Julia

The goal of The National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth was to identify, assess and synthesize research on the development of literacy in second language learners. The research found that factors such as first language oral proficiency and age at which language skills are acquired have an effect on second-language development. These two findings correlate most with what I have witnessed in my kindergarten classroom this year. I have 12 English Language learners in my class, many of which came in with very limited English. Most have now acquired the language needed to carry conversations, understand and complete tasks, and actively and willing participate during lessons. The Spanish language foundation that most came to school with has provided them with the support they need to understand concepts and vocabulary in English. This is evident when I translate meaning or words; they are able to understand the translation because they know what it is in Spanish. In the other hand I have some students who translations have no benefit for. The Spanish language abilities they came in with are very limited, so I often find myself having to teach them in Spanish first so that they can begin to understand what it is I am talking about in either language. Although the research shows that first language oral vocabulary does not appear to predict second language reading comprehension (p.14) I believe that is a strong tool that assists in building it. The panel also found that literacy outcomes are likely to be the results of home and school language and literacy opportunities and has little to due with socio-cultural factors such as immigration circumstances (p.15) this finding reminded me of a conversation I had with a parent. She asked where I had been born. She was surprised at the fact that I arrived in this country at the age of 5 and that my parents and I faced the same challenges that she as a parents and her daughter as a student face now. Her belief was that only those that were born in the U.S. actually went on to college. She went on and asked how I was able to finish a career. I told her that my parents did what I ask of her. They read to me in Spanish, helped out with homework as much as they could, asked for help and clarification from others, and expected that I read daily in English or Spanish. The expectations and exposure to literacy came from home and transferred to school. Catherine Snow, a senior adviser to the NLP presents the conclusion of the research. One finding is that children with limited vocabulary who try to decode words have little basis for knowing whether they are performing the task correctly. I often see this in students and not just ELL’s. My EO’s at times can’t decode words in a reading correctly because just like my ELL’s, the words are not part of their vocabulary, so they can’t correct themselves when reading them. Snow suggests that ELL’s benefit from the same type of instruction as EO’s. I believe that EO’s just like ELL’s need systematic English language instruction. How we provide it? I recently attended a training that dealt more with handling a binder for lesson planning than strategies to use in the classroom. The issue of best methods of instruction for English learners has been around for along time, lots of research has been done, yet I’m still trying to figure it out.Julia