SEAL Strategies

SEAL STRATEGIES

QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE

March 2017

THROUGHOUT THE
UNIT:

• Choral Response
• Think Pair Share
• 5-Exchange Conversations
• Barrier Game
• Dictation (TK/K)

Chants

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Home School
Connections & Projects



-Send out intro to unit letter
-Send out 2-3 per unit
Can also be a project tied to the essential questions / culminating activity
-Invite families for a “Gallery Walk”

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Researcher Center/
Dramatic Play

-Add a writing

component

-Place sentence frames

and or graphic organizers
to guide their writing

-Provide a variety of

writing tools (colored

paper, envelopes, staplers, various templates, etc) Throughout
-Provide realia

-Center ideas: This can become one of your rotations

Collaborative Practice


-Opportunities to work in

partners or teams

-Culminating project Throughout

-Oral presentations

-As much as possible, design activities that promote collaboration as well

as meaningful interaction.

Art /Living Wall

-Connect to content

- Designated ELD ideas: Develop oral skills through art activities (Describe

an art project, compare it to somebody else’s, explain the process to

create it, etc.)

Living Wall: Throughout
-Collaborative art piece

-Develops throughout the unit

Semantic Gradient

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-Choose a word from book you read, etc.
-Write and or solicit synonyms and arrange them by intensity when
possible
-Center ideas: write sentences with words from the gradients

Writer’s Notebook



Throughout

-Tie in writing standards
-Students choose their topic (non-content related unless that is what they
choose to write about)
- Ask students to select one of their writing topics and guide them in
developing it into a piece of writing that is then published (throughout the
year)
Center ideas: This can become one of your rotations

Into

Observation Pictures

-On 1st day of unit
-Children walk in pairs to make observations and note details
-They can write or sketch
- Center ideas Use the same pictures for sorting and writing

Into

Inquiry Chart

-On 1st day of unit
-Revisit weekly
-Use a different color marker for each column
-Use another color marker if you add new questions and information
-Use a black marker to answer questions
-If students don’t know any information, you can do a picture walk of some
books to build some background knowledge and then go back and fill in

the left hand column
- Designated ELD ideas: grammatical aspects of asking and answering
questions.

Academic Process Journal


-Give students a prompt to write about the content Throughout

-They use information learned on charts in the room

-Encourage sketching

-Center ideas: This can become one of your rotations

- Designated ELD ideas: respond to their needs as observed in their

writing by teaching mini lessons to address them

Into

T-Graph for Social Skills
and Team Points



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-On yellow paper
-Revisit throughout unit and add information in a new color
-Add sketches when possible or pictures

Vocabulary in Context

-Select rigorous words (could be from chants, draw and labels)

-Use sentence with context clues Throughout

-Each row is a different color

-Be sure to add a sketch or a picture

-Use the word as a signal word with a short phrase of definition

-Add word in L1 if appropriate

-Center ideas: practice language arts extension

- Designated ELD ideas: language arts extensions tied directly to ELD

standards (roots, base words, affixes to determine the meaning of

unknown & multiple meaning words)

Chants

-Must be color-coded by stanza or line Throughout
-Must have moves
-Add sketches /pictures for vocab and comprehension
-Use for language extensions
-Make a booklet to read for fluency and send home

-Here & There chants need to include prepositional phrases & adverbs so
they can be used for Sentence Patterning Chart later in the unit (Adverbs

grades 2 & 3)

-Can be used to teach language functions (eg. A chant comparing the

past & the present)
-Center ideas: use poster in a center, provide word cards for students to
match with poster; do word sorts; prepare a cloze activity by erasing
some of the words from the chants so students can fill them in
-Designated ELD ideas focus on various grammatical aspects; deconstruct
chant to model correct language use (helpful workers eating The helpful
workers are eating in the staff room); practice for pronunciation for

difficult sounds

Chant Booklet

Language Function Wall /
Poster & Graphic Organizers

Throughout

-One main language function per unit
-Language Function Wall grows organically
-Start with a familiar context ( e.g. compare & contrast first day of school to
today)
-Practice orally
-Use language function chants
Graphic Organizers w/ Language Function
-Sentence frames to match the function and the organizer
-Practice orally
-Link to writing
-Use in Designated ELD and Integrated ELD
-Center ideas: students work on individual or collaborative graphic
organizers to reprocess D&L, NI, DRA or prior to writing.
- Designated ELD ideas: Using the information written on the graphic
organizer practice creating sentences orally and in writing. This can later
lead to paragraph writing (mid 1st grade and above); teach grammatical
aspects related to language function.

Lang Function
Chant using
content

Spanish Instructed Classrooms

-Teach the language Function
in Spanish
-Translate key vocabulary
from D&L and write them in a
different color background
(be consistent throughout the
year)
-Identify cognates
-Int

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Draw & Label awThrough
an

-On white background
-Color-coded categories
-Bulleted points (not sentences)
-Draw sketches and add picture file cards
-Think- Pair- Share

-Choral Response
-Reprocess with word cards that match the color of text. Write on any
color except white
-Use sentence frames for language function
-Reprocess information onto a graphic organizer tied to your language
function
Center ideas: create an individual or collaborative D&L; write about D&L
Designated ELD ideas: practice presenting content orally paying attention
to how language is structured and connected when presenting. You can
use a template to guide their oral production.

Categorical Matrix -

Must have one for every unit

-At least one draw and label needs to fit into the categories

-Headings in black Throughout
-One row for each topic in one color

-Use sentence frames tied to language function

-You can use to compare and contrast the information and use in writing

Narrative Input

-1st day read and place on background

-2nd day reprocess with vocabulary cards
-3rd day reprocess with speech bubbles
-4th day act it out with props or puppets
-5th day Story Map or other organizer (place it nearby)
-Center ideas: students use the cards to put them in order; dramatize &

retell; fill out individual story map; Grades 2-3 change the ending or add a
new character, etc.
- Designated ELD ideas: use the NI to teach different grammatical aspects
(e.g. past tense, , adjectives, adverbs etc.); retell by focusing & eliciting
the grammatical aspects you taught.

Sentence Patterning Through
Chart

-Each column is one color
-Pull information from Here, There Chant or other charts
-Transition to writing by having students create descriptive sentences
-Center ideas: provide a template with color lines so students can fill the
parts of speech in the correct order

- Designated ELD ideas: change verb tenses; combine and connect ideas
using conjunctions, transition words, etc. to expand sentences;
-Sing K-1
adjective, adjective, noun
adjective, adjective, noun
adjective, adjective, adjective, noun, verb, prepositional phrase

-Sing 2-3

adjective, adjective, noun
adjective, adjective, noun
adjective, adjective, noun, verb, adverb, prepositional phrase

Dialogic Read Aloud

-3 day Strategy (spread the days out)
-Have a copy of the DRA template
-Must prepare your book before hand:

-Color coded post-its for each day
-Highlight the vocab words in two colors (1 color for words you will
touch on briefly and 1 color for words you will spend more time on)
-Center ideas: end of k and beyond: students fill in a graphic organizer
that is appropriate for the story such as story map, sequence, etc.
- Designated ELD ideas: select sentences that illustrate a language pattern
that you want to focus on (k-1 past tense, 2-3 conditionals, etc.) and
explain how is used and why. Provide practice opportunities)

Cooperative Strip Paragraph Through



-

-You can revisit more than once and work on different skills (ie work on
capitalization/punctuation one day and revisit for transition words and
grammar on another day)
-Use an editing checklist
-You can create one paragraph or two to compare and contrast
-3rd gr can build up to multiple paragraphs
- Type it and read for fluency and language extensions

-Center ideas: type it and have students read for fluency; create
illustrations/ class books
- Designated ELD ideas: identify grammatical aspects that need revisiting
and create mini lessons to address these needs

Beyond

Shared Research Project

-1 per unit
-Children should have a choice
-Must have a graphic organizer
-Must have text (and/or pictures, realia, videos) that are looked at closely
for text evidence and text features
-Center ideas: end of k and beyond: create a collaborative graphic
organizer leading to an oral presentation

Literature / Author Study

-3 per year
-Use to compare and contrast
-Use graphic organizers
-Center ideas: end of k and beyond: students fill in a graphic organizer
that is appropriate for the story such as story map, sequence, etc.
- Designated ELD ideas: select sentences that illustrate a language pattern
that you want to focus on (k-1 past tense, 2-3 conditionals, etc.) and
explain how is used and why. Provide practice opportunities)

Performance Tasks Beyond

-End of unit goal
-3 components: culminating activity, writing & oral presentations
-It could be tied to Shared Research Project
-Writing should be tied to the primary language function, and genre. It
should also be tied to the oral presentation & the culminating activity.
-The culminating activity can be done individually, collaboratively or as a
home-school connection.
-Center Ideas: The culminating activity can be done as a center rotation
for the week.

- Designated ELD ideas: “Expert Panel” : students asking (audience) and
answering questions (experts) about the content after the oral
presentation.

Beyond

Student Publishing



-Choose a writing sample to develop and publish
-Place on wall or create a class book

Book Key:
Throughout: strategies you teach at various points in the unit for
different reasons.
Into: Must be taught to launch the unit
Through: In the middle of the unit, once you’ve launched the unit
Beyond: To wrap up the unit.