ELL News Headlines

The Trump administration, brushing aside tens of thousands of protest letters, gave final approval on Wednesday to a rule that will remove nearly 700,000 people from the federal food-stamp program by strictly enforcing federal work requirements. The rule, which was proposed by the Agriculture Department in February, would press states to carry out work requirements for able-bodied adults without children that governors have routinely been allowed to waive, especially for areas in economic distress.

Young children need consistent exposure to high-quality, play-based early learning experiences at home and at school for literacy and language to flourish. This is especially true for pre-K children who are dual language learners (DLLs), cultivating these fundamental skills while acquiring a second language. With particular interest in how young DLLs' language and literacy skills develop over time, a new study compares children's development in both English and their home language over the course of one pre-K year.

Dr. Kelli Sandman-Hurley, co-founder of the Dyslexia Training Institute in San Diego, California, says dyslexics learning English can sometimes be overlooked for two reasons: first, there's not a lot of research on the topic and often educators don't know what to look for, and second, reading difficulties can often be attributed to learning a new language.

Teaching Thanksgiving in schools is often heavy on the crafts and light on the historical facts. Teachers Michelle Portera, Andrea Riley-Mukavetz and Molly Till talk about how they do it.

For communities with significant numbers of Latino and immigrant residents, the barriers to an accurate 2020 Census count are high—and so are the stakes for their schools.  The census count has grave implications for school funding for the next decade: Undercounts could put districts at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars for early-childhood education, high-poverty-area schools, special education, foster-care funding, and child-care support for low-income families.  Nearly 40 states are likely to miss out on federal funds for programs serving families and children because of an undercount of Latino residents, according to a report released in earlier this year from Child Trends, a Bethesda, Md.-based nonpartisan research organization.

In today's world, there are more people living as refugees than at any time in history since WWII. Around half of those refugees are children. And in the political climate we have in the world today, the average length of time a refugee spends away from their home country is nearly 20 years. That means millions of children around the world are spending their entire childhood as refugees, often in camps that have few, if any luxuries, and lack the educational opportunities kids need. Sesame Street wants to address that.

Every day, every season, we are grateful, writes Traci Sorell, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and author of We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga, a colorful picture book illustrated by Fran Lessac and featured on this year's Read Across America calendar. The picture book takes readers on a journey through the year with a Cherokee family and their tribal nation as they express thanks for celebrations and moments big and small. Sorell, who was born and raised in the Cherokee Nation, began writing for children when she noticed a lack of books that feature contemporary Native Americans. NEA Today spoke to Sorell about We Are Grateful:Ostaliheliga and the lessons it contains.

The nation's largest public university is pushing to raise its minimum standards for freshman admissions — a move that has galvanized opposition from advocates and some school districts that argue it puts more roadblocks in the path of students who already struggle to meet current requirements.

East St. Louis, one of the country's poorest cities, has been labeled the worst-performing school district in the nation. The lead poisoning and asthma rates here are some of the nation's highest, and 43 percent of East St. Louis residents live below the poverty line. In a place where some neighborhoods have been labeled child care deserts because there are no child care centers, community leaders hope that improving early childhood education will reverse the city's fortunes.

HarperCollins Children's Books will launch a Native-focused imprint, Heartdrum, in 2021. The imprint, which will be led by author Cynthia Leitich Smith and HarperCollins Children's Books vice president and editorial director Rosemary Brosnan, plans to bring "a wide range of innovative, unexpected, and heartfelt stories by Native creators, informed and inspired by lived experience, with an emphasis on the present and future of Indian Country and on the strength of young Native heroes" to young readers, according to the publisher's announcement.