A panel of experts told EdSource on Tuesday that for English language learners, it’s important to balance phonics and other reading skills all students need with opportunities to grow students’ understanding of the language they are learning.

“Good language development is letting students play with words … by practicing saying the words, illustrating what the word means, practicing the words in various contexts and practicing with their peers,” said Ka Vang, principal at Frank Sparkes Elementary in Winton.

The roundtable, titled “How should we teach reading to English Learners?” delved into the research on the best practices for teaching reading to children learning in a second language. Educators also shared their experiences teaching students how to read in multilingual classrooms.

Research shows that knowledge, language and reading comprehension are deeply connected, said Martha Martinez, senior director of research and evaluation at Sobrato Early Academic Language. So in order for English learners — commonly referred to as ELs — to benefit from English literacy instruction, they also need opportunities for verbal language practice and deeper and different instruction on making meaning from the words they are reading, Martinez said.

“We know that where most ELs tend to struggle is not related to phonological awareness or decoding, but in reading comprehension, language comprehension and in vocabulary,” Martinez said. “That is not to imply that ELs don’t need instruction on phonological awareness and decoding, but rather that there is a danger in over-emphasizing these foundational skills in instruction and under-emphasizing the language comprehension part of the reading comprehension equation.”

Becky Sullivan, director of K-12 English language arts curriculum and instruction for the Sacramento County Office of Education, said it’s important for educators to recognize which reading skills students are “coming to the table with” through some type of assessment when learning to read in a new language. It’s also important, she said, for educators to have “explicit instruction in the sounds that are different” from the student’s first language, as well as the syntax and spoken grammar of English.

Sonia Aguila, a second grade teacher at Canalino Elementary in Carpinteria, said practicing language comprehension in her classroom looks like a lot of talk and engagement between students.

“Twenty-five years ago, when I started teaching, we wanted quiet classrooms. … Education has changed, and it should,” Aguila said. “Now we encourage kids to talk, share and discuss. We do a lot of things in the classroom such as ‘turn and talk to your partner’ and ‘heads together’ if they’re in small groups. At our school, we do what is called a “10-two,” so for every 10 minutes that the teacher is talking, we give students two minutes to discuss and absorb.”

Aguila also has her students repeat what the teacher is saying in order to keep them engaged. She stressed the importance of creating a “safe environment” in the classroom so that students know that it’s OK to make mistakes.

“They’re all from different proficiency levels, and the classroom should be a safe place to participate and make mistakes and learn from those mistakes,” she said.

Pedro Figueroa, a bilingual kindergarten teacher at Potrero Elementary School in Potrero, said he likes to teach his students songs such as “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and other nursery rhymes.

“In the future, when they’re reading texts at higher levels, or when they’re discussing things at higher levels, we have all kinds of references in the English language to nursery rhymes, so it’s important for them to know that, so they can make the connection,” he said.

Figueroa said he encourages his students’ parents to continue their children’s learning at home by reading and speaking to them about their classroom texts in their own language. He tells parents to ask their children two or three open-ended questions each day, so the students can talk about what they’re learning.

“We know that when kids aren’t having those dialogues about text or whatever general topic, and they don’t have the vocabulary in their first language,” Figueroa said, “it’s harder to learn it in the second language.”

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  1. Dr. Bill Conrad 10 months ago10 months ago

    Only 12% of CA English Learners are reading at grade level. Fewer than 10% can do grade level math. It’s important to keep these statistics in the forefront when we discuss best practices for teaching ELs. It appears that the practices we currently deploy are not successful for EL students! Instead of downplaying the teaching of phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency, we ought to be emphasizing these research—based practices! No? Thank goodness, the authors did not discuss … Read More

    Only 12% of CA English Learners are reading at grade level. Fewer than 10% can do grade level math. It’s important to keep these statistics in the forefront when we discuss best practices for teaching ELs.

    It appears that the practices we currently deploy are not successful for EL students!

    Instead of downplaying the teaching of phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency, we ought to be emphasizing these research—based practices! No?

    Thank goodness, the authors did not discuss the failed dual language programs that help entitled white children learn Spanish at the expense of our ELs learning English! Hopefully, dual language has made it to the ash heap of the many failed K-12 initiatives!

    It is time for a transformation of EL education as the abysmal statistics are totally unacceptable!

  2. Adelfio Garcia 10 months ago10 months ago

    Thank you for sharing articles such as this one.

  3. rini duzanne 10 months ago10 months ago

    I only know two alphabets, English and Spanish, but I found it valuable to my Spanish speaking students to say the individual letter sounds to them in Spanish and then the English sounds. It really helped them when they recognized that letters that looked the same sounded different in English.