Dear Heather I am an ESL teacher in a K - 6 school that is 50% ELL. I highly recommend reading Juli Kendall and Outey Khuon's book titled "Making Sense - Comprehension Strategies for Small Group's of ELL's" It is the "Strategies That Work" for ELL's! They also have a writing book as well. You can find them at Stenhouse. I believe you can read the first chapter on line on the Middleweb website indicated below. I would highly recommend reading Julie's website. Although sad to say Juli passed away, her Middleweb website is still maintained! She did a tremendous amount of work in California with Hispanic speaking students. I would buy her books and read her website. I have several Spanish speakers. We use the Harcourt Trophies series. Although I am not a fan of the series, it does contain a lot of literature related to the Hispanic community. Your students will love to read about their culture and heritage. Juli lists many good literature sources to use for both reader's and writer's workshop. http://www.middleweb.com/mw/workshop/R_W_Project.html
As students move along the acquisition spectrum, you will come to find the students will have common errors in their language development Obviously, irregular verbs, tenses and endings will be difficult. Unlike some other languages, Spanish to English is a little easier for most. Being a low -socio economic community brings other challenges. You will need to build a lot of background and expose them to experiences as much as you can. Many of my students need a background in American history/culture and social studies in general. Anytime you can develop their academic language will help them across the content areas. Fiction can be difficult to read due to the many idioms, figurative language, vocabulary and multiple meaning words. I tend to read fiction to my beginners while modeling reading strategies and explaining the language. I have them read non - fiction in guided reading. As they move from beginners to intermediates, then I begin to introduce more fiction. Although I know it is important to develop their reading and writing skills, it is also important to develop their academic language and vocabulary. I just started literature circles with my older intermediate to advanced students. One group is reading the Henry Zipser "D" is for Salami. I find some of the students understand the humor in the book and are truly enjoying it, while others in that group do not comprehend some of it because they have not fully assimilated culturally. Keep in mind it takes 6 - 9 years to become truly fluent in a language and 10 - 16 years to assimilate to a culture. Many of your younger students (grades k - 2) will learn to read and write in English and not in Spanish. English will quickly become their primary language (although they may not be fluent). Encourage your families to continue development in their first language. The more solid a foundation a child has in their first language and pre - literacy skills the more apt they are to develop a second language. Best wishes to you. I love my job because I love my students. I learn more from them than they do from me. You will enjoy learning about their culture. Feel free to email me off the listserv at any time! Donna Kleinert Hatfield PA. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
