In a recent post on ASCD’s Inservice blog, McREL’s Jane Hill focuses on newly arrived ELL students at the middle and high school levels who have limited or interrupted formal education and suggests strategies that can help teachers meet these students’ unique needs. A focus on functional literacy, for example, and speaking basics is a good place to start, Hill writes, so that students can “do the authentic reading and writing they need to function” as soon as possible. She also suggests an approach developed by Stanford researcher Jeff Zwiers referred to as PIE, which reminds teachers that speaking and listening activities should be purposeful, include intentional language or fill in an information gap, and be used for explicit language development.
McREL in the News
Blog post: How to help ELLs with limited formal education
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McREL is a non-profit, non-partisan education research and development organization that since 1966 has turned knowledge about what works in education into practical, effective guidance and training for teachers and education leaders across the U.S. and around the world.