What Makes an Exemplary Curriculum for Language Learners?

The success of linguistically and culturally diverse students has become a shared goal for educators and policy-makers across both political lines because there are now over 5 million students from homes where a language other than English is spoken.   The impact of this fast paced-growth began with grants, funding sources, and other program level compliances.  […]

VOCABULARY JOURNAL: Building Academic Vocabulary with SPEED™

It’s finally available!!!!  The student journals for academic vocabulary called, VOCABULARY JOURNAL: Building Academic Vocabulary with SPEED™ is now available on Amazon!  So why did we create this resource? Well, we know that challenges with vocabulary strongly influence the readability of a text (Chall & Dale, 1995).  Not only that, but lacking vocabulary is known to […]

Essential Language for Reaching the Common Core:

Aligning the CCSS with Language Development Standards

Over the last few weeks, we have talked at length about a number of ways to increase your students’ vocabulary so that they are able to access increasingly more complex text and grow as readers and intellectual beings. In fact, with the arrival of the Common Core State Standards, we’ve all become more mindful of […]

Part 5: Teaching Cognates to English Learner Students

  When it comes to English Language Learners, it is critical that students have the opportunity to see their native language as an asset.   Particularly for native Spanish speakers, a way to do that is to help them understand the sheer amount of academic vocabulary they have at their disposal through the use of cognates. […]

Part 4: Prefixes and Suffixes

Over the last few weeks, we have looked at the different strategies for improving students’ ability to acquire new vocabulary words. Teaching prefixes and suffixes (together known as affixes) is just one more strategy teachers can provide to students in order to help them infer the meaning of unknown words that are encountered as they […]

Part 3 – Strategies for Learning Unknown Words

 Yes, students need access to a large bank of words in order to be successful readers. But they also need to be able to process and analyze new words for meaning as they encounter them. Without this skill, readers miss important parts of text that hinders their ability to make meaning. These “word learning strategies” […]