Teachers who work with English as a Second Language learners will find ESL/ESOL/ELL/EFL reading/writing skill-building children's books, stories, activities, ideas, strategies to help PreK-3, 4-8, and 9-12 students learn to read.
Activities
Many English language learners, even those who are adapt at decoding English text, continue to experience difficulties with reading comprehension throughout their school careers. The articles in this section provide excellent strategies for helping ELLs develop the skills they need in order to "read to learn" during the middle school and high school years. See Teaching Content Areas for more great ideas.
This section contains 33 articles.
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Help your child get the most out of a family or school trip to the museum. Spend some time at the library or online to learn more about subjects that interest your child. And don't forget to ask family members about their own interesting collections!
Successful Field Trips with English Language Learners
English language learners can benefit from field trips that provide an experience that enhances classroom learning. It can be overwhelming for a teacher to think of organizing all the details of a field trip, but with some planning beforehand and a few extra steps, field trips can be very successful! This article offers some ways to make the field trips with ELLs go more smoothly and to provide students with a meaningful academic experience.
Grocery Store Literacy for Preschoolers
Getting Ready to Read: Family Activities
There are many activities that parents can share with their children at home in order to strengthen reading and language skills! These articles offer an overview of some of those activities, as well as specific ideas to use.
Readers' Theater: Oral Language Enrichment and Literacy Development for ELLs
Getting Ready to Read: Using Storytelling, Rhymes, and More!
From singing and rhyming to storytelling and acting, these activities will help children to develop a wide array of reading readiness skills.
A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words
How many times have you watched your child choose a book and then pore over the illustrations? When you look at a children's book, the illustrations can make the story come alive in magical ways. For some suggestions on how to use picture books to engage your child when reading together, take a look at this article.
If you are interested in bringing the local, state, or presidential election to your classroom, try some of these resources! We've included links to children's booklists, lesson plans and websites full of ideas you can use in the classroom.
Magazines can be a wonderful way to motivate children to read. Colorín Colorado has received a number of requests for recommendations of Spanish-language children's magazines from teachers and parents. We are pleased to report that we have found an excellent publication that we can enthusiastically recommend, and that parents and children alike are sure to enjoy: IGUANA Magazine.
Getting Your Children Excited About the Library
Helping your children to enjoy reading is one of the most important things you can do as a parent and well worth the investment of your time and energy. It's important to remember that you can give your children this kind of experience even if you don't have a lot of books in your home. Your local public library has an abundance of books, plus many other valuable resources. This article offers some ideas for ways to get kids excited about the library.
More Than Books at the Library
In addition to a wealth of books, your library most likely will have tapes and CDs of books, musical CDs, movies, computers that you can use, and many more resources. You also might find storytelling programs, books in languages other than English, or programs to help adults learn English or improve their reading.
Making Reading Relevant: Read, Learn, and Do! (K-3)
Making Reading Relevant: Read, Learn, and Do! (Pre-K)
Gear Up for a New School Year!
Starting a new school year positively is very important. It is likely that most teachers will have newly enrolled students in their classrooms, as well as students who do not speak English as their first language. For this reason, there is a lot for teachers to think about as they start the new school year.
My Diary From Here to There/Mi diario de aquí hasta allá Cross-Curriclar Activities
My Diary From Here to There/Mi diario de aquí hasta allá Reading Activities
Featherless/Desplumado
Reading Activities
Featherless/Desplumado Cross-Curricular Activities
Activities to use with the book Featherless/Desplumado for Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Art, Math, and Science.
Cooperative Learning Strategies
Cooperative Learning is a great way to engage ELLs in learning both language and content. This article has several ideas for small group activities that build skills and promote teamwork.
Oral Language Development for Beginners
Teach vocabulary and communication skills by having students act out simple activities. This strategy, called Total Physical Response, helps students in the early stages of language development.
Help Your Child Understand What He or She Reads
When children get to fourth grade, they no longer spend time in class learning how to read. Instead, they learn about science, social studies, and many other subjects. They read in order to understand.
Writing is a great way for your child to become a better reader. Here are some fun ways to get your child writing at home. Even very young children can write stories!
Starting at age three or four, children can usually play rhyming and other sound games. Being able to hear the different sounds in words is an important step for your child.
Fun Reading Tips and Activities
We'll make sure you never run out of fun reading activities to do with your child. Share these with other adults in your child's life - grandparents, babysitters, aunts/uncles, and friends!
Don't forget to add non-fiction books to your reading routine! Kids can follow their own interests and learn about the world around them by reading about bugs, dinosaurs, or outer space. You can also use the information in books to do activities at home – make green eggs and ham like Sam I Am, or a newspaper hat like Curious George!
Oral Language: Expanding Your Child's Vocabulary
Talking to your child helps expand vocabulary, develop background knowledge, and inspire a curiosity about the world – all of which help with learning to read! Here are some simple activities you can do at home to get your child ready to read.
Suggestions: Working with ESL Students Who Have Special Needs in Reading
Teachers are in a unique position to create positive attitudes in English language learners. These suggested children's texts can help ELLs open up about the struggles, ambivalence, and rewards of learning a second language.
Five Free and Easy Tips for Summer Learning: Research Pointers and What You Can Do
Research about how much children lose ground over the summer is well documented, but kids don't have to lose ground over the summer. In fact, you can encourage your child to have a summer of fun and learning with these five free and easy things to do.
Moony Luna/Luna, Lunita Lunera – Reading Activities
Moony Luna is a bilingual book, set in a bilingual classroom, which makes it the perfect book to use for bilingual classroom activities.
This article provides a number of ways that you can make storytelling a part of the time your family spends together.
Making Music: Literacy Tips for Parents
Music is a great way to introduce children to sounds and words! Research indicates that exposure to music has numerous benefits for a child's development.
Writing and Spelling Ideas to Use with Kids
As children learn some letter-sound matches and start to read, they also begin to experiment with writing. These activities can be used with children to develop their writing and spelling abilities.
Your website is a wonderful source of information for me as an ESL
professional. I read all the articles for teachers and pass the relevant ones
on to my students' classroom teachers.
~ Kathryn B.
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Colorín Colorado is a free web-based, bilingual service that provides information, activities, and advice for educators and Spanish-speaking families of English language learners (ELLs, also known as students of English as a second language).
Colorín Colorado is produced by Reading Rockets — an educational service of WETA, the flagship public broadcasting station in the nation's capital. Original artwork by Caldecott Award-winning illustrator David Diaz is used with permission.
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Colorín Colorado receives major funding from the American Federation of Teachers. Additional funding is provided by the National Institute for Literacy and the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.
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