How to Use the Colorín Colorado ELL Strategy Library

Overview

The Colorín Colorado ELL Strategy Library includes 30 research-based classroom strategies that can be incorporated and adapted for K-12 instruction. While the strategies were written with multilingual learners and ELLs in mind, they can be used to support academic language and content instruction for all students. 

The strategies were developed by ELL experts Beth Skelton and Tan Huynh, and some of the strategies are featured in their book, Long-Term Success for Experienced Multilinguals. Additional strategies, visuals, and resources were developed by Lydia Breiseth, Director of Colorín Colorado.

Professional Learning Resources

 This guide is also available as a PDF for download, along with related slides:

• How to Use the Colorín Colorado ELL Strategy Library (PDF | Slides)

About the Strategies

You can search and filter the strategies by skill, proficiency level, skill, and targeted keywords. In addition, each strategy includes the following components:

• Strategy Overview: A quick introduction to the strategy and its purpose
• How This Strategy Supports Students’ Language Development: Additional information about how the strategy can support students' academic language development across different language domains (reading, writing, speaking, listening) and specific areas, such as vocabulary or background knowledge
• Step-by-Step Instructions: Instructions for using the strategy from start to finish, including tips on what to prepare beforehand and how to incorporate students' home languages within the strategy
• Differentiation: Ideas for differentiating strategies for different language proficiency levels (e.g., Entering/Emerging, Expanding, Developing)
• Lessons Learned: Tips to help maximize success based on educators' own experiences
• Co-Teaching Considerations: Ideas for how to collaborate around the strategy, including different roles for classroom teachers and ELL specialists
• Examples: Examples of what the strategies look like in practice, such as text, images, slides, videos, or related resources
• Recommended Resources: Additional information, research reports, or classroom materials related to the strategy

How to Use These Strategies

In order to get started, we recommend choosing just a single strategy to explore. You may wish to browse the collection or try filtering or searching first.

Example: Vocabulary Strategies

For example, let's say you'd like to find some strategies related to vocabulary. You can filter for "Vocabulary" under "Academic Language Feature" and see what might be a good fit for your lesson and goals for instruction. Some options include the following:

Introducing a new unit

• Pre-teaching Content and Vocabulary
• Using Cognates
• Using Images

Reviewing vocabulary

• Match, Sort, and Order
• Photo Gallery

Content-Area Focus

If you teach in a content area or collaborate with content-area educators, there may also be some strategies that are particularly useful for building background knowledge, illustrating a process or concept, supporting students' writing in that discipline, teaching students how to interpret visuals or data, or expanding critical thinking skills. Talk with your colleagues about their content objectives and areas where students need more support so that you can identify appropriate strategies for their instruction.

Student Input

In addition, look for ways to engage students around strategies — not just by moving through the steps of the strategies, but giving them the tools to use these strategies independently and by asking them to pay attention to what supports their learning. You can learn a lot by asking students what is working (or not!). 

For example, in their book, Ms. Skelton and Mr. Huynh share the following student response to the question, “What is your favorite class?” One student responded with the following:

Biology is my favorite class because I love learning about science. I want to study medicine after high school. The teacher gives step-by-step directions for every project so I know exactly how to complete it. She also labels pictures and explains the concepts clearly. (p. 49)

How to Share These Strategies

You are welcome to share these strategies in settings such as:

• Email or newsletters
• Resource collections, lists, and Padlets
• Co-teaching, collaboration, and coaching
• Printing the strategies to share with colleagues

For example, Areli Schermerhorn, an ELL/bilingual peer evaluator in Syracuse, NY, has begun using the strategies directly in her work with teachers. She writes,

One of the most important parts about my job as a peer observer is sharing meaningful feedback with teachers. The Colorín Colorado ELL Strategy Library has significantly facilitated this task. It has become a staple among the resources I recommend to teachers. Teachers appreciate ideas that are both straightforward and grounded in the best practices and research. 

The ELL Strategy Library from Colorín Colorado not only provides clear, step-by-step guidance but also offers suggestions for adapting instruction to meet the needs of students at different language proficiency levels. This aspect is particularly transformative as it emphasizes the importance of crafting instruction that addresses the language development of our English learners. Additionally, I find the insights in the "Lessons Learned" and the considerations for co-teaching immensely valuable. With the inclusion of videos, images, diagrams, and detailed examples, teachers can confidently implement these strategies.

Activity Ideas for Professional Learning

You can also use the strategy library as part of professional learning, giving educators a chance to explore the library and share what they are finding with each other. You can bring up the strategy library with a link or QR code. The related slide deck below also includes these activities.

1. Strategy Exploration

In order to help your colleagues get familiar with the strategy library, try the following activity in a group setting. (This works best if each person has a laptop, but it can be done on phones or tablets as well.) You can also use a graphic organizer for this activity, described below.

1. Pair partners together and assign each person a role (Partner A/Partner B).
2. Ask each person to bring up the strategy library on their device.
3. Ask each person to choose a single strategy to explore and read.
4. After reading through the strategy, use a "turn and talk" activity so each participant can summarize what they learned. Then ask Parter B to do the same.
5. Ask each person to fill out the Strategy Library graphic organizer, which prompts them to write down how they might use and share the strategies they have explored.

6. If you have time, repeat the activity with a new strategy.

7. Ask people to share their findings and ideas with the larger group.

Discussion questions

Additional questions for discussion might include:

1. What strategy are you excited to take back to your setting and why?
2. How can you use this strategy in your instruction or collaboration?
3. What is an example of how you might use this strategy in content instruction?

2. BINGO!

You can also play ELL Strategy BINGO! This will likely work best in a group of people who are meeting in person and can move around the room.

3. Strategy Focus

Another option is to take a deep dive on a particular strategy. You may wish to choose a strategy ahead of time, or you can poll participants about the strategies they’d like to learn more about.

A deep dive could include sharing an overview of the strategy, asking participants to read through the strategy, and then inviting participants’:

• Observations
• Questions
• Ideas for how and where to use the strategy

To take it a step further, you could then try a strategy brainstorm activity, described below.

For example, let’s say that your attendees have questions about reading grade-level text with ELLs (or they are getting those questions from colleagues). You might focus on Text Engineering, which includes a
related slide deck, activity, and graphic organizer.

After reading the strategy and discussing ideas for application, you might ask participants to think of a situation where this strategy would be relevant, try their own text engineering exercise, and plan how to
introduce and practice this strategy with students.

4. Strategy Brainstorm

You may also wish to try an activity where participants get practice looking for strategies around certain topics. This is good experience to prepare for co-teaching situations where teachers may be working on a wide range of topics, sometimes with little advanced notice.

Here's how it could work.

1. Share a sample topic, or two sample topics for different ages (one for elementary and one for secondary).
2. Ask participants to work with partners to choose a couple of strategies that they could use to support that topic. (You can also ask them to write their answers in a shared document so you have a record of the brainstorm.)
3. You may wish to ask partners to focus on different aspects of the lesson, such as Pre-teaching / Reviewing, or Vocabulary / Concepts.
4. Then ask the pairs to share their ideas with the larger group so that people will hear a range of ideas on the same topics.
5. You could then repeat the activity and ask participants to choose a topic they have recently co-taught or have coming up.

Sample Topic: Community Helpers (Elementary)

During this exercise, a group of elementary teachers came up with the following strategies that could be used to teach about community helpers.

• Picture Retell
• Realia and Manipulatives
• Using Multimedia Resources
• Images (Photos, Illustrations and More)
• Sentence Expansion
• Match, Sort, Order
• Student Generated Questions
• Picture Word Inductive Model

One group wrote, "Using the Picture Word Inductive Model, we might label a community helper scene with nouns first (name, equipment, places). Then we would add sentences describing what they are doing/what is happening. We would also color code nouns and verbs. Image can be used as a reference. Students could use content words and sentences to share information with a partner using the annotated image; they can rehearse orally and write too."

5. Strategy Modeling

For further extension, you may wish to have participants use and model the strategy as part of the activity.  For example, you can model the Collaborative Reading Protocol as partners read through one of the selected strategies together. As a team, they decide which of the 2 strategies (or a 3rd selection), they would like to read together. Once they select their strategy, have them follow these steps:

1. Partner A reads the first chunk of text or first section of the strategy.
2. Partner B starts a discussion about that section by asking a question, making a connection, or summarizing the information. 
3. Partner A adds ideas to the discussion.
4. Partner B reads the second section aloud. 
5. Partner A starts a discussion about that section by asking a question, making a connection, or summarizing the information.

After they read and discuss that one strategy together, have them go to the Collaborative Reading Protocol strategy and quickly review the steps they just experienced with their partner. Debrief how the protocol worked for them and what other modifications they would make to the Collaborative Reading Protocol.

Sample Topic: Invasive Species

In the same session, a group of secondary teachers came up with the following strategies that could be used to teach about invasive species.

• Using Multimedia Resources
• Student-Generated Questions
• Sentence Starters/Frames
• Collaborative Reading Protocol
• Sentence Deconstruction
• Text Engineering
• Cognates
• Annotated Diagrams

Their ideas included:

• Show images of the zebra mussel.
• Working in pairs, students chunk and summarize text.
• Use images with labels to reinforce cognates and make connections to prior knowledge and teach background knowledge/concepts.
• Identify words with multiple meanings ('lantern' vs 'lantern fly').

• Ecology: Explain the ecological consequences when foreign species are introduced into a system by using a "before" and "after" photo. What do you see and notice? What do you think happened? Use claims, evidence, reasoning strategy.

• Take a stance! Determine if introducing an invasive species is "good" or "bad"? What are benefits/consequences? Use "turn and talk" and use evidence to support reasoning.

Addressing Colleagues' Questions

Some colleagues may raise questions about whether or not it's "fair," appropriate, or helpful to learners to use scaffolds and ideas featured in the Strategy Library. The goal of the strategies is not to water down the content, but rather to increase students’ access to more rigorous content. 

Ms. Skelton and Mr. Huynh have heard this question many times in their work. They write,

When we share these strategies to make assessments more equitable, some teachers express concern that they give experienced multilinguals an "unfair advantage"...In response, we share that even highly experienced and skilled mountain climbers use scaffolds such as ropes and harnesses. Their tools do not shrink the height of the mountain. They just make climbing the mountain possible. (p. 62)

One suggestion they offer is to share examples of student work produced with and without these kinds of strategies and scaffolds. You can also encourage educators to do their own research by trying a strategy and comparing how students did before and after. While it may take some trial and error, many educators become more open to these ideas (and even share them with others) once they see what is possible!

What Teachers Are Saying

"Yet another amazing resource from @ColorinColorado!"

"Leaning on tried and true strategies to scaffold learning for our ELLs…priceless!"

"I’m starting sequencing and life cycles with my first graders…might have to try Match, Sort, and Order!"

"This is like gold. Can’t wait to explore this with colleagues in the 'strategies and tools for diverse learners' in-service. Thank you @ColorinColorado!"

"If you have ELLs in your class, you need to look at this!! All strategies in one place & differentiation examples! Thank you!!"

"This feels like a PD waiting to happen…"

Professional Learning Session

This slide show (presented in Google slides) introduces the ELL Strategy Library and how to use it. You are welcome to share these slides in professional learning settings! Please share attribution to Colorín Colorado.

Here are some tips for using this slide deck:

• We recommend that you look through the slides first to get familiar with the content, activities, and pacing. Some slides include videos and light animation.
• We also recommend that you plan how much time to spend on each discussion activity. Some prompts can be answered quickly; others allow for more in-depth discussion. We have not assigned suggested timing.
• You may wish to ask participants to share highlights from their discussion with the larger group so that they can learn from each other.
• There are no notes; everything you need to present is available on the slides themselves.