Excellent ELL Resource for Educators and Families

By Alison Sharp, School Psychologist

 

 According to the 2013-2014 Winston-Salem/FCS demographic information, approximately 22 percentile of our school population is Hispanic, a number which is slowly but steadily growing.  As an educator, you have likely either worked with students who are English Language Learners (ELLs) or will be working with an ELL in the near future.  As educators, we are always looking for ways to reach our students and help them attain their potential, despite whatever barriers they might face.

 Colorin’ Colorado http://www.colorincolorado.org/ is a fully bilingual, easily usable website for families and educators of English Language Learners (ELL).   This website is appealing to a variety of audiences, such as educators, administrators, librarians and families.  According to the website “ Teachers who work with English as a Second Language learners will find ESL/ESOL/ELL/EFL reading/writing skill-building children's books, stories, activities, ideas, strategies to help PreK-3, 4-8, and 9-12 students learn to read.”  This website contains a wealth of information, ranging from ELL topics from A-Z, ELLs and policy, and ELL research and reports.   It also includes a glossary of some commonly used school terms that may be mystifying to people who are not school personnel.   There are a variety of easily downloadable materials available, such as “Toolkit for Teachers” which is described below:

 “Colorín Colorado, Reading Rockets, and the American Federation of Teachers have developed the Colorín Colorado-AFT Toolkit for Teachers: Reaching Out to Hispanic Parents of English Language Learners. This toolkit includes background information on reaching out to Hispanic parents, four sample workshops, videos in Spanish and English, and bilingual handouts.”  Hard copies are available for a small fee, and downloadable materials to accompany the “Toolkit for Teachers” are available on the website for free. Other multimedia materials are available as well on a number of topics.

 The section for families contains information on many relevant topics.  These are valuable for families who want to help and to be involved with their child’s education, but may not know where to begin.  Available resources range from frequently asked questions, fun reading tips and activities (such as Spanish rhyming games), how to build strong home-school partnerships and what parents can do at home to help.  Although materials on this website are predominantly available in English or Spanish, reading tip sheets on ways to foster literacy in the home are available in 11 different languages, for parents of children ranging from babies to 3rd graders. 

 In conclusion, this resource is definitely worth checking out!

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