The instructional framework presented in this book is intended to help teachers provide all young children, but especially English-language learners, with rich, meaningful, and interactive literacy instruction. Referred to as LEALE, the instruction is grounded in the traditional Language Experience Approach (LEA). It has been expanded to encompass principles and practices of research-based early literacy instruction as understood and presented in current professional literature. The approach is presented in an attractive, easily understood style that invites both beginning and experienced teachers to engage their students in literacy. The LEALE instructional framework presented here grew out of the many happy hours that the author spent working with children and their teachers over the years. Included are pictures and examples of classroom materials (chart stories and journals) from children in Belize, Central America, and children in urban centres in Alberta, Canada. This title also features: a brief history of LEA and its enduring merits an overview of the research that supports the enhancements of LEA included in LEALE a full description of LEALE, with examples a guide for planning instruction, including examples of unit topics and related resources descriptions of supplementary learning activities designed to enhance children's learnin recommended assessment procedures reproducible materials to aid teacher planning and record-keeping

"Nessel and Dixon show teachers how to effectively support English language development by using the Language Experience Approach." —David E. Freeman and Yvonne S. Freeman, Professors of Literacy, ESL, and Bilingual Education The University of Texas at Brownsville "Provides the tools teachers need to use this natural way of helping English Language Learners. The Language Experience Approach makes language and language arts accessible to the students in need of basic skills." —Roberta E. Dorr, Associate Professor of Education Trinity University, WA Support ELLs while meeting the goals of your literacy curriculum! English Language Learners (ELLs) enter the classroom with different levels of proficiency—and confidence—in English. The Language Experience Approach offers K–12 teachers an instructional framework and classroom strategies for meeting students at their level and helping them use their strengths as speakers and listeners to build reading and writing skills. Research-based and used successfully in practice, this method actively engages students by allowing them to construct their own texts and bring their personal experiences into the learning process. The authors: Offer detailed, step-by-step directions for using the Language Experience Approach in English language instruction Include examples of the kinds of texts that are generated by ELL students Describe activities teachers can use with those texts to refine and extend learners′ literacy skills Appropriate for teaching students at varying levels of English proficiency, Using the Language Experience Approach With English Language Learners is a valuable reference for teachers, literacy coaches, and reading specialists.

Packed with lessons, sample texts, and strategies, this book helps teachers use ELL students' personal experiences to improve their oral language, reading comprehension, and writing skills.

The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.

Packed with lessons, sample texts, and strategies, this book helps teachers use ELL students' personal experiences to improve their oral language, reading comprehension, and writing skills.

Beginning literacy with language : young children learning at home & school.