Colorín Colorado Blog: Helping ELLs Succeed

Welcome to our Colorín Colorado blog!  This blog is focused on helping English language learners (ELLs) succeed in the classroom, with a special focus on strategies and tools that that support the use of college- and career-ready standards with ELLs.

The blog includes updates from the ELL field about topics such as language proficiency standards and assessments, as well as practical tips for developing academic language, helping ELLs tackle grade-level content, and collaborating with colleagues.

For related content, see our  Common Core and ELLs resource section.  You can also browse blog posts by topic.

Student in mask

As you prepare for the new year, we'd like to share some new additions to Colorín Colorado. These include resources on partnering with multilingual families during COVID-19, social-emotional support, and instruction and advocacy for ELLs.

Drawing of children watching people on a stage.

In this post, I’ll highlight some information from Tim Shanahan’s article about background knowledge in American Educator. I’ll then share a table and flow chart adapted from the article that will help you decide how much background knowledge to teach to ELLs.

Boy reading.

I want to examine some ideas for using text-dependent questions with ELLs. Since I’m a big fan of writing two-part blog posts, first I’ll outline some big picture issues in terms of what TDQs are and some considerations in writing TDQs for ELLs.

Four students talking at a library table which is covered with books.

We’d like to start off the new year by sharing an example for developing text dependent questions for ELLs in the middle grades. We have selected a 6th-8th grade exemplar text in the category of Informational Texts: Science, Mathematics and Technology titled “The Evolution of the Grocery Bag” by Henry Petroski.

An illustration of the five pillats of equitably grading ELLs.

How can teachers equitably grade ELLs? Learn more about challenges, related research and resources, and recommendations developed by the Diane Staehr Fenner, Jill Kester, and Sydney Snyder.

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