Tag: learner

Aaron Loewenberg highlights some of the ways Head Start is adapting to serve young dual language learners across the country It is no secret that the U.S. is undergoing a demographic shift. Students of color are now a majority of kindergarten students and...

Despite multiple studies pointing to teacher professional development as being the most decisive factor in student achievement, funding for such programs can still be hard to find, and there are plenty of different opinions on what types of program are most beneficial.   Last month, the Bill and Melinda...

The National Center for Research on Gifted Education (NCREGE) has published a study, commissioned during the Obama administration, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s office of English-language acquisition, to help improve the identification of English Learners (ELs) as gifted and talented by better understand the following:  What are...

Two reports have been submitted to the U.S. Department of Education which examine the extent to which states’ education plans are in step with guidance established by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) with regard to English learners (ELs). Advocacy groups UnidosUS and Achieve produced the briefs, entitled “How Have States Set Goals for English Leaners in ESSA Plans?”...

Benjamin Heuston and Haya Shamir of the Waterford Institute examine how adaptive learning software makes the curriculum effective for English language learners worldwide Literacy is the keystone to success, first in school and then in life; a common saying is that first we learn to read, but then we read to learn. Children who learn to read early and often...

Last week, the Massachusetts House passed a bill that would eliminate “one size fits all” teaching for English Language Learners ( ELL ). The bill, H. 3736 or “An Act relative to language opportunity for our kids”, was originally filed by Democrat House member, Jeffrey Sánchez, and was reported by the committee on House Ways and Means. The bill...

Language Magazine is lending its support to twenty Californian education, social justice, and civil rights organizations encouraging the state’s governor, Jerry Brown to appoint an English learner advocate to the State Board of Education. Nearly 45% of Californians speak a language other than English at home, and in our schools, nearly 1 out of 4 students is identified as an...

Kelli Sandman-Hurley recommends using the mother tongue to diagnose dyslexia The American educational system has a difficult time understanding dyslexia and an even harder time identifying children with dyslexia in order to provide the correct intervention for students who are native English speakers. When a school has the added challenge of identifying struggling English language learners (ELLs), the...

Ivannia Soto reveals how shadowing learners enables educators to monitor their use of academic language Academic language has been broadly defined as the language of school, the language of textbooks, and the language of testing. More specifically, scholars such as Krashen and Brown (2007), define academic language development in two parts: (1) Academic language, characterized by complex syntax, academic vocabulary,...