ELL News Headlines

According to the National Institute For Early Childhood Research, nearly half of all 3-year-olds and a third of all 4-year-olds in the United States were not enrolled in preschool in 2019. That's in large part because many parents can't afford it. Imagine a future where we changed that. A future where every American child had access to two years of preschool during a critical period of their mental development. How would their lives change? How would society change? It turns out, we kind of already know.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a new effort Monday to feed millions of children this summer, when free school meals traditionally reach just a small minority of the kids who rely on them the rest of the year. The move expands what's known as the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer, or P-EBT, program into the summer months, and USDA estimates it will reach more than 30 million children.

The first scientific focus of NASA’s Perseverance rover is a rock named "Máaz" – the Diné (Navajo) word for "Mars." The rover’s team, in collaboration with the Diné Nation Office of the President and Vice President, has been naming features of scientific interest with words in the Diné language.

April is National Poetry Month. Of course, reading, writing, and performing poetry can and should be done any time of the year, but April encourages newbies and doubters to give verses a try. Audiobooks are a particularly effective medium for poetry, with well-chosen narrators enhancing and amplifying the written text; reluctant readers could especially benefit. Novels in verse often combine gorgeous words with affecting narratives, making these recent #OwnVoices titles revelatory this month and beyond.

A survey last month of educators by the EdWeek Research Center found that about two-thirds recalled there was one school-issued device for every middle and high school student before the pandemic. Another 42 percent said the same about elementary school kids. In the same survey, 90 percent of educators said there was at least one device for every middle and high schooler by March of 2021. An additional 84 percent said the same about elementary school students. That dramatic change is sure to impact teaching, learning, district operations, and school budgets long beyond the pandemic.

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra how the Biden administration is housing and handling the unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border.

Hundreds of migrant children are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border every day. Ultimately they will all be placed with sponsors in households around the U.S. until their immigration cases are heard. In recent years, Houston, Texas, has been the No. 1 destination for these teens. Houston Public Media's Elizabeth Trovall reports.

The experience of living through a pandemic, and the immediate and long-term mental health needs resulting from the last year, may be quite different for some students of color than for their white peers, educators say.