ELL News Headlines

Mattie and the Machine [Santa Monica Press], a debut novel by Lynn Ng Quezon, has been selected to receive the 2023 Grateful American Book Prize, according to co-founder David Bruce Smith.

Today’s K–12 classrooms are brimming with the use of technology. Students use computers and websites to access digital materials, work on projects and produce presentation materials, and take assessments, to cite a few examples. Alongside this widespread technological adoption, the growing linguistic and cultural diversity in classrooms has broadened the essential literacy skills required for students. Literacy skills extend beyond reading and writing printed texts and increasingly involve navigating varied communication styles in diverse contexts.

By reading books out loud every day, teachers introduce students to higher-level texts and new vocabulary, while modeling deeper thinking and strong discussion skills.

When Aaron Friedland was entering a master's program in economics at the University of British Columbia about a decade ago, he decided to research how the distance to school impacts attendance rates. So he spent two months living in a rural community in Uganda, regularly trekking with a group of kids who walked five miles each day round trip for their education.

Transportation to centers is one of the biggest barriers for families accessing Head Start programs, according to a survey from the National Head Start Association — distances that might be manageable for adults on their own can be insurmountable with a baby or toddler in tow. A new awareness campaign sponsored by the association, which represents Head Start providers, and a philanthropic group called the Civic Mapping Initiative, is hoping to ease that burden by encouraging local transit agencies to add bus stops closer to Head Start centers.

Names are one of the topics covered in We’re Gonna Keep on Talking, which elementary teacher Jennifer Orr co-authored with Philadelphia educator Matthew R. Kay. The book guides educators through how to foster meaningful conversations about race with elementary school students.

Missouri has become the latest state to face strong pushback against plans to promote social-emotional learning in its classrooms. The state was on track to adopt standards outlining the interpersonal, responsible decisionmaking, and problem-solving skills it expected K-12 students to master. But state education officials have decided to scale back and redefine the proposed social-emotional learning standards as a non-binding, optional framework after nearly 2,000 public comments on the plan revealed substantial confusion and concerns surrounding SEL.

The number of homeless students attending New York City schools reached a record high last year after thousands of asylum-seeking families entered the city’s shelter system, a new analysis shows.

Schools are obligated to provide interpretation services for families of English learners, but most don't. Now there’s some momentum to change that.

Meg Medina, the current National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, has worked with the Literary Initiatives Office of the Library of Congress to create a project called Cuéntame!: Let’s Talk Books. The idea at the heart of Cuéntame — which means "tell me," or, literally, "story me" in Spanish — is that talking about books is something that children should feel totally at ease doing, just as they'd talk about any other topic with their friends, family and teachers. Too often in school, talking about books is reserved for "book reports" or presentations.