What is an English learner:
- English language learners (EL) are students that are learning to read and write in English while simultaneously learning to speak and understand it.
The facts:
- Learning to read requires written language with oral language. However, this is impossible if the student cannot recognize the words on the page and verify their accuracy and meaning.
- All students, not just English learners, need varying levels of support.
The “road to code” and the “road to understanding”:
- “Road to code” - learning how the sounds of a spoken language are represented in writing; the basic understanding that printed letters represent speech sounds and using that understanding to read words
- Best way to master the “road to code”: direct and explicit instruction
- ”Road to understanding” - learning how to make sense of the world as you experience it; this includes an understanding in vocabulary, morphology, syntax, background knowledge, etc.
- Best way to master the “road to understanding”: explicit teaching and direct experiences with the world, interaction with others, and planned and unplanned events and activities
- These two roads converge at their final destination: full and competent literacy
- Learners need to successfully travel along both paths and taking shortcuts (such as guessing at words) will lead to limitations to what they can accurately and fluently read
- The necessity of traveling along these two roads is true for English learners as well as learners that already speak English
- For English learners, however, instructors must take care to present them with words and text that are meaningful
For more detailed information, visit the original source linked below.
