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Teaching English Language Learners to Read

This free webcast is available online anytime.

It is made possible by AFT Teachers, a division of the American Federation of Teachers, as part of a Colorín Colorado partnership between AFT and Reading Rockets.

Featuring Diane August, Margarita Calderón, and Fred Genesee discussing best practices for teaching English language learners.

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Program description

In classrooms around the country, teachers need to teach reading to children who don't speak English, and they haven't been trained. Last year, the U.S. Department of Education convened a panel of scholars to determine the best research-based practices for teaching English language learners. The panel hopes to release its report in 2004. For this teleconference, we brought you three members of the panel who shared their expertise as independent researchers in the area of second language acquisition.

Moderator

Delia Pompa is the moderator of this webcast. She is the Vice President of the Center for Community Educational Excellence, at the National Council of La Raza.

Presenters

Diane August is a Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Margarita Calderón is a Research Scientist at Johns Hopkins University, Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR).

Fred Genesee is a Professor in the Psychology Department at McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Discussion questions

How does your school district assess language proficiency of incoming ELL students? Is social proficiency assessed differently from academic proficiency?
In your own words, describe the difference between word-level skill and text-level skill attainment for ELL students. Then, describe specific things teachers can do to increase ELL students' text-level skills.
Consider a read aloud you recently used. What vocabulary or concepts were presented in the book that could cause confusion for ELL learners? What could you do to scaffold the read aloud experience that would benefit ELL learners?
Compare and contrast the teaching of comprehension strategies to ELL students and to native English speakers.
Create a list of teaching behaviors that could promote comprehension skill development for ELL students.

Download resources

If you currently teach English language learners (ELLs) you may find the following downloads useful:

ELL Starter Kit for Educators — Tools for Monitoring Language Skills.
Colorín Colorado — AFT Toolkit for Teachers — Reaching out to Hispanic parents of ELLs.)
Multilingual reading tips for parents — Available in 12 languages!

Videotape

Click here to purchase the videotape of this program.

The Reading Rockets Professional Development Webcast Series is a production of WETA. The Reading Rockets project is funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.

This program was produced by WETA/Reading Rockets, which is solely responsible for its content. The views expressed in the program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of WETA/Reading Rockets, our funders, or our partners.

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