ELL News Headlines
Throughout the week, Colorín Colorado gathers news headlines related to English language learners from around the country. The ELL Headlines are posted Monday through Friday and are available for free!
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Assessment Strategies for English-Language Learners
Larry Ferlazzo shares responses from four educators to the question, "What are effective strategies for multilingual learners?"
Highly Recommended: "I Sang You Down from the Stars"
Debbie Reese shares a recommendation and review for I Sang You Down from the Stars, written by Tasha Spillett-Sumner (Inninewak (Cree) and Trinidadian) and illustrated by Michaela Goade (Tlingit, member of the Kiks.ådi Clan). Goade is the winner of the 2021 Caldecott Medal.
Multilingual Learners Faced Unique Challenges in Distance Learning. Educators Stepped Up with Innovative Solutions.
Multilingual learners (MLLs) have faced unprecedented challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Less than half were logging on for online instruction in the spring of 2020, according to a study by the Migration Policy Institute. Here are some of the creative ways educators responded.
The Case For Universal Pre-K Just Got Stronger
According to the National Institute For Early Childhood Research, nearly half of all 3-year-olds and a third of all 4-year-olds in the United States were not enrolled in preschool in 2019. That's in large part because many parents can't afford it. Imagine a future where we changed that. A future where every American child had access to two years of preschool during a critical period of their mental development. How would their lives change? How would society change? It turns out, we kind of already know.
National Teacher of Year focuses on individual student needs
The coronavirus pandemic forced students out of the classroom and starkly revealed how learning difficulties, distractions and challenging home dynamics can make it tough to adhere to a rigid curriculum. In a year with so much loss, a silver lining is that educators are embracing a flexible approach that meets students where they are, said Juliana Urtubey, the newly named 2021 National Teacher of the Year.
Note: You can see more from Juliana in our Colorín Colorado interview with her!
Waukegan schools recruiting teachers from Puerto Rico and internationally to provide Latinx students ‘enriched educational experience’
Between a nationwide teacher shortage and challenges building a diverse teaching staff, Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 started casting a wider net, including hiring 31 in the last three years from Puerto Rico. The District 60 Board of Education got a briefing on current efforts to keep its corps of approximately 1,100 teachers staffed during a meeting of its Operational Services Committee last Tuesday at Waukegan High School’s Brookside campus.
Once a Gwinnett school custodian, now she’s a teacher
Lies Toribio walks into a classroom at Bethesda Elementary and sits in front of a laptop bearing a sticker: "dedicated teacher." Toribio, 41, teaches kindergartners in person and virtually, a challenging feat for someone in her first semester as a full-time teacher. But she’s jumped bigger hurdles at the school near Lilburn, where she was first hired 11 years ago — as a custodian.
USDA Moves To Feed Millions Of Children Over The Summer
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a new effort Monday to feed millions of children this summer, when free school meals traditionally reach just a small minority of the kids who rely on them the rest of the year. The move expands what's known as the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer, or P-EBT, program into the summer months, and USDA estimates it will reach more than 30 million children.
Navajo Goes Extraterrestrial
The first scientific focus of NASA’s Perseverance rover is a rock named "Máaz" – the Diné (Navajo) word for "Mars." The rover’s team, in collaboration with the Diné Nation Office of the President and Vice President, has been naming features of scientific interest with words in the Diné language.
Eleven Diverse Audiobooks in Verse
April is National Poetry Month. Of course, reading, writing, and performing poetry can and should be done any time of the year, but April encourages newbies and doubters to give verses a try. Audiobooks are a particularly effective medium for poetry, with well-chosen narrators enhancing and amplifying the written text; reluctant readers could especially benefit. Novels in verse often combine gorgeous words with affecting narratives, making these recent #OwnVoices titles revelatory this month and beyond.
