Teaching for ELLs

At the beginning of the school year, I distribute this menu of testing modifications for classroom teachers that have my ESL/ELL students. There are three spots in the chart to work through. First, I put in student names by level, so teachers can reference students WIDA levels quickly. Next is a spot to list students that are eligible for pull outs during testing. Finally, I go through the list of possible testing modifications with the classroom teacher and we highlight which modifications wou

Using National Geographic/Cengage's ELD Curriculum, Inside, Volume 1, to have students begin using "First", "Next", and "Then" to sequence and organize their writing. I used this with early middle school (6th grade), but could be used with younger or older newcomers if your school uses this text. The high frequency vocabulary (from, home, go, many, there, etc) from the textbook are included to incorporate and consolidate what they learned in Unit 1. Uses a graphic organizer to break the paragrap

Two tasks to help students start preparing for the WIDA ACCESS Speaking test and get students to speak longer. First task is restating the question. Many students are tempted to offer short answers of just a few words to answer a question minimally, but the better strategy is to echo the question, which boosts comprehension and vocabulary usage. After that, the second task is to give at least two reasons and pieces of evidence from a text. This is a basic speaking activity with minimal reading t

Part of my work with #FUSERI was around supporting districts through PD on Blended Learning models. This slideshow presents an overviews good for district or school level, to help educators understand types of Blended Learning and begin thinking on how to thoughtfully implement it in schools. Please feel free to use and remix this slideshow!