Vanessa

As I read the two chapters one authored by Catherine Snow and the other Diana August, I noticed many commonalities in their research. For example, they both view significant factors that affect second language literacy such as age which skills are required, individual differences in second language oral proficiency and cognitive abilities, first language oral and proficiency and literacy, some social cultural variables, and classroom school factors (pg. 1). I agree with their views on the factors that affect a child’s second language literacy development. Especially the factors of the home school connection to aid literacy (pg. 634). For instance, if there is a home school connection, students feel welcome, motivated, and prepared to learn grade level expectations the following quote support this idea, “Studies reviewed in Part III bridging home and school differences in interaction patterns or styles can enhance students’ engagement, motivation, and participation in classroom instruction (p.15). Both researchers share the similar observations of ELL’s meeting the same expectation of their monolingual peers in the area of decoding and spelling. However, as we look at the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy ELL’s have a difficult time performing at the comprehension, analytical and the levels beyond (pg. 633). As a teacher of ELL students I am aware of the students’ struggle of trying to achieve or acquiring the language without the appropriate support at home. I have had first hand experience with the struggle of the home and school connection when growing-up. For example, at home I would receive a lot of “Chicano” Spanglish talk, which had many grammatical errors when spoken. As a child this is what you know, therefore it sounds or seems right for you, but in the academic classroom it is not acceptable for standard English requirements. I can empathize with my students and know how they feel, but reaching all of them without the appropriate materials is difficult. As a teacher I feel challenged because I do not believe we are adequately trained in the area of supporting ELL’s. For instance, our district provided ELD training by Susan Dutro, however this seemed more of like a review on how to maneuver through the binder rather than applying HOW to use the content and strategies in it. Many teachers found the program confusing and not teacher friendly. In addition, not many trainings were provided on application, and the trainings on maneuvering through the binder were limited at that. It is more frustrating now because we invested our time and money in this program and then it was abandoned after 3-4 teacher trainings and a different program was adopted this year called RTI (Response to Intervention). We experienced scarce trainings, if at all, on how to implement the RTI program as well. As stated in the following quote, “Unfortunately research has failed to provide a complete answer to what constitutes high literacy instruction for language minority students” (pg. 16). This could be a reason why our district has had such a high turnover on adopting a successful ELL program. The development of a successful ELL program for teachers has yet to be developed. As a teacher I feel that we are always given a program, but no true explanation on HOW to teach using the program is ever provided.