ELL News Headlines

She doesn't recall all the details of the story or even the name of the first play she saw, performed entirely in Spanish in the basement of a Bronx church, but Annette Ramos vividly recounts this very intimate introduction to the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre. She was 7 or 8 years old. "I remember the essence of feeling like I had found my home, I found the art which spoke to my heart and my spirit ... and felt that I could do that too, and that theater was a feasible place for a Latina, brown-skinned girl to be in."

Jennifer Serravallo is a literacy consultant, speaker, and the author of several popular titles. In this blog post about the International Literacy Association's document "Children's Rights to Read," she writes, "Children walk into our classrooms with all of themselves. They are the sum total of their experiences and their expectations. We cannot ask them to leave any part of themselves at the door when the bell rings, rather, we must embrace their entirety. So, how can we do this as reading teachers?"

Fresno State has received a $3.75 million Title V grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help and encourage more Hispanic and Latino students to become teachers in the San Joaquin Valley, according to a university press release.

Despite the widespread damage to schools in the Florida Panhandle from Hurricane Michael, district officials remained "laser-focused on reopening their schools as quickly as safely possible," the state's education commissioner said Monday. 

At Hoover High School on the northwest side of Des Moines, the student body is made up of kids who speak 40 languages. The school has identified more than 350 students out of a student body of nearly 1,100 as English Language Learners.

Throughout his childhood, Jarrett Krosoczka kept painful information about his mother’s heroine addiction and frequent incarcerations hidden. After he became a successful graphic novelist for kids, he considered writing about his own life, but worried his story was too dark. It wasn't until he began meeting young fans with similar life stories that he changed his mind. Krosoczka's new book Hey, Kiddo, tells the story of his mother's addiction and incarceration from the point of view of his 17-year-old self.

The skinny boy says he's 12, though he looks years younger. He points to a crayon drawing he created this summer, when he arrived at a U.S. government-supported childcare center in Raqqa, Syria. Therapists have known for decades that a primary way young children communicate and comprehend trauma is by drawing pictures. If that's true, these drawings on the wall are one collective scream.

The number of migrant parents entering the United States with children has surged to record levels in the three months since the White House ended family separations at the border, dealing the administration a deepening crisis three weeks before the midterm elections.

From a field of ripe cotton, the triangular tops of giant tents swoop up behind a covered fence next to a border crossing where drivers tow banged-up used vehicles into Mexico. From the outside, this is about all that's visible of the temporary shelter for migrant children set up on a remote stretch of West Texas desert. Reporters got a rare glimpse inside the facility on Friday. It opened in June outside the tiny town of Tornillo, Texas, and, at the time, hosted 400 teenage boys. Last month, the federal government announced it was expanding the shelter's capacity to 3,800 beds — making it the largest shelter in the system for kids who cross the border solo. One reason is that it is taking longer for children to be released from the shelters. According to Mark Greenberg, who worked in the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, some of the children's relatives are reluctant to claim them. HHS is now sharing sponsor information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE has since used that information to arrest at least 40 undocumented sponsors.

Hispanic Heritage month brings students to Kellogg Plaza for a very special show. Ballet Folklorico de California State University – San Marcos recently created a two part region dance showcase, La Raza de Folklore, for students on campus.