In October 2023, a new deaf student, "Zuri," showed up in my second grade classroom. This often happens. Parents move into and out of the district for work, and it is common to get a new student in the middle of the year without warning. Zuri's eyes were wide when she came into the classroom, and she looked scared. Who were all these…

In Texas, English language learner (ELL) students are assessed annually in academic subject areas using the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) at elementary and middle school levels. This report describes continuously enrolled Austin Independent School District (AISD) ELLs' performance as compared with all AISD students'…

This report presents third grade English language learner students' 2012-2013 STAAR and TELPAS results and provides a comparison by program type.

Through order and English immersion, a network of charter schools strives to turn Latino students into informed citizens and leaders inside and outside the community. Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization, or UNO, is a Latino advocacy group with a history of community organizing. The group recently received a $98 million grant from the…

This article discusses the qualitative study of a bilingual teacher's practice in working with a student with a learning disability. The author first examines student demographics as they specifically relate to the achievement of Latino school children and then segues to an examination of the nature of instruction provided to English language…

International Grammar School was founded twenty years ago on the belief in the benefits of immersion language learning for children. It offers immersion second language learning in German, Italian, French, and Japanese which continues through kindergarten into the high school years. With language as the medium and not the object of learning,…

Examines instructional practices organized around the funds of knowledge that children bring to the classroom, attempting to debunk the cultural deficit perspective, which disregards the cognitive and linguistic schema that students already have in place. Describes how these instructional practices transformed the literacy development of one…

Ten years ago, an ethnographic study in a bilingual whole-language third-grade classroom identified conditions that defined the classroom as a learning community: a high level of intellectual expectation, symmetric power and trust relationships, authenticity, and additive bilingualism and biliteracy. The students' insights strengthened the…

Looks at how a short story by three students in a bilingual third-grade classroom came to be. Examines the literate practices already established in the classroom; the classroom norm of using two languages; learning to include information from multiple sources; and learning that interaction is a valuable part of the writing process. (SR)

Questionnaires were mailed to first, second, and third grade state bilingual education program teachers in five selected South Texas school districts to examine criteria used by state bilingual education program teachers to transfer limited English speaking ability (LESA) children from Spanish reading to English reading. Three-fourths of the 31…

Outlines the instructional strategies that overcame the language difficulties of a Hispanic/Anglo third grade social studies class. The class focused on local history in Pasadena, California which required competence in both Spanish and English. Includes instructional materials, graphic organizers, and guidelines for further units. (MJP)