Imagine you are an English language learner (ELL) high school student who has mastered English well enough to talk on the phone and interact with friends on the school bus. Imagine, though, that academic classes are another story. There you are confronted with reading textbooks and attaining what Yvonne Pratt-Johnson calls CALP—Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency.
At her conference session, Increasing Reading Comprehension of English Language Learners in Content Courses, Pratt-Johnson defined CALP as the language required for formal academic learning. It differs from Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills, a level of skill that ELLs attain much more quickly.
For example, a student with little CALP whose social studies assignment is to read the Declaration of Independence will most likely be thrown by the unfamiliar vocabulary; archaic idioms; and long, complex sentences in the text. Almost every reading assignment presents such problems to students—from the science text in which the student encounters the new use of the word table in the term periodic table to the newspaper article that uses such idiomatic expressions as "to live from hand to mouth" or "to tick someone off."
Pratt-Johnson recommended a number of strategies to help ELL students increase reading comprehension, including
- Familiarize students with textbook features. Take them on a textbook walk and show them how to use the glossary, table of contents, and answer key in the math book. These steps may seem trivial, but they are important ways to elucidate texts.
- As a teacher, model how you think when you read a text. For example, tell students how the study questions at the end of the chapter can help them know what information is significant. Don't just assign the Declaration of Independence without prepping students for the kinds of difficulties they will encounter when reading it.
- Build background knowledge. Connect with students' experience before introducing your lesson. For example, a science teacher might talk about how corn is used in various countries and cultures before presenting a lesson involving corn.