Course Overview Destination Reading Course II - Spanish

Course Overview Destination Reading Course II - Spanish Units The entire Destination Reading - Spanish curriculum is organized into units. DR Course II - Spanish contains 24 units, shown here on the Course Menu. Each unit contains between 9 and 15 different activities. Here we see the activities in Unit 1 Unit Structure In Exploration Mode, students can explore all levels of Destination Reading Course II - Spanish (DR Course II - Spanish), opening any unit and using the activities in that unit. (For more information about Exploration Mode, please see the Using DR Course II - Spanish section of this guide.) You can also assign students specific units or activities through the Destination Learning Management system. The units in DR Course II - Spanish are structured to ensure that students learn language skills in an authentic context and then apply these skills to useful tasks. Most of the units in DR Course II - Spanish begin with a text (such as an article, brochure, poem, or book) and then proceed to activities that develop or reinforce phonics and comprehension skills. These activities are often related to the content or format of the text read at the beginning of the unit. Many units culminate with a creative assignment that allows students to demonstrate the skills and knowledge they have learned in the unit. Skills are developed within individual units, and key skills are revisited in activities throughout the course. DR Course II - Spanish provides explicit and systematic phonics instruction including advanced concepts such as diphthongs and blends along with word study. Vocabulary-building activities from a variety of different text genres allow students to learn words from diverse content areas. Students are challenged to improve their comprehension abilities 1

Example: Unit 1 by connecting texts to their own experiences; answering questions based on their reading; analyzing text content through sorting and matching activities; and writing creatively in response to texts. Research skills such as locating and organizing information are taught along with writing-related skills, including: gathering information; writing interview questions; recounting and organizing events in a sequence; and making predictions. Here is an outline of a typical unit in DR Course II - Spanish: 1. Early in the unit, students are introduced to a text. Students can read the text on their own or have the text read aloud to them. This text represents a whole that is the starting point for the unit s activities. Many of the subsequent activities in the unit refer back to the content and format of this text. 2. Students complete activities that develop literacy skills such as word building, sentence building, advanced phonics, and comprehension. For example, after reading about volcanoes, students identify adjectives and use them to complete sentences related to volcanoes. Comprehension activities are based on the text(s) read in the unit, as well. For example, after reading a poem about fog, students identify important features of poetry such as descriptive language, rhyme, and rhythm. 3. All units end with a creative writing assignment. These assignments may be either guided ( Escribe tus propias oraciones con estas palabras que tienen la h muda. [ Write your own sentences with these words that have the silent h. ]) or open-ended ( Escribe tu propio relato de ciencia ficción. [ Write your own science fiction story. ]) but all involve practicing and applying the skills learned in the unit s activities. The completed writing assignment stands as a concluding whole to the unit s parts. The units in DR Course II - Spanish are presented in a carefully sequenced order that emphasizes the word study, vocabulary, and comprehension skills necessary for reading to learn. As an example, let s look at Unit 1: Aquí cultivamos! (Here We Grow!). (To open Unit 1, click its icon from the DR Course II - Spanish Unit Menu in Exploration Mode. For more information about navigating in DR Course II - Spanish, please see the Using DR Course II - Spanish section of this guide.) In this unit, students are introduced to the parts of a book, recognizing character traits, and sequencing events from a story. Grammar and phonics activities cover noun recognition, sentence completion, and words with open syllables with ll and rr. Comprehension activities cover sequencing events; analyzing and sorting information; reading a map; and writing about a personal experience. Students begin this unit by focusing on the parts of a book. 2

Enfoque en las partes de un libro (Focus on Parts of a Book) In this activity, students learn about the parts of a book cover. Escribir una predicción 1 (Write a Prediction 1) In Write a Prediction 1, students use clues from the story title and cover illustration to write a prediction about the content of the story. The Write a Prediction activity encourages students to consider the significance of a story s title, and the relation of a story s cover art to its content and meaning. 3

Cómo cultivar sopa de verduras (How to Grow Vegetable Soup) How to Grow Vegetable Soup tells a colorful, step-by-step story of how a young boy and his grandfather plant and grow a vegetable garden, and then use the vegetables to make soup. This fictional narrative encourages students to make a connection between their own actual experiences and what the characters are doing in the fictional story. Ordenar sucesos de un relato en secuencia (Sequence Events from a Story) In this comprehension activity, students place events from the story How to Grow Vegetable Soup in the order that they happened. Students recall and order events from the story and are rewarded with pictures illustrating each correctly sequenced event. 4

Diagrama de Venn: Características del personaje (Venn Diagram: Character Traits) The Venn Diagram: Character Traits comprehension activity asks students to drag each trait to the character(s) it describes. Some traits are unique to Abuelito or the boy, while other traits are shared by both characters. Students recall and analyze the story to place the traits correctly. Enfoque en un mapa 1 (Focus on a Map 1) Focus on a Map 1 is one of several activities throughout DR Course II - Spanish that teaches students to read a graphic in this case, a map featuring locations from the story How to Grow Vegetable Soup. Students learn to recognize streets, places, and labels on a map. 5

Acierta la respuesta! Mapa 1 (Choice Is Right: Map 1) The Choice Is Right: Map 1 activity allows students to interpret a simple map and select the correct answers to a variety of questions about the map. La Rana Sustantivo (The Noun Frog) The Noun Frog is a catchy song that explains that a noun is a word for a person, place, or thing. The Noun Frog hops and bops around the screen to playfully illustrate and reinforce the content of the song. 6

Completar la oración 1 (Complete the Sentence 1) In Complete the Sentence 1, students select the word that is a noun, in order to complete a sentence. The sentences are all related to the story How to Grow Vegetable Soup, allowing students to build skills in the context of a familiar text. As they complete sentences, students practice identifying nouns. Ll o rr? (Ll or rr?) In Ll or rr? students categorize words with open syllables with ll and rr. 7

Formar palabras 1 (Word Pop 1) In Word Pop 1, students combine individual words to make compound words. Escribe sobre una experiencia personal (Write about a Personal Experience) Near the start of the unit, students read How to Grow Vegetable Soup, which tells about a boy sharing a fun activity with his grandfather. Students conclude this unit by writing about an experience from their own lives that involves a fun time with a grandparent or other adult. The writing activity is structured to help students recount the event in sequence (beginning, middle, and end). Most of the units in DR Course II - Spanish are structured in a similar way to the example shown above. A unit usually starts with a text and related preand post-reading activities, then presents several skills-based activities, and concludes with a student writing assignment. 8

Product Features Balanced Approach to Literacy Destination Reading Course II - Spanish (DR Course II - Spanish) offers a balanced approach to reading, including instruction in phonics, word study, and comprehension. Students are explicitly taught to recognize and decode blends, diphthongs and hiatus, ll and rr, silent h, and other advanced spelling patterns. Students read a variety of texts that are interesting, meaningful, and offer many opportunities to apply recently learned phonics skills. They also learn about the characteristics and purposes of different text types, such as biographies, mysteries, brochures, and encyclopedia articles. Adaptive Feedback DR Course II - Spanish adjusts automatically to suit each learner. It provides each student as much support as needed for success. It also adjusts the pace for each learner, providing more practice in a skill where the student is struggling, and moving more quickly through skills where the student is doing well. Adaptive feedback ensures that students learn from their mistakes and ultimately achieve success. For example, a student who has just read the story How to Grow Vegetable Soup in Unit 1 might work on reading comprehension with the following problem. Note: Throughout this section, text in italics represents audio directions and feedback given by the software. 9

En el relato Cómo cultivar sopa de verduras hay dos personajes: el abuelito y el niño. Una sección del diagrama es para las palabras y las frases que describen al abuelito. Otra sección es para las palabras y las frases que describen al niño. La sección que se superpone es para las palabras y las frases que describen las cosas que hacen ambos, el abuelito y el niño. Mira las palabras de cada rótulo y decide si describen al abuelo, al niño o a ambos. (In the story How to Grow Vegetable Soup, there are two characters Gramps and a boy. One section of this diagram is for words and phrases that describe Gramps. Another section is for words and phrases that describe the boy. The overlapping section is for words and phrases that describe things both Gramps and the boy do. Look at the words on each label and decide whether they describe the grandfather, the boy, or both.) A student who answers correctly moves to the next problem. A student who answers incorrectly receives help. The following is the sequence a struggling student might follow. 1. The student arranges the answer tiles as follows: 2. Al menos un rótulo no está en el lugar correcto. Por favor, intenta de nuevo. (At least one label is in the wrong place. Please try again.) The student tries again: Al menos un rótulo no está en el lugar correcto. Por favor, intenta de nuevo. (At least one label is in the wrong place. Please try again.) 10

3. The software now removes the incorrect answers from the Venn diagram, leaving the correct answers in place: 4. The student moves some of the labels, but some answers are still in the wrong place: 5. The software highlights the labels that describe Abuelito: These labels are highlighted, along with the portion of the Venn diagram that describes Abuelito. Estos rótulos describen al abuelito. Por favor, pon todos los rótulos en el diagrama. (These labels describe Gramps. Please put all the labels in the diagram.) 6. The software continues to provide similar guidance and support until the student succeeds: Buen trabajo! Pusiste todos los rótulos en la sección correcta del diagrama! Ahora es fácil ver en qué se diferencian y en qué se parecen el abuelito y el niño! (Good job! You put each label in the correct section of the diagram. Now it s easy to see some ways the grandfather and the boy are the same and different.) 11

Explicit Instruction With some activity types, DR Course II - Spanish also provides additional problems for students who need more practice, while allowing students who are doing well to move ahead. To a skilled reader, many reading concepts seem obvious for example, the difference between fiction and nonfiction. But for some students, these concepts are new. To help ensure that all children succeed, DR Course II - Spanish teaches concepts explicitly. The following is an example of explicit instruction from the activity Enfoque en una biografía 1 (Focus on a Biography 1) in DR Course II - Spanish, Unit 9. This is an excerpt from a book students will read in the next activity. 1. Una biografía es el relato de la vida de una persona escrito por otra persona. Esta página pertenece a una biografía de una mujer asombrosa: la doctora Mae Jemison. Haz clic en el botón verde para saber más sobre las biografías. (A biography is the story of a person s life that s written by someone else. This is a page from a biography about an amazing woman named Dr. Mae Jemison. Click the green button to learn more about biographies.) When the student clicks the green button, the software zooms in on a portion of the biography, and the student learns something about that aspect of biographies. 2. Las biografías son relatos escritos sobre personas reales. Mae Jemison es una persona real. (Biographies are stories written about real people. Mae Jemison is a real person.) 12

3. Las biografías nos cuentan qué hizo una persona durante su vida. Una de las cosas que hizo Mae Jemison fue atender enfermos en África occidental. (Biographies tell what a person did during his or her life. One of the things Mae Jemison did was treat sick people in West Africa.) 4. Las biografías también describen sucesos importantes de la vida de una persona. Un suceso importante en la vida de Mae Jemison fue recibirse de médica. (Biographies also describe important events in a person s life. One important event for Mae Jemison was becoming a doctor.) 5. Las biografías muestran cómo es una persona y por qué actúa de ciertas maneras. Aquí vemos que Mae Jemison es una persona con vocación social. Cuando leas la biografía completa, sabrás más acerca de la personalidad de Mae. (Biographies show what a person is like and why they act in certain ways. Here we learn that Mae Jemison is a caring person. When you read the entire biography, you ll learn more about Mae s personality.) 13

Guided and Exploratory Learning 6. Por lo general se escribe la biografía de personas que tienen un impacto positivo en el mundo. Mae Jemison ha hecho muchas cosas para mejorar el mundo. Cuando quieras saber más sobre la vida de alguien, lee su biografía. (Biographies are usually written about people who make a difference in the world. Mae Jemison has done many things to make a difference. When you want to learn more about someone, read their biography!) Research shows some children learn through guided learning and others through personal discovery. DR Course II - Spanish offers a mix of focused, task-oriented activities and open-ended exploration activities. Guided activity: Clasificar sufijos (Classifying suffixes) (Unit 4) Algunas palabras tienen terminaciones especiales llamadas sufijos. Las palabras mostradas aquí tienen distintos sufijos. Arrástralas a la categoría correspondiente: -mente, -ísimo o -dad. (Some words have special endings called suffixes. The words shown here have different suffixes. Drag them to the corresponding category: -mente, -ísimo, or -dad.) Open-ended activity: Escribir oraciones (Writing sentences) (Unit 18) Las palabras en estas dos columnas tienen una cosa en común: el sonido /i/. En algunas de las palabras el sonido se escribe con la letra i. En las otras palabras, el sonido se escribe con la letra y. Escribe tus propias oraciones con estas palabras. (The words in these two columns have something in common: the /i/ sound. In some of the words, the sound is written with the letter i. In the others, the sound is written with the letter y. Write your own sentences with these words.) 14

Variety of Texts Different text genres appeal to different students. Some students thrive on fanciful stories; others prefer nonfiction. Traditionally, books designed for early readers have focused on fiction. Research shows that some children learn to read more effectively with nonfiction texts. Therefore, more and more teachers are now including nonfiction texts in their reading instruction. DR Course II - Spanish offers a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction texts, providing something for everyone and just as importantly exposing students to a wide range of the text types successful readers must master. Texts in DR Course II - Spanish include: Nonfiction information books Biographies Magazine, newspaper, and encyclopedia articles A technical information text and a technical procedure Contemporary fiction, including mystery, adventure, and science fiction Historical fiction Folk tales, a fairy tale, tall tales, a myth, and a legend Poems A play Journal and diary entries A personal letter and an e-mail message Environmental text, including a recipe, a kiosk, a brochure, and informational plaques 15

Support for Independent Reading DR Course II - Spanish offers several features to support students as they build their reading skills. All texts include a green read aloud button. Students can click this button to hear the entire page read aloud by one of several professional actors, using expressive narration. Each sentence is highlighted as it is read, allowing students to follow along. In all texts and some activities, students can click individual sentences to hear them read aloud. This allows students to hear the correct pronunciation of an unfamiliar word. In other activities, students click an individual word to hear it read aloud. In the remaining activities, students must rely on their decoding and comprehension skills to read the words independently. Words used in DR Course II - Spanish texts and activities include: Words mastered in the kindergarten and first grade curriculum. Words typically taught in the second or third grade curriculum. New or unusual words related to the topic of the text. Vocabulary strategies are taught throughout DR Course II - Spanish to help students master these new words. Writing Practice Reading and writing are related skills. While not a comprehensive writing program, DR Course II - Spanish provides many opportunities for students to practice writing. Writing is done with a basic onscreen word processor that is included in the DR Course II - Spanish writing activities. Each unit provides students with at least one writing activity. The writing activities include: Writing in different genres: contemporary fiction, historical fiction, folk tale, myth, legend, poem, information text, persuasive paragraph, procedure, science fiction, newspaper article, journal entry, and personal letter. Making a prediction. Making a connection between a story s plot or setting and your own experience. Writing sentences that include specific words. Writing questions, exclamations, and statements. Writing research or interview questions. Writing dialogue. Using descriptive words. Writing from a character s point of view. Writing exaggerated sentences. 16

Writing an alternate ending for a story. Answering questions about a text. Literacy with Bilingual Children Destination Reading Course II - Spanish is designed to be used in multiple settings. Your classroom may be a group of monolingual Spanish-speaking children learning to read. It may be a group of English-speaking children who are learning Spanish. Alternatively, your class could be made up of a group of students whose language at home is Spanish, and who will be learning English from the time they start school. DR Course II - Spanish will be helpful for all of these learners. The majority of literacy skills are directly transferable between Spanish and English. DR Course II - Spanish translates the activities in DR Course II - Spanish where possible, and otherwise adapts or develops new activities which are appropriate for Spanish. For example, recognizing letters, words, spaces, and sentences in text are all transferable skills. For activities focusing on such skills, the texts and activities have been translated into neutral Spanish. However, some language-specific building blocks such as the sound /oo/ in English, or the written accent in Spanish do not exist in the other language. In these instances, new activities have been developed. You may choose to pair English-speakers with Spanish-speakers as they work through activities in DR Course II - Spanish. This would allow the students to use their dominant language to help each other. For those activities that focus on transferable skills, you may find it beneficial to have the Spanish and the English copies of the software running side-by-side! If you do run the Spanish and the English versions in the same classroom you will soon realize that some activities and skills are simply non-transferable. The skill in English Identifying the word with the /or/ sound, spelled our, oor, ore, 17

English-only literacy skill Skills transferable between Spanish-only literacy Spanish and English skill One vowel, many sounds Syllables Plurals Silent h Word families by endings Consonant clusters Nouns Medial r Double consonants Compound words Adjectives Letters ch, ll, ñ Apostrophe s Homophones Adverbs High decodability Prefixes Verbs Punctuation?! Suffixes Writing Diphthongs Abbreviations Comprehension Hiatus Contractions Listening Written accent Tacit subject Classroom Management or in Unit 3 has been replaced in DR Course II - Spanish with the skill Creating sentences using words with a written accent in the penultimate syllable. To take another example, the reading selection in Unit 10 of DR Course II - Spanish, La búsqueda del tesoro de Mari, has been adapted so that Mari s neighbor is someone who dislikes young people instead of someone who does not speak English. Destination Reading - Spanish uses the Destination Learning Management system. With the Destination Learning Management system, teachers can track and assess each child s progress through DR Course II - Spanish. Students can proceed at their own pace, because they continue to get new questions and activities until assessment indicates mastery of the learning objective. The Destination Learning Management system enables teachers to: Create custom assignments and lesson plans for individuals, groups, or the entire class. Track how long it takes students to finish assignments. Create and administer diagnostic tests, either using pre-defined tests or creating customized tests from dozens of available questions. Generate comprehensive, detailed, and individualized tracking and assessment reports for each student. Automatically develop a customized scope and sequence based on state standards. Generate prescriptive assignments for each student based on his or her progress through the program. 18

DR Course II - Spanish in Your Classroom Getting Ready for Computer Time It s easy to integrate Destination Reading Course II - Spanish (DR Course II - Spanish) into your reading curriculum. The software can be used in a wide variety of ways as the basis of a reading curriculum, for introducing concepts, for review or extra practice, or for enrichment. This section of the guide provides suggestions on getting ready for computer time, using the software with your students, and tracking student progress. It also includes some motivating ideas and practical tips for using DR Course II - Spanish to meet the needs of your class as a whole and the needs of individual students who require extra support or an extra challenge. The availability of computers in your classroom and school will affect how you get ready for computer time. If you have only a limited number of computers available, you will need to schedule computer time carefully so that all students have an opportunity to work at the computers. You may want to let students work in pairs or small groups. If you plan to have some students work at classroom computers while you are teaching another group, encourage students to work independently and be sure that they clearly understand their computer assignments ahead of time. If you have a computer lab at your school, your entire class can work at once on the same DR Course II - Spanish assignment or on individual assignments. Advance planning will enable you to get the full benefit of the time you have in the lab. For example, before you go to the lab, you can: Make assignments (for individuals or the whole class) from the Destination Learning Management system. Present introductory material. Assign lab partners. Explain computer assignments. Teaching with Destination Reading - Spanish Making Presentations You can use DR Course II - Spanish to present a new skill or concept to the whole class. For such teacher-led presentations, you can use a single computer. If a large screen monitor or projection device is not available, make presentations to small groups of students gathered around the computer. (To find out which unit or activity teaches a specific skill, please see the Scope & Sequence.) Individualized Instruction Students who need extra help with a concept or need to catch up after absences can use DR Course II - Spanish to learn at their own pace. Use the Destination Learning Management system to assign one or more students to 19

a specific activity in DR Course II - Spanish. (For details, see your Destination Learning Management system User Guide.) DR Course II - Spanish can also be used for enrichment. Encourage students who enjoy a challenge to work at their own pace in DR Course II - Spanish. Collaborative Learning There are advantages to letting students work at computers in groups of two or three to complete a specific assignment. As the students work out the answers together, they will be teaching each other and learning to communicate. Challenge students to make sure that all group members understand the concept by the end of the activity or unit. Tracking Student Progress DR Course II - Spanish automatically tracks the progress of each student who has signed in. You can easily access this information through the Destination Learning Management system. Test Format Tests follow a format similar to that of most standardized tests: a problem is posed and the student has to choose or construct the correct answer(s). Since DR Course II - Spanish is designed for young learners, the interface is simple, colorful, and engaging. Questions are presented one at a time. Because many children in this age bracket (2nd to 3rd grade) are still emergent readers, the questions are presented in audio form. A playback button allows students to listen to the audio as many times as they need. To help students keep track of their progress through the test, a breadcrumb trail allows them to see at a glance how many questions have been answered, and how many more are left. The breadcrumb trail changes color from red to green as students move from one question to the next. 20

Students may exit the test at any point. When the student returns to the test, the welcome screen will indicate that the test is in progress. Clicking the OK button on this screen causes the test to resume where the student left off. Question Format All DR Course II - Spanish questions are in the easy-to-use single choice format. After hearing the question, students click an answer choice, then click the OK button to confirm their answer and move on to the next question. Most questions have four answer choices. Examples of Single Choice Questions: In order to answer a reading question, students may need to refer to more than one page of a passage. As in the DR Course II - Spanish activities clicking on the yellow arrow in the bottom corner of a page allows students to move from one page to the next. 21

Examples of a Multiple-Page Reading Passage: In order to answer certain reading-comprehension questions, students may need to refer to two different passages. The interface allows students to switch between the two passages with a single click. The messages on the tabs and the color surrounding the pages changes so that students always know which passage they are reading. 22

Examples of a Two-Passage Question: 23