Entry #4

The text I chose was a People Magazine, written in Spanish about Hispanic people in the news. The strategy I used first was previewing the magazine cover to cover. The illustrations on the cover were several famous people! (Jenifer Lopez, Shakira, and Salma Hayek) I encountered pictures, similar to a picture walk, to get a general idea of the magazine. The format was like a "woman's magazine" advertising makeup, clothes, and articles. For more context clues, I skimmed the table of contents, headings, and captions. Though most of the words were in Spanish, there was quite of few English words interspersed throughout the magazine, such as Jenifer Lopez, Divas, MaryKay, and Kellogs, added to prior knowledge. I also recognized words that I was familiar with in English called cognates. For example, the word actividades derived from the word activity, as celebrar is to celebrate. After I did the groundwork, I consulted my team mate from New Mexico who speaks Spanish fluently. We discussed the major article on the magazine cover. She consulted her Velazquez Spanish and English Dictionary because of the dialect. We both came to the conclusion that the article was about an event on May 19, 2011 honoring movie stars and notable persons of Hispanic descent. It was held in a section of one of the Disney Parks. Now I have grasped a better insight of learning a second language, and what "diverse and struggling readers" may be encountering. Learning vocabulary to support comprehension and reading fluency doesn't always come naturally as I have experienced.

EDIT- 3/19/12
I would like to thank our ELL teacher for not only sharing her expertise and experience,but also her Spanish text People Magazine and a resource link: spanishtranslate.com.