ELL News Headlines

We have significant evidence that reading and writing are connected processes and highly related to each other. Interventions focused on skills transfer show that writing instruction positively affects reading — just as reading instruction positively affects writing. We know that transfer and benefits exist between the two areas, but the trick? Teachers must make the connections explicit during instruction to pay off.

Dan Santat's A First Time for Everything won the 2023 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. A clearly moved Santat accepted the award at the National Book Foundation ceremony on Wednesday night.

"Differentiated instruction" — both the term and the idea — can carry a lot of baggage in teaching circles. This blog has carried many posts, including a video series my colleague Katie Hull and I produced with Ed Week, on the topic. But I think it's so important that we can't talk too much about it, so today's post kicks off another series on how teachers can implement it.

Much attention in the post-pandemic era has been on what students have lost — days of school, psychological health, knowledge and skills. But now we have evidence that they may also have gained something: schools that address more of their needs. A majority of public schools have begun providing services that are far afield from traditional academics, including health care, housing assistance, childcare and food aid.

Blue Ridge Literacy is has received $70,000 through the Roanoke Women’s Foundation’s 2023 Grant Cycle. The Roanoke Women’s Foundation’s grant will help establish “Pathways to Success: A Mentor-Supported ESOL Bridge Program” to Blue Ridge Literacy’s English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) curriculum. Pathways to Success will provide adult learners with the English proficiency, academic readiness, and mentorship support they need to transition and succeed in Community Colleges. As a collaborative project, the Bridge ESOL classes will include informational field trips to Virginia Western Community College and help familiarize adult learners with career pathways and certificate courses with a direct tie to the labor market.

In a recent statement, The Reading League, an organization that advocates for the science of reading, and the National Committee for Effective Literacy, a group that promotes research and policies to support literacy development for English learners, agreed on best practices for evidence-based reading instruction for EL and emergent bilingual students.

These picture books feature characters who find ways to communicate with older relatives or with each other, even when they don't share a common language.

Farina King, a Navajo Nation citizen, is the Horizon Chair of Native American Ecology and Culture and associate professor of Native American studies at the University of Oklahoma. She writes, "Every November, someone contacts me to present about Native Americans for Native American Heritage Month. In such presentations, I provide background about the month and why it matters. But I also emphasize how important it is to learn about Native Americans not just in a single month or at a single event. I stress turning to and listening foremost to Native American and Indigenous voices throughout the year."

We Need Diverse Books has launched Indigenous Reads Rising (IRR), a new website dedicated to "celebrating Indigenous children's literature of Native Nations." The site features booklists and articles on Native American literature, land acknowledgment, and tropes and stereotypes, as well as extensive resources for teachers, librarians, and readers. The goal of the resources is to help educators use Native books in the classroom and offer guidance and best practices on how to teach those books.  

Service programs are just one of many solutions needed to address the challenges to our education system, and they have been proven to be effective. These programs improve conditions in schools by providing trained, near-peer coaches (often just a few years older than the students) to California’s school communities to mentor some of our hardest-to-reach students.