
new to the U.S. and are at the early Emerging level. Three of his students have moderate
intellectual disabilities, and Mr. Nguyen works closely with the school specialist to ensure he is
attending to their socio-emotional and cognitive learning needs.
When he reads complex literary texts aloud, Mr. Nguyen incorporates specific instructional
strategies to help his students connect personally with the stories, attend to sophisticated
languge, and develop listening comprehension skills. To the extent possible, he also looks up
specific words and phrases in his EL students’ primary languages so that he can use them to
scaffold their comprehension of English texts.
Lesson Context
Mr. Nguyen and his colleagues collaboratively plan their read aloud lessons and designated
ELD lessons that build into and from the read alouds. They have just designed a five-day
sequence for the story Wolf, by Becky Bloom and Pascal Biet. The teachers plan to read
Wolf to their students three times over three consecutive days. Each time they read it aloud,
teachers will model successful reading behaviors, drawing attention to vocabulary and
prompting students to discuss comprehension questions (at first mostly literal, “right there”
text-dependent questions—with answers that can clearly be found easily in the text—and
increasingly inferential questions as the week progresses). In the last two days of the lesson
sequence, the teachers will guide students to retell the story, first orally and then in writing.
The team’s planning map for the week is as follows:228 | Chapter 3 Kindergarten