This practical book will help early childhood teachers (preK–2) understand and respond to the multiple influences (school, home, and societal) that affect emergent bilingual children’s academic achievement. The author explains the foundations of first- and second-language development and then provides teaching and curriculum practices specific to reading and English language arts. Chapters address incorporating first-language strengths, acquiring a second language, learning to read, building vocabulary, comprehending and thinking with text and language, helping children persevere, and more. Approaches for collaborating with families accompany each chapter. This book is designed to help teachers understand the underlying principles so they can modify, develop, and adjust their practice to be most effective for the emergent bilingual children they teach. It is a valuable resource for developing bilingual programs, teacher preparation, and professional development. “An excellent resource for PreK–2 educators who need to know how to effectively implement school standards and fortify children's primary languages to guarantee their success.” —Anita Pandey, Morgan State University & Author, Language Building Blocks: Essential Linguistics for Early Childhood Educators “It is rare to find a scholar with as much commitment to making research real for teachers as Theresa Roberts. This book is a gift to teachers and to teacher education.” —Sharon Walpole, Delaware University “This book offers critical information that will enable educators to start students down the road of literacy and language mastery from the moment they enter a classroom.” —Sara Tellman Veloz, founder, Buckerfield Educational Consulting, Inc.

This practical resource will help K–6 practitioners grow their literacy practices while also meeting the needs of emergent bilingual learners. Building on the success of The Reading Turn-Around, this book adapts the five-part framework for reading instruction to the specific needs of emergent bilinguals. Designed for teachers who have not specialized in bilingual instruction, the authors provide an accessible introduction to differentiating instruction that focuses on utilizing students’ strengths, identities, and cultural backgrounds to foster effective literacy instruction. Chapters include classroom vignettes, teacher exercises, illustrations of powerful reading plans for the student and teacher, resources for culturally and linguistically diverse children’s literature, and tools to engage with students’ families and communities. “Emergent bilinguals are the fastest growing population in our schools, and this important resource equips literacy educators with tools for providing equitable literacy experiences for emergent bilingual students. The authors have done an exceptional job of presenting their turn-around framework in a way that not only puts forth a vision for effective language and literacy development, but also presents a practical approach for applying the framework in today’s multilingual, multicultural classrooms.” —Jana Echevarria, professor emerita, California Statute University, Long Beach

This accessible guide introduces readers to the issues and controversies surrounding the education of language minority students in the United States. What makes this book a perennial favorite are the succinct descriptions of alternative practices for transforming our schools and students' futures, such as building on students' home languages and literacy practices, incorporating curricular and pedagogical innovations, using proven-effective approaches to parent engagement, and employing alternative assessment tools.

This book demonstrates a five-part framework for teachers, reading specialists, and literacy coaches who want to help their least engaged students become powerful readers. Merging theory and practice, the guide offers successful strategies to reach your “struggling” learners. The authors show how teachers can “turn-around” their instructional practice, beginning with reading materials, lessons, and activities matching their students’ interests. Chapters include self-check exercises that will help teachers analyze their reading instruction, as well as specific advice for working with English Language Learners. Book Features: Effective methods for differentiating reading instruction in Grades 2–5.Real-life classroom vignettes and examples of student work.Helpful teacher self-evaluation exercises.Strategies to use with English Language Learners.And much more! “This is a masterwork that is simultaneously practical and groundbreaking. . . . The model these authors use to familiarize teachers with the essential elements of reading practice is clear and beautifully illustrated with stories of children you’ll swear you know.” —From the Foreword by Ellin Oliver Keene, national staff developer “This deeply intelligent and compassionate book provides teachers with detailed classroom scenarios and dozens of teaching tools for engaging all readers. The authors demonstrate how to help all students become motivated and powerful meaning-makers of a wide variety of texts.” —Katherine Bomer, Literacy Consultant, K–12

This book follows four emergent bilingual students in an English-medium pre-kindergarten in the US as they navigate the social and linguistic demands of school. It illustrates how students’ differing classroom social positions shaped their participation in interaction and, in turn, their English language learning across a school year. With a unique focus on both processes and outcomes, the book highlights language strategies that are overlooked if the focus is solely on one language or on group participation, and it emphasizes the importance of assessment choice in shaping which learners appear to be successful. It is a powerful argument for recognising the translingual and multimodal abilities of learners, even in education which is officially English-medium and monolingual.

This book features effective artistic practices to improve literacy and language skills for emergent bilinguals in PreK-12 schools. Including insights from key voices from the field, this book highlights how artistic practices can increase proficiency in emergent language learners and students with limited access to academic English. Challenging current prescriptions for teaching English to language learners, the arts-integrated framework in this book is grounded in a sense of student and teacher agency and offers key pedagogical tools to build upon students’ sociocultural knowledge and improve language competence and confidence. Offering rich and diverse examples of using the arts as a way of talking, this volume invites teacher educators, teachers, artists, and researchers to reconsider how to fully engage students in their own learning and best use the resources within their own multilingual educational settings and communities.

We’ve been teaching reading wrong—a leading cognitive scientist tells us how we can finally do it right