Abstract

Third grade general education teachers, particularly in Florida, will teach English learners (ELs) in their classroom who must participate in their English Language Arts writing classes at roughly the same pace as native English speakers in order to perform grade-level, standards-based writing tasks. For this reason, general education teachers must be equipped with helpful, research-based resources to support the ELs to become equally successful in writing instruction as their native-speaking peers. This thesis explored the use of sentence frames for improving the English skills of ELs as they start to understand and use the syntax of Standard English. As a result, this thesis created a teacher-friendly resource, the Sentence Frame Toolkit for Third Grade, containing sentence frame templates and sample student work for third grade teachers to use as a resource when teaching expository writing in English Language Arts to Spanish-speaking ELs. The sentence frames in the toolkit are aligned to Florida’s third grade expository writing standards from Cluster I. By using the sentence frames in the toolkit as support, ELs will be able to turn thoughts into words, produce the second language at their pace, and continue to improve as skilled writers.

Thesis Completion

2020

Semester

Spring

Thesis Chair/Advisor

Roberts, Sherron Killingsworth

Co-Chair

Walters, Cynthia

Degree

Bachelor of Science (B.S.)

College

College of Community Innovation and Education

Department

School of Teacher Education

Degree Program

Elementary Education

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Release Date

5-1-2020

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