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.
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The number of English language learners (ELLs) in American schools has more than doubled over the past 20 years. The articles in this section will give you lots of useful ideas for creating an environment that is welcoming and supportive for your ELLs and their families, and also encourages and facilitates learning.
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Honoring Family in the Classroom
In this article excerpt, Alma Flor Ada and Rosa Zubizarreta suggest an innovative but practical technique for helping parents engage in a meaningful way with their children and their children's schools. Teachers send home questions or dialog prompts designed to encourage parents to share stories about their own life experiences with their children. These stories then become the basis for classroom discussions about students' cultures, and they can also be used to generate meaningful classroom curriculum activities.
Tips for Parents: Parent-Teacher Conferences
These bilingual tips from Colorín Colorado give parents an overview of parent-teacher conferences and answer questions such as "What if I don't speak English?" and "What will my child's teacher want to talk about with me?" Parent checklists are provided that can be used before, during, and after the conference. These tips are also available as a downloadable pdf in English and Spanish.
Reading 101 for English Language Learners
In this article, Kristina Robertson highlights ELL instructional strategies based on the five components of reading as outlined in "Teaching Children to Read," by the National Reading Panel (2000). This report is a study of research-based best practices in reading instruction and it focuses on the following five instructional areas: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, Fluency, and Comprehension.
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe: Math and Literacy for Preschoolers
Parent Tips: Help Your Child Have a Good School Year
10 Ways to Support ELLs in the School Library
The school library is an important resource for ELL learners. It may be the first place many students and their families get experience using a lending library. What can school librarians can to show ELL learners that libraries are welcoming places of entertainment and enrichment? This article offers some ideas.
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
Playing games is a great way to provide additional practice with early reading skills. Here are six games parents or tutors can use to help young readers practice word recognition, spelling patterns, and letter-sound knowledge.
Writing Poetry with English Language Learners
This article discusses strategies for writing poetry with ELLs, presents an overview of poetry forms that can be used effectively in writing lessons, and suggests some ideas for ways to share student poetry.
Introducing and Reading Poetry with English Language Learners
This article offers some ideas on how to introduce poetry to ELLs and integrate it with reading instruction, as well as some ideas for reading poetry aloud in a way that will encourage oral language development.
Parent Tips: Helping Your Child with Test-Taking
As a parent, there are many ways you can support your child's academic success, which will in turn help your child with test-taking throughout the school year.
Testing: An Introduction for Parents
As a parent, there are many ways you can support your child's academic success, which will in turn help your child with test-taking throughout the school year. The following articles offer a number of suggestions of ways that you can help your child prepare for tests, and support your child's learning habits.
Math Instruction for English Language Learners
Language plays an important part in math instruction, particularly for ELLs. This article offers some strategies for making language an integral part of math instruction, and for ensuring that ELLs have the tools and language they need to master mathematical concepts, procedures, and skills.
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.
Working with Community Organizations to Support ELL Students
When building a support network for English language learners, community organizations can play a valuable role and offer resources that schools may not have at their disposal. This article offers some ideas on ways that schools can partner with community groups to support ELLs.
ELL Student Success: The Path to College
For English language learners, the challenges of going to and applying to college can be overwhelming. ELL teachers can play an important role, however, by helping students prepare for and navigate the application process. This section features a number of articles with great ideas for ways that ELL educators can support their students as they consider their future plans.
Increasing ELL Student Reading Comprehension with Non-fiction Text
One of the most important skills students learn as they transition into middle and high school is how to get information from a non-fiction text. This skill can be especially challenging for ELLs, who may not have had much experience working independently with expository texts. This Bright Ideas article offers ways that teachers can help ELLs work effectively with non-fiction texts and includes strategies for introducing components, structure, and purpose of expository texts.
Creating a College-Going Culture for English Language Learners
Some English language learners may not know what to expect from the college application process. Others don't start thinking about college until their junior or senior year. One way to ensure that students are prepared to apply for college is to create a college-going culture in your school and across your district.
School Attendance: A Key to Success
Did you know that school attendance is one of the most important factors in a student’s academic success? Being at school every day ensures that students won’t miss important lessons, assignments, activities, exams, and school events. This article suggests some things you can do to help your child get the most of each school day, and offers tips for ways you can make sure you child doesn’t fall behind when a school absence necessary.
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.
Retrospective: Language Instruction in Native American Communities
This article about the evolution of language instruction in Native American communities during the past 30 years was written for Colorín Colorado by Dr. Catherine Collier, a leader in the fields of cross-cultural, bilingual, and special education.
How to Help Your Child with LD Have a Happy Holiday
The holiday season is a time for family togetherness, fun, and friendship. But children who struggle with social and behavioral problems can feel lonely and excluded during this happy time. This article gives you a dozen ways to help you child join the fun.
Selecting Books for Your Child: Finding 'Just Right' Books
How can parents help their children find books that are not "too hard" and not "too easy" but instead are "just right"? Here's some advice.
Handwriting: What's Normal, What's Not
This article lists some milestones to look for as your child's handwriting skills begin to develop. The article also describes some signs and symptoms of dysgraphia, a learning disability that affects a child's handwriting and ability to hold a pen, pencil, or crayon.
Tips for Educators of ELLs: Reading in Grades 7-12
These tips offer some great ways to help your regular and newcomer English Language Learners become confident and successful readers. Add a new language strategy each week, and watch your students' reading improve!
Tips for Educators of ELLs: Reading in Grades 4-6
The tips below offer some great ways to help your English language learners (ELLs) become confident and successful readers. Add a new language strategy each week, and watch your students' reading improve!
Tips for Educators of ELLs: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12
Research shows that vocabulary development is one of the most important skills students need to acquire to become English-proficient. This article provides some strategies to help you get started.
Tips for Educators of ELLs: What To Do First in Grades 4-12
Before you begin to work with your ELLs, these preparation strategies will make your reading instruction more productive and effective.
10 Steps for Parents: If Your Child Has a Learning Disability
If your child has been diagnosed with a learning disability, there are many things you can do to support him. Here are 10 ideas to get you started!
How does the special education system work in the United States?
This article offers parents an introduction to the special education system in the U.S., and provides a brief overview of the IDEA law mandating special education services.
What is an IEP meeting and who can request one?
This article offers an introduction to the Individual Education Program (IEP) and discusses parent participation in the creation of an IEP.
Learning Disabilities: An Introduction for Parents
This article provides parents with a basic introduction to what learning disabilities are, and how they are identified. It also provides a list of steps that parents can take if they suspect that their child has a learning disability.
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.
Do you suspect that your child has a reading difficulty or learning disability?
This article offers suggestions of steps parents can take if they suspect their child has a learning disability, and provides an introduction to the process of conducting an evaluation.
Building Strong Parent-Educator Partnerships
In this section we offer numerous resources for educators and parents in order to strengthen the school-home partnership. From back-to-school night to parent-teacher conferences, we've got lots of ideas to get you started!
How to Support ELL Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFEs)
Many English language learners come to school having had little or no schooling in their native countries, or with an interrupted education if their family has moved frequently. While educating students with interrupted formal education (SIFEs) presents many challenges to educators, they can indeed obtain a high school diploma with the right kind of support, and go on to future academic and professional success. This article provides a profile of SIFEs and their needs, recommendations of best practices, and examples of the kinds of quality school-wide and classroom support that will accelerate their academic achievement.
Serving Recent Immigrant Students Through School-Community Partnerships
How do district and school partnerships with community-based organizations help schools better meet the needs of recent immigrant students? This article provides some examples of promising strategies in which community-based organizations and districts work together to address linguistic and cultural differences, help newcomers gain new language skills and catch up academically with their peers, and provide educational and social support to immigrant families.
Parent Tips: How to Monitor TV Viewing and Video Game Playing
Children in the United States on average spend far more time watching TV or playing video games than they do completing homework or other school-related activities. This article offers parents suggestions for helping children to use TV and video games wisely.
Help Your Child Learn to Use the Internet Properly and Effectively
The Internet/World Wide WEB-a network of computers that connects people and information all around the world-has become an important part of how we learn and of how we interact with others. For children to succeed today, they must be able to use the Internet. Here are some suggestions for helping children learn to do so properly and effectively.
Parent Participation: How to Get Involved in Your Child's School Activities
This article offers parents some year-round suggestions for getting involved in their children's schools.
How to Prepare for the Beginning of the School Year
These ideas will help your child get ready for a new school year. As the first day of school approaches, there are many things you can do to set your child on the path to school success.
Parent Guide: Who's Who at Your Child's School
There are many people at your child's school who are there to help your child learn, grow socially and emotionally, and navigate the school environment. Here's a selected list of who's who at your school: the teaching and administrative staff as well as organizations at the district level. You might want to keep this list handy all year long.
Writing Ideas from the Classroom
This article offers some ideas from ELL educators around the country about getting ELL students (children, adolescents, and adults) to write more enthusiastically and creatively.
Summer Reading Resources for Parents
School's over, but that doesn't mean that kids need to stop learning or reading! Summer is a great time for kids to read what they enjoy and to learn in new kinds of environments. Learn more from Colorín Colorado's summer reading resources!
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.
My favorite part of the website is the newsletters. It helps me stay updated on issues concerning ELLs, struggling readers, learning disabilities, and
great books for students.
~ T. H.
Why the name "Colorín Colorado"?
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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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