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I included the note-taking guide for week 8 because it provides a good description of what summative assessments are. It also provides examples of different kinds of summative assessments that could be utilized. Overall, I just believe that the note-taking guide is very through and provides a good amount of information about the topic.

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Week 8-Summative Assessment Note-taking Guide (Spring 2021) (1)

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This is a screenshot from the week 9 presentation. This slide describes why formative assessments are used and what they evaluate. I believe this is a good source because it serves a reminder as to why formative assessments are used in the first place.

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English Language Proficiency Standards - I included these because they are vital when beginning to plan lessons. ELPs should be referred to in order to decide how and when to activate the different language domains.

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I am including my week two note-taking guide because it includes the different second language methods and theories. Having them all in one place makes this a good reference and it highlights both their advantages and disadvantages as well.

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Proficiency Level Descriptors - I included the PLDs because they are essential to tracking the progress of students' language development. It is necessary for a teacher to know these in order to check the efficiency of their work.

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Transforming Classroom Management for ELLs

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Transforming Classroom Management for ELLs

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This web article provides tips on ways teachers can engage and support a culturally and linguistically diverse classroom. I included this article because it helps provide simple ideas that any teacher can use regardless of the topic or grade level.

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In Part 1 of this article, we discussed the numerous issues that impact classroom management skills, in general terms, but also when working with students who are English learners or who come from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Classroom management is a phrase and concept all teachers are familiar with and know intimately.

There are numerous classroom management strategies that benefit all students, but that may be especially beneficial for culturally and linguistically diverse students. This population in particular requires additional considerations as we work to develop a classroom culture of learning and mutual respect.

Consider the following concepts and strategies as you reflect on your own classroom management style and classroom culture.

Interest in students

Carl Rogers, a humanistic psychologist is thought to be the first to discuss the unconditional positive regard for patients. In teaching, we can apply the concept as having an unconditional positive regard for children. This includes taking interest in our students, including their interests, hobbies and cultural norms and backgrounds.

Just as parents love their children unconditionally, when we view students with a positive regard, we do everything we can for them to improve their social and emotional health, including using discipline and classroom management strategies that help them to see what appropriate behavior looks, sounds and feels like.

Celebrating students' languages and cultures

Celebrating that students speak other languages and have culturally diverse backgrounds is as easy as encouraging students to speak their native language at home with their families, or in class as appropriate.

Students may be encouraged to speak in their native language when discussion a topic with a partner or clarifying instructions or concepts, for example. Ask students if they are familiar with vocabulary words or concepts in their native languages, and if they are comfortable, ask them to share those words.

Examining our cultural lens

As we celebrate students' cultures and linguistic backgrounds, it is important that we also begin to think about our own cultural norms and biases. How we understand the world and students can lead to misunderstandings of behavior displayed by students.

One way to consider this is to question if what we expect a classroom to look like is the same or different from what our students believe and expect. Do our practices align with what students are used to and believe school should be? While we do not necessarily need to completely change our system, it is important that we begin to recognize how our own cultural lens can cause misunderstandings.

Creating a culture of learning

Keep the affective filter low by encouraging risk-taking in the classroom. Celebrate when students make attempts at applying concepts or language skills, even if these attempts come at inopportune times.

Keep it positive

Perhaps the most important strategy teachers can use to effectively manage classrooms is the notion of public praise and private conversations. This refers to publicly recognizing students who are behaving appropriately, rather than students who are behaving in undesirable or disruptive ways.

The adage "what you permit, you promote" holds true in that teachers can and should make explicit the kids of behaviors they expect to see in class, and publicly acknowledge those behaviors. Phrases such as "thank you for staying quiet while others are speaking" and the like show students what you expect from them.

This does not mean that unacceptable behavior is ignored. But rather when the redirection of students by pointing out positive behavior does not work, a private conversation with the student is necessary.

Some students only know how to gain attention from the teacher by acting in disruptive ways. When we shift the paradigm and publicly acknowledge students when they are doing something correctly - especially recognizing positive behavior in students who have behavior challenges - we can begin to shift the paradigm of negative attention seeking behaviors.

Developing norms or agreements

In a positive classroom community, students and teachers can work together to collaboratively develop norms for behavior. Students at all levels know the types of behaviors that are helpful or harmful in learning and working with others. Students from diverse cultural backgrounds may have differing perspectives that will enrich the discussions.

If students are a part of developing the norms of behavior and agreements in the classroom, they are more likely to follow the norms as they had a hand in creating them.

Explicit teaching of social skills

Students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds may have differing expectations on how to behave in the classroom, as we have previously mentioned. Behavioral expectations should be explicitly taught to students so that they understand what the behaviors are, what the behaviors look like and sound like.

One way to explicitly teach this is by using a three-column chart. The behavioral norm or social skill is listed at the top of the chart. In each column, list - with the input of the students - what the skill looks like, sounds like and feels like.

While this may seem tedious, students may not be able to immediately articulate what empathy, listening, respect, collaboration, perseverance or other skills actually look like. Specific examples of what a particular skill looks like, sounds like, or feels like can be added over time.

The second column, "sounds like," is especially important for English learners. These students may need explicit instruction in the words and phrases that help demonstrate the social skill or behavior being taught.

Social objectives

Many teachers are familiar with writing instructional objectives and sharing those objectives with students. When working with English learners, the addition of language objectives is a widely accepted practice to help students develop academic language skills.

Social objectives that focus on the behavior students will engage in during the lesson are another way to make explicit the types of behavior students should engage in. For example, a social objective may focus on nonverbal cues speakers give when listening to a partner, such as nodding, asking clarifying questions or appropriate eye contact.

Active student participation

Effective instructional techniques will assist in keeping students engaged, thereby minimizing behavior issues. When scaffolding is used appropriately, students are met at their instructional level and supported to meet the objectives for the lesson.

Using techniques such as choral calling, frequent student conversations on academic topics, hands-on activities, and getting students up and moving around, students will be more highly engaged and less likely to behave in disruptive ways.

Implementing these strategies and concepts will likely not eliminate all behavioral issues in the classroom. However, as we strive to meet the needs of all students in the classroom, careful consideration of how we manage student behavior and carefully considering our students' experiences and cultural backgrounds will help us to ever move in the direction of helping each child to excel.

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MultiBrief: Transforming classroom management for ELLs: Strategies for success

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Classroom management is a phrase and concept all teachers are familiar with and know intimately. ​There are numerous classroom management strategies that benefit all students, but that may be especially beneficial for culturally and linguistically diverse students.

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This is a screenshot from the week 8 powerpoint about summative assessments. I included it because it highlights the three basics that an assessment must cover. It also provides examples for each of the three categories. I believe it presents the information in a very easy to understand way by utilizing a pie chart.

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This chart provides an oversight into the two theories by comparing the two side-by-side. It highlights the obvious differences between the two. I believe this makes a good, quick reference.

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This document provides a chart that highlights the differences in the two theories. It also has multiple quick facts about the two as well as how they are used.

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This hand out describes the three vocabulary tiers. These tiers are essential to helping develop a student's vocabulary. This handout provides a simplified description which makes it a good, quick reference.

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This PDF provides the SOLOM scoring matrix as well as instructions and a description on how and when to use it. The SOLOM helps teachers track annual progress and it is a good informal way for teachers to assess their effectiveness as well.

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This article highlights different instructional strategies using the five different components of reading. This article also addresses the challenges students may face with each of the components which can help teachers prepare and plan for these situations.

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Learning to read is a complicated process. If you teach English language learners (ELLs), however, there are a number of ways you can support their literacy and language development through targeted instruction.

This article highlights ELL instructional strategies based on the five components of reading as outlined in Teaching Children to Read by the National Reading Panel (2000). This report is a study of research-based best practices in reading instruction and it focuses on the following five instructional areas: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, Fluency, Comprehension. In addition, the article includes information related to two additional important areas of instruction for ELLs, oral language and the role of the home language.

Each of these topics is explored below, and each section includes:

a definition

an explanation of why the component is important when learning to read

challenges that ELLs may face

strategies for ELL instruction

You will find references to more in-depth information about ELLs and effective reading instruction from recommended resources below.

Note: Since this article includes in-depth information on a number of topics, we encourage you to use it in professional learning communities, jigsaw activities, and other collaborative settings!

What does the research say?

Before jumping in, it's important to note that, in general, what we know about effective literacy instruction for English speakers holds true for ELLs, but modifications and adjustments may be needed (Goldenberg, 2008). Since the original National Reading Panel did not include ELLs' literacy development as part of its research review, a subsequent panel reviewed the research related to language learners and released a report authored by principal investigator Dr. Diane August and panel chair Dr. Timothy Shanahan titled Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth.

Within the executive summary of that report, the authors note that, "Instruction that provides substantial coverage in the key components of reading - identified by the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension - has clear benefits for language-minority students." They continue, "However, while approaches that are similar to those used with native-language populations are effective, the research suggests that adjustments to these approaches are needed to have maximum benefit with language-minority students." (p. 3)

For example, many practices may need modifications or scaffolds which may not be reflected in different reading programs or materials (August, 2018; Goldenberg, 2008), and in some cases, certain strategies may not be appropriate even with adjustments. In addition, the authors note the important role of two areas that were not addressed in the original National Reading Panel: students' home language and oral language.

Many examples of specific modifications are outlined in the strategies below, along with discussion of home language and oral language. You can find additional research resources at the end of the article, including a recent working paper published by Pivot Learning, Narrowing Down to Find Common Ground: Shared Agreements for Effective Literacy Instruction in California.

An in-depth video book study highlighting Literacy Foundations for English Learners by Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan is also publicly available on YouTube.

When working with ELLs, students' home languages are a powerful tool that educators can use - even if they don't speak those languages or are working in a classroom with students who speak many languages. Drs. August and Shanahan write, "Oral proficiency and literacy in the first language can be used to facilitate literacy development in English" (2006, p. 5). And in hisColorín Colorado article about the value of students' home language, Dr. Fred Genesee writes:

Extensive research, again from around the world, has found that children who are learning to read in a second language are able to transfer many skills and knowledge from their first language to facilitate their acquisition of reading skills in the second language. The best evidence of this comes from studies showing that students with strong reading skills in the home language also have strong reading skills in their second language. Much of this work has been done on ELLs in the U.S. (August & Shanahan, 2006; Riches & Genesee, 2006).

Tapping into students' home languages (also referred to as a first or native language) as a resource can take different forms:

Helping students make connections between their language and English in order to identify similarities and differences, such as English/Spanish cognates

Providing opportunities to use the home language in the classroom for reading, writing, and discussion

Encouraging students to draw on all of their language skills across languages, which is called translanguaging

Promoting biliteracy through bilingual or dual-language instruction, which can support students' future opportunities and family ties (not to mention brain health!), with initiatives such as the Seal of Biliteracy, which has been adopted in many states

It is important to keep in mind that the extent to which a student's literacy skills from their first language transfer depends on many factors, such as how similar the alphabetic systems between the two languages are and whether they share any connection in their origins, such as two languages that both derive from Latin (Nieser & Cárdenas-Hagan, 2020, p. 65). The students' levels of literacy in their home language will also have an impact on their literacy development in their new language. Learning more about the languages students speak can help educators target instruction, notice patterns among speakers of the same language, and help students understand the relationship between their language and English

You can also provide students and families with access to bilingual books and texts and encourage families to continue using and developing the home language through activities such as rhymes, storytelling, and conversation at home. You will also find specific strategies related to home language throughout the key components below.

Recommended resources

In addition, as you will see below, oral language has a role to play across all reading skills, yet it often does not receive much attention as a critical part of ELLs' language and literacy development. Drs. August and Shanahan write, "Instruction in the key components of reading is necessary - but not sufficient - for teaching language-minority students to read and write proficiently in English. Oral proficiency in English is critical as well - but student performance suggests that it is often overlooked in instruction." (2006, p. 5)

Oral language supports students' literacy skills in different ways. For example, students need to be familiar not only with the sounds and letters they are learning but also the words in which they appear in order to support their word recognition and comprehension. Other more global oral language skills, such as facility with English syntax and grammar, and the ability to navigate specific language functions like describing, predicting, and comparing, also contribute to both reading and writing development for ELLs.

In addition, strengthening oral language supports students' ability to participate in peer groups and their proficiency in speaking and writing using academic language. Students need opportunities to practice applying their emerging oral language skills through partner talk and peer work (scaffolded with supports such as sentence frames), activities such as partner reading, and responding to comprehension questions using academic language.

Dr. Carrie Simkin, the director of our sister site AdLit.org, offers the following suggestions related to oral language:

Make it a learning target for lesson planning (e.g. be intentional about planning for it).

Consider how much of the learning time in your classroom is text based vs. discussion. Do students have opportunities to discuss ideas or do they mostly respond in written formats? We want to engage students in lively discussions!

Consider if students have opportunities to work in pairs as well as small groups and not just respond to teacher-generated questions.

Have you modeled how to orally respond to questions using the question as a sentence starter? Do you have sentence starters visible for share-outs?

Our strategies related to oral language are also woven throughout the components below.

Recommended resources

Note: You can read more about the role of oral language in the foreword of Comprehension and English Language Learners.

Phonemic Awareness and ELLs

Keeping the areas of home language and oral language in mind, let's dive into the five key skill areas, starting with phonemic awareness.

Phonemic awareness is an important indicator of how well children will learn to read. Sometimes it is difficult, however, for speakers of a second language to "hear" and say sounds in the language they are learning. If you have had a student who could not master a particular sound in English, the sound may not have been a part of the student's native language.

In her chapter of Literacy Foundations for English Learners, Dr. Virginia Lovelace-Gonzalez notes that, "Phonological awareness skills can transfer across languages when students have opportunities to build these skills in their native language and English" (2020, p. 53).

For example, there are multiple sounds in English and Spanish that will directly transfer between languages, even if the sounds are associated with different letters (p. 50). Dr. Lovelace-Gonzalez writes, "For ELs, phonemic activities in English can be complicated by having to recognize sounds in English that do not exist in their native language...Instructionally, it is important for teachers to determine some of the similarities and differences between English and the student's native language to ensure the opportunity to learn" (p. 53).

Phonemic Awareness: Considerations and Strategies

What: The ability to hear and manipulate the different sounds in our language.

Why it matters: Phonemic awareness is the foundation for spelling and word recognition skills.

Considerations for ELLs

Learn more about the students' home languages.

Start by visiting a resource such as MyLanguages.org or Omniglot.com, which shares an overview of many different global languages.

Ask bilingual colleagues about how their languages are similar or different from English and common areas that need attention when learning English. For example, a group of Ukrainian teachers shared some of the questions that Ukrainian speakers have when learning English in this Colorín Colorado article.

Identify whether there are any sounds that your students' languages share with English. Use these as a starting point in your instruction. In addition, find out which sounds might be new to your students and be sure to include explicit practice of those sounds.

Help students think about the connection between their language and English.

Ask students how their language is the same or different than English in terms of how the language is written, the sounds that letters or symbols make, and words that might be related.

Help students become familiar with sounds, letters, and symbols that are shared between languages, as well as those that are not shared between the languages. (Some examples across different languages are included in Literacy Foundations for English Learners.)

Ask students if they have words that begin with a particular sound, or if there are any words related to a particular word in English. This can work with students who have limited literacy skills in their first language too.

Help beginning readers learn to identify sounds in short words.

Have students practice identifying the sounds in the beginning, middle, and end of these words. You may wish to use words that begin with a consonant, have a short vowel, and end in a consonant (CVC words) such as mat, top, and bus.

One very effective method is having students match pictures of words that have the same beginning, middle, or ending sound.

Use words that students already know in English.

Videos

Learn how to pronounce the 44 phonemes in English.

Phonics and ELLs

Phonics instruction aims to help new readers understand that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken sounds. Students benefit from learning and practicing sounds and symbols, including blended combinations. ELLs often show many strengths in mastering early phonics skills but it's important to remember that decoding while reading and correctly spelling words does not ensure good comprehension.

That's why it's important to ensure that ELLs are familiar with the words they are learning to decode in order to support their comprehension. The authors of Words Their Way with English Learners write, "English learners need structured opportunities to learn many new words to add to their repertoires so that these words can become the material of their literacy learning" (2011, p. 79).

Phonics: Considerations and Strategies

Considerations for ELLs

Use a word study approach.

Word study is a powerful approach that connects letters, sound, meaning, word parts, and usage so that students are learning explicit foundational skills within a meaningful context. For example, ELLs need lots of opportunities to connect the sounds, letters, and words they are learning.

The authors of Words Their Way with English Learners write, "What is key to literacy development for English learners in the emergent stage is that they use language with teachers and peers and see oral language they understand captured in print" (Helman et al, 2011).

Look for opportunities to reinforce phonics in context.

Using literature and content material, you can introduce and reinforce:

letter recognition

beginning and ending sounds

blends

rhyming words

silent letters

homonyms

Vocabulary and ELLs

Vocabulary plays an important part in learning to read, as well as in understanding what is read.

As students learn to read more advanced texts, they must learn the meaning of new words that are not part of their oral vocabulary. For ELLs, vocabulary development is especially important as students' develop academic language - in all subjects and activities! There are numerous ways to support explicit vocabulary instruction, which is essential for developing students' vocabulary knowledge. Dr. Coleen D. Carlson writes,

For EL students, drawing attention to unknown words during the initial presentation of the text, providing appropriate levels of definitions (e.g., providing English labels for words for which concepts and labels in one's native language are understood, quick definitions or demonstrations for simple words) and tying to background knowledge is critical. No amount of simply reading and rereading words will produce knowledge of unknown vocabulary. (2020, p. 97)

Vocabulary: Considerations and Strategies

Considerations for ELLs

Draw upon students' home languages.

You can draw upon students' home languages to build vocabulary by:

It is important to give students as much exposure and experience with new vocabulary words as possible before asking students to use them in a lesson or activity.

Select words that will support the reader's understanding of the story or text, as well as for other phrases and connectors that affect comprehension (even though, except, etc.). You can pre-teach vocabulary by using English as a second language (ESL) methods such as:

Role playing or pantomiming

Using gestures

Showing real objects

Pointing to pictures

Doing quick drawings on the board

Using the equivalent in students' languages and then asking students to say the word in English

Providing a student-friendly definition

Using graphic organizers

Cognates are words in different languages that are derived from the same original word or root. About 40% of all English words have cognates in Spanish (such as the English/Spanish cognate "family/familia"). This is an obvious bridge to the English language for Spanish speakers if the student is made aware of how to use this resource.

Teach students to recognize and use cognates, or words that are related across languages, and encourage students to be on the lookout for cognates from other languages as well.

Give students an opportunity to practice using new words.

As the teacher, you can explicitly teach word meanings to improve comprehension. However, to know a word means knowing it in all of the following dimensions:

The ability to define a word

The ability to recognize when to use that word

Knowledge of its multiple meanings

The ability to decode and spell that word

The ability to use different definitions word accurately in different contexts

Ensure students understand a new word by asking them to produce it themselves either orally or in writing.

I taught a summer school unit on habitats and healthy environments, and every student had to learn the phrase, "Reduce, reuse, recycle." Over the course of four weeks I gave students many opportunities to use those words to describe what we were doing: "We are reusing the grocery bag," or "We reused the scratch paper."

Build students' academic vocabulary.

You can increase students' academic vocabulary by teaching common structures and terms used in a specific content area. For example, sentence frames are a great way to get students familiar with these structures and can be used in writing and speaking:

You can learn more strategies in this related article.

The _____ is ______ than the _____.

I can conclude ______ because _______.

Videos

ESOL Specialist Sheila Majdi: Using sentence frames with ELLs

ESOL specialist Sheila Majdi from Arlington, VA explains what a sentence frame is and how she might use this strategy with ELLs.

Interactive reading of a story

In this classroom clip, first-grade teacher Albuquerque teacher Ali Nava leads her students through an interactive reading of Burro's Tortillas, a Southwestern adaptation of "The Little Red Hen."

Focusing on language in literacy instruction

In this classroom clip, fifth-grade teacher Clara Gonzales-Espinoza helps her students expand their understanding of the way language is used in a picture book version of Cinderella.

Instruction of key academic vocabulary with high school ELLs

In this lesson, students read a letter that Captain John Smith of the English Army wrote to Queen Anne in 1616. You can see lesson materials and reflection interviews from ELL teacher Anne Formato in our related classroom module.

Fluency and ELLs

Fluency is a tricky area when it comes to ELL reading instruction. For native English speakers, fluency and reading comprehension often share a strong correlation because fluent readers recognize words and comprehend at the same time. This is not always the case for ELLs.

Many ELLs can be deceptively fast and accurate in their reading because they are good readers in their primary language and have strong decoding skills. Yet they may demonstrate little understanding of the text, and hearing the text out loud may not necessarily provide a step towards comprehension as it is likely to do for native speakers. One important factor in the connection between fluency and comprehension is ELLs' oral language skills, which Dr. Carlson describes as "an important foundation that supports the role of fluency as a bridge to comprehension" (p. 93).

Fluency: Considerations and Strategies

Inaccurate indicator of ELLs' comprehension

It is not unusual for an ELL student to read a passage beautifully and then not be able answer more than a couple of comprehension questions correctly. Decoding skills (sounding out words) and comprehending the text are two different skills.

Limited benefit from hearing texts read aloud

Native speakers who are not strong decoders can often comprehend text that is read to them better than text that they read themselves. That's because when someone else is doing the reading, they can focus on meaning without having to struggle to get the words off the page.

With ELLs, however, comprehension problems tend to be associated with limited vocabulary and limited background knowledge. Thus, listening to text read by someone else won't enhance comprehension.

Comprehension and ELLs

Comprehension is the understanding and interpretation of what is read. To be able to accurately understand written material, children need to be able to 1) decode what they read; 2) make connections between what they read and what they already know; and 3) think deeply about what they have read. Comprehension can be the most difficult skill to master, however, and can elude students who have mastered word-level skills. According to the executive summary of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth,

An important finding that emerges from the research is that word-level skills in literacy - such as decoding, word recognition and spelling - are often taught well enough to allow language-minority students to attain levels of performance equal to those of native English speakers. However, this is not the case for text-level skills - reading comprehension and writing. (p. 4)

ELLs at all levels of English proficiency, and literacy development, will benefit from explicit instruction in comprehension skills along with other skills because improved comprehension will not only help them in language arts and ESL classes - it will help them in content-area classes and in daily activities. It will also improve the chances of their interest in reading for pleasure.

Learn more from the following articles:

Comprehension: Considerations and Strategies

Considerations for ELLs

ELLs who struggle with comprehension may read more slowly, have a hard time following a text or story, have a hard time picking out important events, and feel frustrated. They may also have problems mastering new concepts in their content-area classes or completing assignments and assessments because they cannot comprehend the texts and tests for these subjects.

Check comprehension frequently.

As students read, ask them open-ended questions about what they are reading, and informally test students' ability to sequence material from sentences or a story by printing sentences from a section of the story on paper strips, mixing the strips or word order, and having students put them in order.

Use questions after reading.

After the ELLs and/or whole class have completed the reading, you can test their comprehension with carefully crafted questions, taking care to use simple sentences and key vocabulary from the text they just read.

These questions can be at the:

Videos

This video showcases a 5 th-grade team planning a science lesson about the difference between vascular and non-vascular plants. ESOL specialist Katy Padilla plays a key role in advocating for ELLs throughout the lesson planning process and sharing her strategies for engaging and supporting students.

Making Dual-Language Immersion Work

This video provides an introduction to Claremont Immersion School's dual language model and shows how teachers collaborating to develop a language arts language in English and Spanish.

Assessment for ELLs

Learn how third-grade teacher Samantha Kirch uses informal assessment in her classroom to better evaluate ELLs and their progress.

Story setup: Pre-reading strategies for comprehension

Learn about pre-reading strategies that will lay the groundwork before high school newcomer ELLs tackle a new text.

Teaching ELLs in upper elementary, middle school, and high school

Older ELLs bring a lot of valuable experience and interests to the classroom. At the same time, they face the double challenge of needing to learn content and a new language at the same time, which is further complicated if their literacy skills are limited. While they may still need foundational skills work, it can be hard to find materials that are age-appropriate. You can learn more about specific tips for supporting this diverse population from the following resources:

For great classroom videos at the secondary level, see our classroom video library!

Concluding Thoughts

This is a lot of information, but we hope that these resources and recommendations can inform your work with students as well as the conversations about literacy in your setting. The more familiar your team is with best practices for ELLs, the more effectively you can determine which practices and resources will best support your students in their ongoing literacy development - and future successes!

Recommend Resources

This new working paper released by Pivot Learning reflects collective consensus among literacy experts on key topics concerning (1) literacy and multilingual and English learner students; (2) early screening and assessment; and (3) foundational skills.

To learn more about the paper and how it was developed, see Can common ground be found on teaching reading in California? (EdSource)

Research articles and chapters

Books

Literacy Foundations for English Learners by Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan (You can see the related book study on YouTube.)

Words Their Way with English Learners: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling (2nd Ed.) by Dr. Lori Helman, Dr. Donald R. Bear, Dr. Shane Templeton, Dr. Marcia Invernizzi, and Dr. Francine Johnston

Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners by Dr. Nancy Cloud, Dr. Fred Genesee, and Dr. Else Hamayan

Dual Language Instruction from A to Z: Practical Guidance for Teachers and Administrators by Dr. Else Hamayan, Dr. Fred Genesee, and Dr. Nancy Cloud

Webcasts

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Reading 101 for English Language Learners

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Learning to read is a complicated process. If you teach English language learners (ELLs), however, there are a number of ways you can support their literacy and language development through targeted instruction. This article highlights ELL instructional strategies based on the five components of reading as outlined in Teaching Children to Read by the National Reading Panel (2000).

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This PDF provides writing samples of students in a variety of grades and at a variety of levels. They help demonstrate how a student's writing should be assessed. It also helps provide a good example of what a student's writing at each level should look like.

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This toolkit describes what Academic Language is and how to use it. It also demonstrates the different functions it has in different subjects. It provides examples of different ways it can be used throughout the lesson. This would be a good resource for when beginning to plan a lesson.

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This short video shows two authors that published a book about second language development and ELLs. In this short clip, they give some tips on academic language development. This video also shows that their book would be a good potential resource.

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Tip: How to help ELLs develop academic language

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This Youtube video describes what both a content and language objective are. It helps highlight the differences between the two and shows the general structure of how an objective is worded.

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What are content and language objectives?

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Scaffolds for Effective Language Objectives

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Scaffolds for Effective Language Objectives

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This PDF provides the key to writing strong language objectives. It gives a word bank to provide examples of strong verbs that could be used. It also provides examples of strong language objectives for teachers to refer to.

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Writing Effective Language Objectives Handouts (1) (1)

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This document provides a sample lesson plan for a fifth grade math class. It helps show how to create strong language and content objectives for this subject. It also helps demonstrate how academic language is important to a lesson.

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Gr. 5 Math Lesson Plan missing Eval Question responses #3-6-1

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This article provides both vocabulary and sentence frames that can be used in Math lesson. It helps provide structure to a lesson and helps the teacher incorporate new mathematical language. Math has specific academic language and these sentence frames could help present them to students in an easier way.

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This is a screenshot from the week 6 presentation. It provides different literacy strategies on how to incorporate and promote academic language proficiency in science lessons. I believe it provides good basic examples that any teacher could utilize.

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This webpage describes and advocates for the use of Science Talk to help develop academic language using science. A Science Talk is a chance for students to express themselves and familiarize themselves with scientific vocabulary. This article helps demonstrate how to utilize this technique to promote the development of academic language.

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This PDF shows a sample lesson plan for a history classroom. It is very thorough and breaks down the different supports that will be provided for different proficiency levels. It is a great example for teachers to use for future planning and helps demonstrate how to build up or take away scaffolds depending on the student's level.

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This article talks about some of the strategies that can go into planning a social studies lesson for ELLs. The article emphasizes building upon and using the students' prior knowledge to help them connect with the material. When students can connect with the material they are more likely to care about learning it.

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Consider the following scenario:

A fifth-grade teacher was preparing her class to learn about the American Revolution. She enlisted the students' help in acting out the events that led to the Revolution with elaborate props and exercises. When the class ended, the students were told they would read more about the Revolution the following day. As they left the room, an ESL student stopped and asked urgently, "But who won?"

This situation highlights some of the challenges that teachers face when helping English language learners, or ELLs, master social studies content:

Background knowledge
ELLs may not have the same background knowledge that their peers have or that textbook authors take for granted, as explained in this video clip with ELL teacher Amber Prentice.

Different perspectives
ELLs bring their own valuable and important experiences to the classroom. Often those experiences can be connected to the content in meaningful ways; however, if different points of view or ideas aren't expressed or identified, students may miss key concepts and ideas in the lesson.

Academic language and vocabulary
ELLs must learn the academic language and vocabulary needed to comprehend and produce new content - all while learning the new content and concepts at the same time!

For content-area teachers with limited experience working with ELLs, planning a lesson that engages them and helps them learn new material may seem daunting. The good news is that there are a number of ways to engage ELLs with social studies content and draw on their own unique background knowledge and perspectives. This article will describe some strategies for planning social studies lessons with ELLs in mind.

In addition, I recommend taking a look at the following resources:

Note: Lesson Planning to Ensure Optimal Engagement of ELLs (Chapter 2 of Teaching English Language Learners Across the Content Areas), is available online and provides a number of helpful resources, including a checklist for modifying lesson plans for ELLs. In addition, Appendix Two of the book (not available online) provides a lesson modification worksheet.

Lesson Planning Strategies

Identify key concepts necessary for understanding the lesson

When choosing your key concepts, keep in mind the following:

Background knowledge
ELLs with limited or interrupted schooling may not have that same level of knowledge as their peers, especially when it comes to historical or cultural topics. When starting a new lesson, look for references or concepts that may need to be explicitly explained.

Language proficiency
Students may already possess content knowledge that they cannot yet demonstrate in English. Look for opportunities to make associations between students' experiences and new content.

Perspective
Students may have a different perspective on the content than their peers. These differences provide an important opportunity for class discussion and learning as long as they are handled in a sensitive and respectful ways.

In addition, plan to find out what students know about the topic you are teaching before getting started. This will help you fill in gaps and build on prior knowledge. A great tool for this activity is a Circle Map, in which you place the main topic in a small circle and add student ideas in a bigger circle around the topic. You may wish to allow ELLs to use their native language with peers for a quick brainstorm before presenting their ideas to the whole class.

Identify content and language objectives

These objectives are a great way to focus on the most important information and language structures you want your students to master. Content objectives focus on the material while language objectives focus on vocabulary or language structures that students should be able to use throughout the lesson (Haynes and Zacarian, 28).

Think about how you are going to:

introduce these concepts using simple language,

break the concepts down into the most basic elements,

keep the objectives visible to students during the unit (i.e., post them on the board or provide a simple outline to keep in binders).

Identify key vocabulary and academic vocabulary

Identify key terms, words, idioms and phrases - TWIPS, according to Dr. Zacarian (19). Choose the vocabulary that your students need to know in order to support their reading development and content-area learning, in addition to key content vocabulary. Remember to prepare student-friendly definitions for TWIPS ahead of time. It may be helpful to look at other social studies vocabulary lists as well.

In addition:

Look for problem areas
Clarify potential areas of confusion, such as homonyms or words with more than one meaning.

Include signal and directional words
Remember that students may also need explicit instruction in signal or directional words ("because" and "explain"), especially those words that are likely to appear frequently in the content materials or activities.

Don't overlook the basic words
There may be many words used through a lesson that native English-speaking students will understand but that ELLs don't know. Keep an eye out for these words, no matter how basic, and make a list of words that your students have questions about so that you can refer back to it when teaching the lesson in the future.

Use visuals and manipulatives when possible
Having a visual reference for new words is particularly helpful for ELLs.

Keep words visible and accessible to students
Post words on a word wall, or try using a "portable word wall" chart that students can put in their binder. The chart might include categories such as new words, old words, people, everyday words, words to review, etc. (Haynes and Zacarian, 59-60).

Remember to include lots of student practice
For students to really know a word, they must use it - or they will lose it. Use new words in class discussions or outside of class in other contexts if appropriate, such as on field trips. Give the students as many opportunities to use and master the new vocabulary as possible, both in writing and speaking activities. You may find this six-step process for teaching academic vocabulary from Dr. Robert Marzano helpful.

Prepare to preview the text

One strategy is a "chapter walk", where students predict what the chapter will be about based on pictures and highlighted features of the textbook.

An activity like this may take some time at first because it's time-consuming to teach. If you use it with regularity, however, it will become easier and quicker, and students will be able to do this on their own at the beginning of a new chapter.

You can also use the "BIG FOX" strategy, published by McGraw-Hill. This graphic organizer helps students pick out important terms and pieces of information before reading. I recommend practicing this strategy with some simple readings about familiar topics before jumping in with the textbook. The students will understand the strategy better if they start out with concepts that they understand.

Prepare multimedia, visuals, and related readings

These resources can be used to build background knowledge and provide context for ELLs, especially when students are learning new concepts and words. Ideas include:

Using photos from books, magazines, or the Internet to supplement textbooks.

Showing brief, focused video clips of history or social studies programs.

Listening to a short podcast or radio clip of an interview or speech.

Discussing additional readings such as related articles, poems, letters, and graphic novels.

Enlist native language support when possible

These strategies can help students identify content they already know, or master new concepts before transferring those ideas and learning how to express them in English:

Collaborate with a bilingual paraprofessional and identify areas where bilingual language support will be most helpful.

Look for related content materials in the students' native language from publishers like Scholastic or National Geographic/Cengage.

Plan group work in which students can use their native language with peers to discuss main ideas or vocabulary words.

Plan to include group work throughout the unit

Peer learning activities such as Reciprocal Teaching and Think-Pair-Share can be powerful tools for engaging ELLs with content learning.

Use modeling and clear instructions to ensure students understand:

how the activity works

their role in group work

the objective of the activity

any key vocabulary or phrases they should be using.

Here are some other tips on group work for ELLs from Haynes and Zacarian:

Assign students group roles that match their language ability (37).

Promote students to new roles as their language skills improve (42).

Make sure that mainstream students understand that they will be working in diverse groups, and that everyone's contributions are important (41).

Keep an eye on the balance of student participation; if some students are speaking more than others, ask them to think of some ways to even participation out (42).

Ask students to reflect on their group work after they have finished an activity. Haynes and Zacarian include a chart in their book with some guiding statements for student reflection (48).

Plan plenty of opportunities for students to interact with the content

Give students lots of opportunities to engage with and review the material in different ways:

Graphic organizers
Use graphic organizers to review key concepts and vocabulary words.

Flash cards
Have students make their own flash cards with pictures, definitions, key facts, etc.

Working with the text
Teach students to underline, highlight, and make notes. You may also find that sticky notes, Wikki Stix, and highlighting tape are a big hit with students (68). According to Haynes, some school districts order extra textbooks for their ELL classes so that teachers can keep a highlighted copy on hand as a student reference.

Use acting
Have the students write skits about the material they are learning, or create an activity in which students provide a physical representation of a particular event or vocabulary word.

Be creative and flexible with writing assignments

Writing can be an important way for students to show what they've learned:

Be creative and flexible
When choosing writing activities for students, be creative and open to different ways for students to express their new knowledge. I have seen students successfully convey what they learned by writing letters, poems, news articles and mosaics with vocabulary key points. Writing an essay may be more difficult for ELLs, and although they need to learn how to write a good essay eventually, they should be allowed to demonstrate their learning through a variety of writing activities.

Look for writing exercises that relate to the topic at hand
This may include a biography or autobiography, a letter from the point of view of a historical figure, or a short news article about a famous event.

Provide models
Give ELLs explicit structures and sentence frames to follow. Frames may vary in complexity and specificity, but they will help students to model correct structures and usage from the beginning.

Plan to adapt homework and assessment as needed

While it's important to have high expectations of ELLs, it is also important to have realistic expectations of the amount of work they can do. Haynes and Zacarian note, "The teacher's goal should be to making learning accessible and meaningful for every student without lowering expectations or sacrificing rigor" (104-105).

They continue in Chapter 7 of their book to provide a number of helpful rubrics and step-by-step procedures for evaluating your homework and assessment activities with ELLs in mind. In Twenty-Five Quick Tips for Classroom Teachers, Haynes suggests that teachers "adjust homework assignment to your ELLs' English language proficiency (and) modify assessment so that your ELLs have an opportunity to show what they have learned."

As you look for ways to help your students learn this new content, remember that you aren't just teaching them required social studies standards - you are helping your students adjust to a new life and country. That preparation has a potentially significant ripple effect because your students may be helping their own parents navigate this new country as well, and they may need to prepare for a U.S. Citizenship exam one day in the future.

Through social studies lessons, you also can prepare your students to be engaged and well-informed participants in our society and democracy, an opportunity they might not have had in their own country due to their religion, gender, or ethnicity. When you think about it that way, teaching ELLs to master new social studies content is so much more than adapting a lesson plan - it's a chance to prepare a new generation of young people to lead us into the future.

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Preparing an Engaging Social Studies Lesson for English Language Learners

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Consider the following scenario: A fifth-grade teacher was preparing her class to learn about the American Revolution. She enlisted the students' help in acting out the events that led to the Revolution with elaborate props and exercises. When the class ended, the students were told they would read more about the Revolution the following day.

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I included this journal about assessing ELLs because it helps breakdown the important of assessments while also providing guidance on how to develop assessments. The article also provides examples of different ways to assess a students knowledge which makes this a good reference source.

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This article highlights some of the myths that are connected to ELLs and Special Education students. I included this article because these myths are dangerous because they keep both ELLs and Special Education students from receiving the proper support they need. Debunking some of these myths could help future teachers help their students in the proper way.

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Some Myths Regarding ELLs and Special Education

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Several myths prevail in the area of special education for ELLs. These myths guide us in the way we approach education in general, in the way we interpret students' behaviors, and in how we teach and assess students. The following are commonly held misconceptions regarding ELLs and special education.

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I included this toolkit because it helps provide lots of different resources for both ELs and ELs with disabilities. My favorite feature of this toolkit is that it provides information into the process of how an EL is evaluated and determined whether or not they need special education placement. Understanding the process is very important and can help parents and students realize why they are receiving the support/placement that they are.

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This PDF provides a guide for the TABs observation method. I included this resource because this observation method helps accomodate for the different ways students share their knowledge in the classroom. It helps ensure that all students' success is seen even if they portray it in different ways than their peers.

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This is a screenshot from the week 11 presentation. It shows different strategies that can be used to challenge gifted ELL students. I included this because I believe it is a good resource. Making sure students are appropriately challenged is the only way they can continue to learn.

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This is a toolkit that breaks down the use of technology while also demonstrating different ways it can be done. I like this as a source because it helps educate why it is important while also then teaching different ways to use it. It uses real life classroom scenarios to help advocate for the use of technology.

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I included this article because it describes different ways that technology can be incorporated into the classroom. I really like this as a source because it also includes links to video examples of technology being used. I like that it provides both a written and visual example for teachers to refer to.

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Technology Integration to Support Language Development

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A few strategies coupled with technology integration can enhance English language learning in the primary classroom.