Moving into Reading
Moving into Reading is the set of intentional pre-reading moves that prepare emergent bilingual students to comprehend a text before they read it. Drawn from the "Into" phase of the Into/Through/Beyond instructional cycle, it activates and builds students' background knowledge, previews the text and its structure, front-loads essential vocabulary and concepts, sets a clear purpose, and invites prediction. The goal is to bridge what students already know, in any language, to the new text so that reading becomes an act of confirming and extending meaning rather than decoding in a vacuum. It rests on schema theory, which describes comprehension as the active integration of new text with the reader's existing knowledge structures.
How it’s typically applied
- 1Read the target text yourself first and name its comprehension demands: the topic, the text structure, two to five concept-bearing words, and any cultural or background knowledge a reader needs to make sense of it.
- 2Activate and honor what students already know by eliciting their experiences, languages, and cultural knowledge about the topic (for example through a quick brainstorm, the first two columns of a K-W-L chart, or a turn-and-talk), and explicitly invite students to use their home language to surface ideas.
- 3Build any missing background knowledge briefly and concretely using realia, images, a short video, a demonstration, or a real object so the concepts become comprehensible before reading.
- 4Front-load a small number of high-leverage vocabulary words and concepts, pairing each with a visual, gesture, cognate (for example, family/familia), or quick example rather than a dictionary definition.
- 5Preview the text together through a picture walk or text walk, noticing the title, headings, images, captions, bold words, and overall structure so students form a mental map of what is coming.
- 6Set a clear purpose and invite predictions, such as posing a guiding question, completing an anticipation guide, or having students predict what the text will say and what they hope to find out.
- 7Keep this phase brief (roughly seven to ten minutes) and then move students into reading with their activated knowledge, predictions, and purpose ready to confirm or revise.
Why it works for emergent bilingual students
Pre-reading preparation is especially powerful for emergent bilingual students because comprehension depends on connecting new text to existing schema (Anderson & Pearson, 1984), and these students arrive with rich knowledge and literacy skills developed in their home language. Cummins's common underlying proficiency principle explains that conceptual and academic knowledge, including reading strategies and background concepts, transfers across languages, so inviting students to draw on what they already know in any language gives them an asset to build from rather than a gap to fill (Cummins, 1981). Front-loading vocabulary, previewing with visuals, and building background also make the text more comprehensible and can lower the affective filter, which Krashen identifies as a condition that supports acquisition (Krashen, 1982). When students enter a text already knowing the topic, the purpose, and the key words, they can devote their cognitive and linguistic resources to meaning-making, and they experience reading as something they can do successfully.
Adapting it across proficiency levels
Pre-Production
At Pre-Production, students understand far more than they can yet say, so make the preparation highly visual and non-verbal. Use realia, photos, gestures, and short demonstrations to build background, label images with key words, and let students show understanding by pointing, matching, sorting picture cards, or responding with a thumbs up or down. Welcome home-language brainstorming and responses, and keep the focus on building meaning, not on producing English.
Beginning
At Beginning, pair visuals with simple, repeated language. Pre-teach a few concrete vocabulary words using images and cognates, do a guided picture walk with sentence frames (for example, I see..., I think this is about...), and let students predict with single words, short phrases, labeling, or home-language support. Anticipation guides can use pictures plus yes/no or agree/disagree choices.
Intermediate
At Intermediate, students can engage with simple connected language in routine contexts. Use K-W-L charts, partner discussion of what they already know, anticipation guides with short statements, and predictions written or spoken in a sentence or two. Pre-teach vocabulary in context with examples and provide sentence stems so students can articulate background knowledge and purpose. Encourage cross-language connections and cognate awareness.
High Intermediate / Advanced
At High Intermediate and Advanced, students can handle more abstract, grade-level academic language with support. Have them generate their own predictions and questions, analyze the text structure and features during the preview, complete more open anticipation guides with justification, and connect the topic to prior texts and personal or cultural experience. Front-load only the most specialized academic vocabulary, push students to use academic language frames, and continue to validate and draw on their bilingual resources.
In the classroom
Before a fifth-grade science article on volcanoes, the teacher spends eight minutes Moving into Reading. She shows a short clip and a photo of an erupting volcano and asks students to turn and talk about what they notice, inviting them to use Spanish or English. She charts what students already know, including a student's account of a volcano near her grandparents' home, then front-loads four words (erupt, magma, lava, eruption) with images, gestures, and the cognate erupcion/erupt. The class does a picture walk through the article, noticing the headings, a labeled diagram, and bold words, and each student writes or says one prediction using a frame: I predict the text will explain ___. A Pre-Production student matches word cards to diagram parts, while an Advanced student previews the diagram and predicts the cause-and-effect structure. Students then read to confirm or revise their predictions.
Research basis
Reading comprehension is an active, constructive process in which readers integrate new text with prior knowledge organized as schemata, which is the theoretical basis for activating and building background knowledge before reading.
Anderson, R. C., & Pearson, P. D. (1984). A schema-theoretic view of basic processes in reading comprehension. In P. D. Pearson (Ed.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 255-291). Longman.
Into, Through, and Beyond is a content-based lesson framework in which the pre-reading (Into) phase prepares learners by activating prior knowledge and building background before they engage the text.
Brinton, D. M., & Holten, C. (1997). Into, through, and beyond: A framework to develop content-based material. English Teaching Forum, 35(4). [link]
Input that is made comprehensible through context, visuals, and background supports second-language acquisition, and a low affective filter is a condition that allows that input to be used for acquisition.
Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Pergamon Press.
Conceptual and academic knowledge, including reading strategies and background concepts, transfers across a bilingual student's languages through a common underlying proficiency, so home-language knowledge is an asset for reading in English.
Cummins, J. (1981). The role of primary language development in promoting educational success for language minority students. In California State Department of Education (Ed.), Schooling and language minority students: A theoretical framework (pp. 3-49). Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center, California State University, Los Angeles.
Building background by linking new concepts to students' experiences and prior knowledge, and pre-teaching key vocabulary, is a core component of effective sheltered instruction for English learners.
Echevarria, J., Vogt, M. E., & Short, D. J. (2017). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP model (5th ed.). Pearson.
Effective pre-reading for English learners includes building topic and word knowledge, previewing vocabulary and concepts, relating content to students' lives, and setting a purpose for reading.
Colorin Colorado. (n.d.). Pre-reading activities for ELLs. WETA. https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/pre-reading-activities-ells [link]
Proficiency-level descriptors that name what multilingual learners can do with language in reading and the other domains allow teachers to differentiate scaffolds and build on students' linguistic assets.
WIDA. (2016). WIDA can do descriptors, key uses edition. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. https://wida.wisc.edu/teach/can-do/descriptors [link]
The new Texas English Language Proficiency Standards, adopted in 2024 and implemented beginning in the 2026-2027 school year, describe student proficiency in reading and the other domains across five levels (Pre-Production, Beginning, Intermediate, High Intermediate, and Advanced) to guide differentiated instruction.
English language proficiency standards, grades 4-12, 19 Tex. Admin. Code § 120.21 (2024). https://tea.texas.gov/academics/subject-areas/english-language-arts-and-reading [link]
Sources reviewed by an independent second-language-acquisition specialist and an adversarial citation audit.
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