ELL News Headlines

Today's post is the latest installment in a series on simple moves teachers can make that offer the potential for large classroom impacts.

Board books are a solid hit with tots and sturdy sellers in the publishing industry. They're also a powerful tool for neurodevelopment in young children. The science behind board book learning supports the market boom around their popularity. "The number one most important thing about board books is the pages' thickness, because babies and toddlers don't have the fine motor skills to turn paper pages," says Caitlin Gallingane, clinical assistant professor in the University of Florida's College of Education. That enables the development of "concepts of print" — how to hold a book, how to turn pages. Babies learn these basics not just by seeing, but by getting their hands on books and mimicking their grown-ups.

Here in Cicero School District 99, students are getting an extra 30 minutes of reading or math instruction every day, which adds up to around three additional weeks of school. School leaders hope that will be enough time to teach students key skills they missed and boost test scores. The district is about a month into the extra academic lessons, and staff say they're still working out the kinks. The initiative has added new instructional challenges for Cicero teachers, who were already busy putting a new reading curriculum in place and helping students cope with the ongoing fallout of the pandemic. Still, Cicero stands out for making a longer school day a reality. While many schools used COVID relief funding to beef up summer school or add optional after-school tutoring, far fewer added extra time to the school day or year.

When Maureen Delgado walked into her first classroom at Clinton Elementary in 1999 to teach middle school English and Social Studies, it was virtually empty — no textbooks, no pens, nothing. 

Dora Ramos is a family child care provider in Stamford, Connecticut, where the temperature climbed above 90 degrees for a few days in July. She takes care of children in her home, which has a large backyard, and was able to adapt, still getting the children outside, even on the hottest days.

This post is the second in an ongoing series about small teacher moves that have the potential of a big impact on students.

About 23 students from mixed grades were taking a math quiz on exponents at the newcomer center at Thornton High School one recent Friday afternoon. Staffers at the newcomer center work to help students who are new to the country adjust to life in an American high school. As the program grows, students are gaining much more than English lessons. They’re making friends from around the world, engaging in their learning, and getting on a path to graduation. It’s helping them dream of futures they might not have imagined before.

I’ve invited educators to share the three most important — AND most likely to be used — strategies that general education teachers can use to make their content more accessible to ELLs (and everyone else).

Grouping English learners together in classrooms, a longstanding practice in schools, has no impact—positive or negative—on reading development for elementary school students, shows a new study by a team of literacy education researchers.

The distinct and evolving genre merges devices of fiction and poetry with a clear narrative arc — and it’s uniquely compelling to middle and high school readers.