Learn about these important first steps that will help ELLs feel welcome and get them on the path to academic success. Strategies include creating a print-rich environment and connecting content to students' cultures and experiences.

Young girl in front of other girls who are playing
By: Sandra Niebuhr-Siebert
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At Mina's kindergarten she listens to stories, songs and chatter in an unfamiliar language. She tries out sounds that roar in her throat and tickle her tongue until the new words feel like her own.

A girl in her yard
By: Elizabeth I. Miller
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As a young girl begins to get used to her new life in the U.S., she compares everything around her to life back in her country. Some things — like sharing a big meal with her family — are just like home.

Take a look at the way Amber uses a concept sort for teaching vocabulary before starting a readers' theater activity based on "The Great Kapok Tree."

Good-bye, Havana! Hola, New York!
By: Edie Colón
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It is 1960 in Havana, and young Gabriella doesn't understand what the changes she sees around her in Cuba will mean until she boards a flight to New York to start a new life with her parents in the Bronx.

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