25 Days of Classrooms: Lotta Lara

This month I am sharing stories from
classrooms in Berwyn South District 100.

Day 4: Lotta Lara with Patty Ramirez (Dual Language 2nd, Emerson)

     What is Lotta Lara, you ask?  It is very much like shared reading, but more rigorous and targeted on both fluent reading and oracy, with targeted vocabulary and comprehension practice embedded in. Patty Ramirez teaches a dual language 2nd grade classroom, and they are working on animals and habitats in their literacy block.  She chose a book about chameleons (found in Epic) in Spanish for her Lotta Lara lesson.  For three days, the students do an echo, choral, and partner read of the same text.  I saw her students on day 3.

     At this point, I must mention that I saw it while Kathy Escamilla was also in her room.  Kathy is one of the authors of Biliteracy from the Start, and that book is where the Lotta Lara strategy can be found.  We were very excited to have her in person watch a lesson structure developed by her!

     The part of the lesson that I was most impressed with was how it connected so well to other pieces of Patty's balanced literacy program.  In this lesson, her students reviewed specific content area vocabulary with TPR, then read the text 2 times with Patty, and then went off to read with a partner and then practice their oracy and comprehension with a spinner activity that had sentence frames.  The students were all reading and speaking academically about chameleons.  What wasn't noticed in this lesson directly was that the students were also writing expert books about chameleons during writing workshop!  She connected the shared reading portion of her day with the content needed for writing workshop.  What a wonderful way to maximize instructional output for her students.

 

     Another impressive side note was Patty's choice to have the partners read the book and do their spinner activity while recording the audio on the iPads.  That way, they could share the file with her, and she could listen to the recordings.  Language development is very important in dual language classrooms, and this additional step will help hear their language and help her develop lessons for her students.  Even if just just listened to a few audios, she would have a clear picture of where her students were in their language around chameleon research.

     If you want more information on Lotta Lara, you can read Biliteracy from the Start, or you can talk to Patty or another member of the dual language team!