The SIOP MODEL:
Making Content Comprehensible
for English Language Learners
Presented by DHS SIOP Coaches
Carla Huck and Beth Amaral
February 25, 2014
ACE

A Team-Building Activity
1. Find three things that everyone on the team likes
2. Find three things that everyone on the team
dislikes
3. Find one thing that is unique to each of the team
members
4. Decide on a team name that has something to do
with your collective likes and dislikes
5. Write your TEAM name on your “Table Tent”

Objectives
Content:
• Participants will be able to demonstrate understanding of the
8 components of the SIOP Model through discussion and
hands-on practice activities
• Participants will be able to make connections between current
practice and new strategies or ideas presented.
Language:
• Participants will engage in speaking, listening, reading, and
writing exercises using high school content area curricular
materials.
• Participants will be able to describe how sheltered
instructional practices positively impact teaching and learning
for our diverse student population

ELLs at ACE

What is SIOP?
• Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol

1. Lesson Preparation
Teachers plan their lessons carefully, including
attention to:
• Content and language objectives
• Appropriate content concepts
• The use of supplemental materials
• Adaptation of content
• Meaningful activities

Lesson Preparation
• For teachers new to the SIOP Model, the lesson
planning process will incorporate a new element,
which is writing specific content and language
objectives for each lesson.
• Content objectives are created from district and
state standards, specific to the lesson being taught.
• Language objectives will help students develop
language proficiency and vocabulary knowledge
concurrently with subject matter understandings.

Practical Application:
Categorizing Content and Language Objectives
Example:
• Work with your team to categorize the given
objectives on the T-chart
SWBAT compare and contrast
the North’s and South’s
positions in the weeks
preceding the first battle of
the Civil War
SWBAT write five sentences
about the North’s and South’s
positions in the weeks
preceding the first battle of
the Civil War

2. Building Background
Research supports teachers’ explicit activation of students’
prior knowledge, and the building of background for those
students who may lack prior knowledge about the content
topic. To fill in the gaps and help students create linkages,
teachers must:
• Make explicit links to their students’ background
experiences and knowledge
• Connect past learning and new concepts
• Teach and emphasize new vocabulary

Building Background
• Before viewing the video clip, think about what
you do in your classroom to build background.
Record your practices.
• As you watch the video clip, jot down practices
you see that relate to building background.
• Reflect on your notes. What are you already
doing to build background? What practices did
you see in the video that you want to implement
in your classroom?

Practical Application:
Using Anticipation Guides
• “Fast Food Nation” example:
1. Prior to reading your article, read the
statements and check if you agree or disagree.
2. Discuss your responses with your group. Reach
consensus on the agree/disagree column for the
group.
3. Read the article.
4. Revise any of your responses.

3. Comprehensible Input
Reflect on a time when, despite teacher explanations, you
just didn’t “get” what you were supposed to be learning.
What could the teacher have done to make the content
concepts more clear? To improve comprehensibility, we
need to:
• Use speech appropriate to students’ English proficiency
(enunciate, slower rate)
• Explain academic tasks clearly – orally and in writing
• Employ a variety of techniques such as modeling,
visuals, hands-on activities, scaffolding, multimedia

Comprehensible Input
• It is important that explanations are very clear about
what students are to do, and how they are to do it. When
steps to processes and procedures are written, orally
presented, and modeled, students will be more likely to
succeed.

Practical Application
Your team assignment:
1. You have been given a reading that you will
use with your students.
2. Design a graphic organizer that matches your
reading, to be used before, during and/or
after reading the article.
3. Draw and complete your final version on chart
paper.
GALLERY WALK: View your peers’ graphic
organizers and leave a sticky note indicating
what you think the article is about.

4. Strategies
This component focuses on the cognitive and
metacognitive strategies that learners use to make sense of
new information and concepts. Learning strategies
include re-reading, note-taking, organizing information,
predicting, self-questioning, evaluating. . . etc.
Teachers:
• Provide students with instruction in and practice with a
variety of learning strategies
• Scaffold their teaching consistently with techniques to
support understanding, such as think-alouds
• Promote higher-order thinking through a variety of
question types and levels

Strategies

Practical Application
Work with a partner to complete the THIEVES organizer from
your text.

5. Interaction
Our ELLs will not become proficient speakers of the
language unless they have frequent opportunities to use it.
Teachers who monopolize the vast majority of classroom
talk, as is common practice, minimize opportunities for
students to practice their English language skills. To
encourage and promote meaningful discussion and
responses about content, teachers need to provide:
• Frequent opportunities for interaction and discussion
from teacher-student and among students
• Grouping configurations that support language and
content objectives
• Sufficient wait time for student responses
• Ample opportunities for students to clarify key concepts
in L1, as needed

Interaction
Types of cooperative learning groups
1. Base groups: long-term groups with stable membership
• Personalize the classroom, develop community
• Mixed ability
2. Flexible small groups: last from 1 period to several
periods to complete a specific task
• Promote multiple perspectives
• Members chosen to maximize learning
3. Partners: chosen ad hoc or by seating arrangement and
can rotate
• Provide practice opportunities
• Give peer assistance before independent practice

Practical Application
• Math Rally-Robin, “I have, who has?”
• Group Response with a White Board/ PEMDAS:
1. ( 9 + 5 ) × ( 9 - 5 ) =
2. 5² × 10 -12² =
3. 3 × 9 - 5 × 2 =
4. 7 × 8 + 36 ÷ 9 =
5. 10³- (21 ÷ 7) =

6. Practice and Application
Students need daily opportunities to practice and apply
what they are learning. They are more likely to retain new
information if they immediately put it to use; and the
teacher can assess students’ learning while they are
practicing and applying their new understandings within
each lesson. In this component, teachers provide:
• Hands-on materials and/or manipulatives for students
to practice using new knowledge
• Activities for students to apply content and language
knowledge
• Activities that integrate all four language skills

Practice and Application
• Classroom lectures and textbook readings are
not enough for ELLs to master the material.
• Students need to practice through multiple
modalities.
• Remember VKAT: (Visual, Kinesthetic,
Auditory, Tactile)

Practical Application
Step 1: GIST
• Watch the video clip from Discovery Education
(Fair Trade Chocolate 2:16)
• Take note of 10 key terms
• Turn your terms into a summary statement

Practical Application
Step 2: CONGA LINE
• Count off by twos
• Form two lines of “ones” and “twos” facing each other
• For 30 seconds, ones will share their GIST summary
with the person across from them and how they will
implement this strategy in the classroom.
• After 30 seconds, the “twos” will share.
• Then, the head of the line of “twos” will conga through
the center to the end of the “twos” line and everyone will
shift up one, giving everyone a new partner.

7. Lesson Delivery
Have you ever written a fabulous lesson plan, but when
you taught the lesson it went differently than planned?
The Lesson Delivery component focuses on this common
problem by using content and language objectives to guide
lesson delivery, ensuring students are engaged in
meaningful activities with appropriate pacing. Teachers
are asked to deliver their lessons with:
• Content objectives clearly supported
• Language objectives clearly supported
• Students engaged 90 – 100% of the period
• Pacing appropriate to students’ ability level

Lesson Delivery
Look for evidence of these factors that contribute to high
student engagement:
• Well-planned lessons
• Clear explanation of academic tasks or instructions
• Appropriate amount of time spent on each task
• Strong classroom management skills
• Opportunities for students to apply learning in
meaningful ways
• Active student involvement
• Lesson design meets the language and learning needs of
students

Practical Application
• PASS THE INDEX CARD
1. Write an upcoming topic from your
curriculum.
2. Divide your card into 4 sections: reading,
writing, listening, speaking
3. Write an activity in each section.
4. Pass your card to the right.
5. Add more ideas on your peers’ cards.

8. Review and Assessment
Although this component is the eighth in the SIOP
protocol, the process of reviewing and assessing student
understanding is ongoing and continuous. Best practice
dictates that we assess students before, during, and after
instruction and these findings guide future lesson design
and delivery.
Teacher actions include:
• Comprehensive review of key vocabulary and concepts
• Regular, specific academic feedback to students
• Assessment of student comprehension and learning
throughout the lesson

Review and Assessment
Many ways to manage response rates throughout
the class period:
• Choral response
• White boards
• Response chaining
• Response cards
• Hand signals
• Vote with your feet
• Technology based (Socrative, Stick Pick app)

Practical Application
Please complete your 3-2-1 Exit Ticket:
3 things I learned today
2 ideas I will implement in my classroom
1 strategy I would recommend to a
colleague

Reflecting on Learning
Content:
• Participants will be able to demonstrate understanding of the 8
components of the SIOP Model through discussion and hands-on
practice activities
• Participants will be able to make connections between current
practice and new strategies or ideas presented.
Language:
• Participants will engage in speaking, listening, reading, and writing
exercises using high school content area curricular materials.
• Participants will be able to describe how sheltered instructional
practices positively impact teaching and learning for our diverse
student population
Did we meet our objectives?

Reflecting on Learning
• Please return our formal evaluation sheets
• For more information and resources, access
Google Drive – SIOP Ideas folder
Carla Huck huckca@danbury.k12.ct.us
Beth Amaral amarae@danbury.k12.ct.us