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.
A to Z (Recommended links)
This section includes a selected listing of our recommended organizations and websites.
Links are also organized by:
4Teachers.org works to help you integrate technology into your classroom by offering free online tools and resources. This site helps teachers locate and create ready-to-use Web lessons, quizzes, rubrics, and classroom calendars.
New Americans, New Promise: A Guide to the Refugee Journey in America
Author Yorn Yan describes the refugee experience in the United States and how to best help refugees through the acculturation and transition process of becoming a New American. This book is available for purchase from Fieldstone Alliance.
Reading at Home with Your Child
Delta Publishing sells videos, DVDs, and handouts available in English and Spanish for educators to teach parents how to read with their children.
This is a very popular book that can be found in many new teacher orientation programs to help teachers get off to a good star in the new school year. This link goes to the book's Amazon page.
What's Different About Teaching Reading to Students Learning English?
What's Different About Teaching Reading to Students Learning English? by Dorothy Kaufmann provides teacher trainers with a research-based curriculum to guide the professional development of classroom and ESL teachers who teach reading in classes where some or all of the students are English language learners. The curriculum is available for purchase from the Center for Applied Linguistics store.
An educational site offering 5000+ FREE printable theme units, word puzzles, writing forms, book report forms, math, ideas, lessons, and much more.
About.com: The Best Sites for Free Audio Books
About.com offers a list of websites that have free audio books for download, as well as brief descriptions of each website and what is available.
AdLit: Books & Authors is a part of AdLit.org, WETA's Adolescent Literacy Web site. Books & Authors offers themed booklists for young adults, exclusive author video interviews, and guided discussions for specific books.
This resource offers comprehensive list of strategies for each phase of the comprehension lesson — before, during, and after reading.
The largest African American history website in the world, with links to information on famous African Americans, historical events and special searches such as, "What happened on your birthday?"
AFT Position on English Language Learners: Where We Stand*
This document outlines the AFT position on the education of English language learners.
The American Library Association lists award-winning books, print and media for children and young adults, and links to pages with more information about these resources.
ALA: Every Child Ready to Read
The Public Library Association and the Association for Library Service to Children have incorporated the latest research into a series of parent and caregiver workshops designed to provide public libraries with vital tools to help prepare parents for their critical role as their child's first teacher. These tools were developed by Dr. Grover C. Whitehurst and Dr. Christopher Lonigan, well-known researchers in emergent literacy, and have been tested and refined by library demonstrations sites around the country.
ALSC: Exceptional Websites for Children
The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, announces which sites that the Great Web Sites for Kids (GWS) committee added to its list in fall 2008.
The Américas Award is given in recognition of U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non-fiction (from picture books to works for young adults) published in the previous year in English or Spanish that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States. The award is sponsored by the national Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP).
American Association of School Librarians
AASL works to ensure that all members of the school library media field collaborate to provide leadership in the total education program, participate as active partners in the teaching/learning process, connect learners with ideas and information, and prepare students for life-long learning, informed decision-making, a love of reading, and the use of information technologies.
American Federation of Teachers
A group of teachers founded AFT to protect their professional interests, benefit the people they served, and create strong local unions affiliated with the labor movement. The AFT has grown into a trade union representing workers in education, health care, and public service.
American Federation of Teachers: English Language Learners
The AFT seeks to promote educational excellence and equity for English language learners (ELLs) to ensure they meet the same challenging standards required of all students.
American Federation of Teachers: Parent Resources
The AFT offers many useful resources for educators to use with parents to help them navigate today’s hot-button educational issues, as well as how to help them become better consumers of public education and advocates for their children.
American Institutes for Research
The American Institutes for Research (AIR) is one of the largest behavioral and social science research organizations in the world. Their overriding goal is to use the best science available to bring the most effective ideas and approaches to enhancing everyday life.
The American Library Association provides leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.
American Speech-Language Hearing Association
The American Speech-Language Hearing Association is the professional, scientific, and credentialing association for more than 99,000 audiologists; speech-language pathologists; and speech, language, and hearing scientists. ASHA's mission is to ensure that all people with speech, language, and hearing disorders have access to quality services to help them communicate more effectively.
Working with neighborhoods and state and local governments, the Foundation provides grants to public and nonprofit organizations to strengthen the support services, social networks, physical infrastructure, employment, self-determination, and economic vitality of distressed communities. One of several initiatives includes supporting comprehensive education reform in the states: for example, school/community partnerships; school-based accountability; and smaller class size.
Apple Learning Interchange: iLife in the Classroom
See how students use the program "iLife" from Apple computers to create a variety of projects. The site includes many examples of student work, each one accompanied by a detailed lesson plan for teachers to use and adapt to whatever resources they may have.
Dearborn Public Schools in Michigan hosts a webpage that links to other Web sites with resources for Arabic language learners and educators.
Association for Library Service to Children
The Association for Library Service to Children develops and supports the profession of children's librarianship by enabling and encouraging its practitioners to provide the best library service to our nation's children.
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
ASCD, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development is an international, nonprofit, nonpartisan education association committed to the mission of forging covenants in teaching and learning for the success of all learners. Founded in 1943, ASCD provides professional development in curriculum and supervision; initiates and supports activities to provide educational equity for all students; and serves as a world-class leader in education information services.
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)
ASCD is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership association provides expert and innovative solutions in professional development, capacity building, and educational leadership essential to the way educators learn, teach, and lead.
Association of Mexican American Educators (AMAE)
AMAE's mission is to insure equal access to a quality education at all levels for the Mexican American/Latino students where cultural and linguistic diversity is recognized and respected. The organization advises state/local boards and legislators, administrators and faculty and works in partnership with the community and parents for the benefit of students.
Audible Kids provides digital audio content for children. Shop, purchase, and download digital audio editions of books, newspapers, and magazines; original programming; and TV and radio subscriptions. Spanish titles are also available.
Alma Flor Ada's colorful author Website links to books in both English and Spanish that she has written for children and educators. She suggests ways for educators to help children to connect to her literature, for example by creating an Author's Study or writing responses to her books.
Author Website: Jacqueline Jules
Jacqueline Jules, a children's author and school librarian, highlights her stories on her Web site with the help of book trailers, teacher guides, videos, and some interactive games.
Monica Brown is an award-winning multicultural children's book author and also publishes scholarly work with a Latino focus.
Author Website: Pam Muñoz Ryan
A site for readers curious about Pam Muñoz Ryan and her works.
Pat Mora's author Web site gives information about her bilingual books for adults, young adults, and children. She coined the word "Bookjoy" and promotes a children's book day called "Día" all year long through the American Library Association.
Awesome Library: Multilingual Lesson Plans
A listing of lesson plans and multicultural classroom resources offered in many different languages, from Apache to Yiddish. Some languages require special fonts for correct display.
Bank Street Literacy Guide: English Language Learners
This section provides guidance to volunteer tutors working with children who are learning English, and for whom English is not their first language.
Barahona Center for the Study of Books in Spanish: Books About Latino Culture
The Barahona Center for the Study of Books in Spanish for Children and Adolescents at California State University, San Marcos has created a database of recommended books (in English) about Latino culture. The site has a sorting feature so users can sort by grade level, age, setting, or publisher.
Barahona Center for the Study of Books in Spanish: Books in Spanish
The Barahona Center for the Study of Books in Spanish for Children and Adolescents at California State University, San Marcos has created a database of books in Spanish. Search features include grade, country of origin, and topic.
Barefoot Books is a company offering children's books, CDs, and gifts designed to cultivate and encourage creativity, independence, and diversity.
The BBC "Learning English" webpage offers English language-learning multimedia tools such as short courses and quizzes to test grammar and vocabulary. They offer some material in other languages, including Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Best Evidence Encyclopedia: ELLs
The English-language Learners section of the Best Evidence Encyclopedia summarizes the impact of a few online reading programs for English-language learners and other language minority students in the elementary grades.
Between the Lions is an award-winning PBS children's series designed to help young children learn to read. The Web site includes games and materials from the show, including a literacy curriculum aimed at children ages 4-7.
Bridging Refugee Youth and Children's Services (BRYCS)
Provides technical assistance to service providers working with refugee children and their families in the U.S.
Bringing up Baby Bilingual Blog
Website with many links to research, articles and useful links to support bilingual language development.
This site by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) offers lots of information about how to help students build academic vocabulary. Although designed to promote instructional materials sold by ASCD, the site has information that any teacher could use to enhance vocabulary instruction.
CAL: What Teachers Need to Know About Language
This digest from the Center for Applied Linguistics summarizes a paper by Lily Wong Fillmore and Catherine Snow, "What Teachers Need to Know About Language." Discusses areas such as language acquisition, why English is difficult to learn, and error correction for ELLs.
California Association for Bilingual Education
CABE is a non-profit organization that promotes high levels of literacy in English and in at least one other language.
California Dropout Research Project
The California Dropout Research Project addresses the educational crisis of dropouts in the California school system through the synthesis of research to inform policymakers and the larger public about potential solutions.
Campaña Quetzal is a coalition of parent, youth, individuals, educators, and organizations committed to unleashing the academic and personal potential of each Latino student and eliminating the academic achievement gap.
Casa Notes is designed to allow teachers to quickly make, and customize, typical notes that are sent home to parents or given to the students. Note templates are available both in English and Spanish.
Center for Applied Linguistics
CAL provides language education products and services to educators, service providers, and businesses.
Center for Applied Linguistics: The SIOP Model of Sheltered Instruction
The SIOP Model is a research-based and validated model of sheltered instruction. Professional development in the SIOP Model focuses on helping teachers plan and deliver lessons that allow English learners to acquire academic knowledge as they develop English language proficiency. Learn more from about SIOP from the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL).
Center for Digital Storytelling
This site demonstrates how pictures are a visual means of communication in which we can retell the story using specific strategies. It also provides support for ELLs to grasp the elements of the story, including the characters, setting, and plot.
Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence
CREDE is a federally funded research and development program focused on improving the education of students whose ability to reach their potential is challenged by language or cultural barriers, race, geographic location, or poverty. The site provides access to publications, research, and toolkits for administrators, teachers, and parents.
Search Colorín Colorado
As our ENL team is planning a parent night we love the Reading Tip Sheets! We
were so excited to see that they are available in 11 languages. Thank you!
~ Franklin Township ENL Team
