I was honored that Andrea Honigsfeld saw a file I shared on Twitter and asked me to contribute to her book, Growing Language & Literacy Strategies for English Learners K-8. I am sharing the Read Aloud Template below. How to … Continued
I had the opportunity to speak with a number of families at a Back to School Street Fest the weekend before our local schools start the 2021-2022 school year. I feel the need to list the school year because I … Continued
Teachers are working hard to provide their students with authentic assignments during asynchronous learning time. I like to think of asynchronous time as a connection to in class (synchronous) work that has already taken place or tasks that will take … Continued
School districts across the country have been tasked to tweak their models of instruction to best serve students during the pandemic. I’m lucky to work with school districts who are passionate about reaching their students, regardless of the situation. That … Continued
Do your students know what they are supposed to be learning?
How can I get to know my students in a remote environment? More importantly, how will my students get to know each other so the sense of community can still be present in our virtual classroom? I will outline a … Continued
I support K-12 teachers as an educational consultant. The districts I work with have an array of programs that are designed to service English Learners. In this blog post I will share with you a classroom activity that has been … Continued
Variety is the spice of life! Don’t overuse “turn and talk” or “think pair share”. Change things up as you pose a focused question to your students and set clear expectations of how they will discuss it! Take a look … Continued
Encounter Author Jane Yolen, Illustrator David Shannon (No, David! books) Book Summary: When Christopher Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador in 1492, what he discovered were the Taino Indians. Told from a young Taino boy’s point of view, … Continued
This post focuses on increasing the benefits of using Content and Language Objectives with your students. I have often stated that COLOs (Content and Language Objectives) should not only be used to set the scene for lessons but should also … Continued
Are you looking for activities to open a discussion on the similarities and differences of Day of the Dead and Halloween. I love using semantics feature charts to organize the similarities and differences between two ideas or concepts. Using the … Continued
Twitter. I was never going to “do” Twitter. Twitter was for people who had way too much time on their hands and were only interested in pop culture. I had made derogatory comments towards hashtags by calling them “pound signs”—showing … Continued
It’s the beginning of the school year when teachers, coaches and principals are looking for “new school year” read alouds, so I wanted to share the book I used to open my many years of teaching primary. At a great … Continued
I wanted to provide you with some ideas for professional growth over the summer. It doesn’t matter if you only have five minutes or if you can dedicate a week, there is something for you to explore which will enhance … Continued
FIND FINAL VERSIONS BELOW Co-teaching is on the rise when it comes to providing service to ELs. As Andrea Honigsfeld mentions in her latest book, the number one complaint of co-teaching remains: TIME. How can the monolingual teacher and the ESL … Continued
“Vocabulary Circuit” Activity (this link allows you to make a copy of this activity for you to edit) “Vocabulary” because teacher chooses 10 vocabulary words or concepts he/she wants to students to review. “Circuit” because all the students follow a … Continued
I am proud to share that Daisy Hernandez, my former college student and current READ customer, was chosen as Teacher of the Year at her school in San Antonio, TX! Daisy has been a dual language kindergarten teacher at Jackson-Keller … Continued
GLAD Model. Have you heard of it? Project GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design) is a K-12 instructional model consisting of 35 well-articulated strategies. Any teacher I talk to who is GLAD certified speaks wonders of how prepared they feel to … Continued
I like to share with my clients that in all language classrooms, teachers need to ensure that they allow time in the beginning of each lesson to explain content and language objectives and then again at the end of the … Continued
Why use barrier games? Every teacher needs more tools that are authentic in nature that focus efforts on building language, both expressive and receptive.
Larry Ferlazzo. This man eats, sleeps and breaths ESL and has for years! If you aren’t following him on Twitter, you should. He shares and compiles great lists to links, media, books etc. all to support ESL students and teachers. Below … Continued
Famous Pairs The “Famous Pairs” game is a great way to engage all students around Valentines Day. Since Valentines Day is all about “couples”, it is fun to point out that not all famous couples are people: salt and pepper, chips … Continued
Are you looking for something to do on a snow day? What can you do when you have indoor recess? Take a look at these gems! Design a sled Design a sled__SPANISH Comic strips
Many people in the United States and elsewhere confuse Cinco de Mayo with Mexican Independence Day. The following activity is one you can use in your classroom. It outlines key features of each of these days in Mexico. Cinco de … Continued
I know many of you get an exhilarated feeling when you enter a teacher store! We are teachers and somehow genetically designed to like stickers more than the average person. Bulletin board borders, dice of various shapes, the … Continued
In a recent article published on LinkedIn by one SIOP author (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) entitled, “Student Interaction Gone Awry”, Jana Echeverria explains how the art of engaging in conversation (Speaking and Listening Standards of CCSS) for many students is … Continued
“How many months did it take you and Mayra to complete your first book?” This was a question posed to us at the Q&A portion of our book launch event. We laughed because the word “months” was used instead of … Continued
Seriously, this is the best way to group your students for multiple opportunities to use language! I found this idea on a blog many many years ago and recently tried to seek out the instructions to share during a Professional … Continued
What is ESSA? ESSA is the bipartisan measure reauthorizing the 50-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the nation’s longstanding commitment to equal opportunity for all students. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is taking the place of NCLB. … Continued
In a recent Washington Post article, Joe Heim speaks to the fact that there are teacher shortages across the country, ”…the shortages are disproportionately felt in special education, math and science, and in bilingual and English-language education.”. Linda Darling-Hammond, president … Continued
Mayra and I are so excited to finally have this project come to fruition. We hope that with this book, you as a teacher, feel better able to provide your students with practice in areas of literacy that are essential … Continued
READ’s products and services are grounded in research. The benefits of bilingualism on cognition can only be reached when students take part in high-quality Dual Language or Bilingual programs. (Cummins, 1999, Barac, R. & Bialystok, E. 2012) Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders … Continued
