Making Content Comprehensible for Secondary English Learners: The SIOP Model

The trusted SIOP Model is tailored to secondary classrooms in this long-awaited book from the pioneers of the SIOP!    After the introductory chapter's overview of issues in educating ELLs, the book looks at one component of the SIOP Model per chapter, for a full exploration of the SIOP at the middle and high school level. Each chapter provides the research foundation for the component and gives explicit guidance on how to implement it. In addition, each chapter has three teacher vignettes that illustrate varying degrees of implementation of the SIOP Model.  With special attention to struggling readers and the most up-to-date research, this book gives secondary educators the targeted SIOP techniques they need.  Middle and high school teachers and other educators, including literacy coaches, reading specialists, and staff development coordinators.

Based on the widely used resource, Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP^® Model, which includes all grade levels, this book is tailored to the specific needs of middle and high school students, and their teachers, as teachers implement high-quality sheltered lesson planning, delivery, and assessment.

Making Content Comprehensible for Secondary English Learners presents teachers with specific lesson plans, strategies, and instructional activities for implementing the SIOP^® Model in their own classrooms. The book opens with an introductory chapter that provides an overview of issues in the education of English learners. Each chapter that follows discusses one of the eight components of the research-based SIOP^® Model and offers specific guidance on how to implement the components in middle and secondary classrooms.

Ringing Endorsements

"As a high school teacher who mentors first year teachers and pre-service teachers. I would definitely recommend [this book]…for ideas on how to reach both ELL students and low-income urban students. [The included] CD with actual teachers teaching ELL students [is] very beneficial. Showing is always stronger than just telling."

  -Madelaine Kingsbury, Overbrook High School, Philadelphia, PA

"I've used all three editions of [Making Content Comprehensible]…I really like the improvements made for each edition and [Making Content Comprehensible for Secondary English Learners] continues the trend. I like the secondary vignettes very much." 

-Barbara H. Formoso, HILT lead teacher, Gunston Middle School, Arlington, VA

Take a Glimpse Inside

• Incorporates the most up-to-date research published in 2008 and 2009.
• Features new vignettes of middle and high school teachers' lessons on the same curriculum topic in each of the component chapters. Readers analyze middle and high school lesson descriptions and use the SIOP^® protocol to rate the degree to which the SIOP^® components and features are implemented in each of the lessons.
• Provides many "use-tomorrow" instructional ideas and techniques that are especially effective for teaching adolescent students, including English learners.

• Focuses special attention on meeting the needs of struggling readers.

• Includes suggestions for writing content and language objectives.

• Includes a CD-ROM with video vignettes of middle and high school teachers whose instruction exemplifies each of the eight SIOP^® components, as well as brief video clips of the authors speaking about different aspects of the SIOP^® Model.

Jana Echevarria, Ph.D., Professor Emerita at California State University, Long Beach, has taught in special education, English as a Second Language and bilingual programs. She has lived in Taiwan and Mexico where she taught ESL and second language acquisition courses at the university level, as well as in Spain where she conducted research on instructional programs for immigrant students. She is an internationally known expert on second language learners and her research and publications focus on effective instruction for English learners, including those with learning disabilities. Selected publications include the books, Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model and Sheltered Content Instruction: Teaching Students With Diverse Abilities, both published by Allyn & Bacon. The SIOP Model of instruction is used widely in all 50 states and a number of countries. Currently, she is a Fulbright Specialist and is Co-Principal Investigator with the Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) funded by the U.S. Department of Education. In 2005, Dr. Echevarria was selected as Outstanding Professor at CSULB. 

MaryEllen Vogt, Ed.D.  is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Education at California State University, Long Beach. Dr. Vogt has been a classroom teacher, reading and special education specialist, district reading resource teacher, and university teacher educator. She received her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. A co-author of fourteen books, including the SIOP Series and Reading Specialists and Literacy Coaches in the Real World (2007), Dr. Vogt has provided professional development in all fifty United States, and in eight other countries. She served as President of the International Reading Association in 2004-2005.

Deborah J. Short, Ph. D. is a professional development consultant and a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, DC. She co-developed the SIOP Model for sheltered instruction and has directed national research studies on English language learners funded by the Carnegie Corporation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education. She chaired an expert panel on adolescent ELL literacy and co-wrote a policy report. As the director of American Language Research and Training, Dr. Short provides professional development on sheltered instruction and academic literacy around the United States and abroad. She has numerous publications, including the SIOP Series and five ESL textbook series for Hampton-Brown. Dr. Short has taught English as a second/foreign language in New York, California, Virginia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.