One of the most challenging aspects of NAPLAN is the use of vocabulary used within the reading section. As teachers we can predict the language that will be used in the math test and prepare our EAL/D students for that, however it is difficult to prepare our students for the reading comprehension section as we don't know what the stories, poems, informative texts etc will be about - so we can't prepare them with the vocabulary that they need to make sense of the articles they are reading. I know many of my EAL/D students have fantastic comprehension skills when they are boosted with a conversation about the vocabulary before they read. However, for NAPLAN, our EAL/D students don't get the chance to have the conversation before the test and so they are left to make sense of the articles on their own. This can be very difficult when, for example, there is a story about riding horses and your inner city EAL/D student has never seen a horse before and has no idea about words like canter, bridle, gallop, dapple or yearling.
I would love to hear how you are helping your EAL/D students overcome this challenge so feel free to leave your tips in the comment section.
I have been trying to expose my EAL/D students to as many different texts, with as many different topics as possible. Then, within those lessons, we have been looking for clues within the surrounding sentences that might hint at what the word might mean. Then we are using dictionaries to check our guesses at what the words mean. With practice they are getting better at this. In class they will be using past NAPLAN papers and so I went looking for alternate 'NAPLAN style' texts that my EAL/D students could use to practise with - so that they weren't repeating the exact same papers from class and also so they were being exposed to different reading texts and different vocabulary.
I came across some good ones from the Northern Territory on the Internet. I downloaded them and have been using them. I also came across some good ones from Victoria, but now I can't remember where I have saved those. I will post the ones from the Northern Territory on the weebly and if I find the Victorian ones again I will post those too.
butter_biscuits_kangaroos.pdf |
band1_questions.pdf |
speak2languages_grandpas_books.pdf |
band2_questions.pdf |
dugongs_kombumerri.pdf |
band3_questions.pdf |
wharf_simon_french.pdf |
band4_questions.pdf |
things_animals_like_to_eat.pdf |
kgp3_questions.pdf |