Hitting the ELL Jackpot on Colorín Colorado: Missy Testerman, National Teacher of the Year

I was trying to find resources for my families of primary age students. As an English language learner teacher in my area, I really didn't have a strong network of people to ask. And one of the things that I wanted to communicate with my families was about the importance of reading to your child at home each night and that it doesn't even have to be reading in English at home, reading in Spanish, reading in Chinese, reading in Arabic, whatever language you speak at home is very important because number one, it keeps that home language fresh in the child's mind, which we want them to become multilingual. So, we've got to work on keeping both languages current, but it also enriches their vocabulary. And all the research tells us that if a student has a strong vocabulary in one language, that's going to then transfer over to the second subsequent languages.  So, I actually found Colorín Colorado on a Google search, and there were letters in Spanish to primary parents about the benefits of reading to your child at home in your home language. But all of those resources were readily available for me, and I just felt like that I had hit some kind of English language learner teacher jackpot.