Early Literacy part of the Education Reform Network

English Language Learners

• CELA
  (from their website) CELA conducts "research dedicated to gaining knowledge to improve students' English and literacy achievement in schools across America. CELA is affiliated with the Albany Institute for Research in Education (AIRE) in the School of Education at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY) and works in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.".
• Colorín Colorado
  The phrase "Colorín Colorado" appears at the end of virtually all children’s stories and fairy tales in Spanish-speaking countries - it translates roughly to "and they lived happily ever after." The website includes information, activities, and advice for parents and educators of Spanish-Speaking students.
• CREDE: Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence
  This CREDE website includes articles from a national research and development center. Included are research principles, publications, and five standards for educational pedagogy.
• Elements of Effective SDAIE Instruction
  This matrix from a university course presents various scaffolds (modeling, bridging, contextualization, schema building, and metacognitive development) for use with English language learners in the classroom. Also included in this SDAIE (Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English) model is a description of how each scaffold supports building of student understanding and examples of appropriate tasks for each scaffold.
• Fun & Games for English Practice
  The Place for English Language Learners includes activities,teachers resources, etc. Resources include materials in the following languages: Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.
• Games
  This site of interactive activities includes making words, vocabulary, concept of word, phonics, alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, and others.
• Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners: A Position Paper
  In addition to this on-line position paper, links at the bottom of the document connect to definitions of literacy, L2 teaching methods, and a literacy framework. This website is useful for both classroom and university instructors.
• Songs
  This site features video and audio clips of songs to reinforce early literacy acquisition and phonics concepts.
• St. Mary's Online...Caribbean Literacy Portal
  A site that focuses on researchable issues--especially the Language-Literacy connection in Caribbean pre-school Education. Researchers, teachers and parents can make use of the materials and "lists" that are cited here.
• The Old Lady Who Swallowed the Fly
  This lesson plan contains engaging visuals to assist students in remembering the sequence of events in this lively lesson.
• Thematic Hawaiian Islands
  This website contains an overview and descriptions of five lesson plans used in second grade: (1) The Hawaiian Islands; (2) Map Skills; (3) Learning about fish that live in the ocean off Hawaii; (4) Rewrite a Hawaiian folk tale; and (5) Compare homes in Olivehurst to Punia�s home in Hawaii. A performance based unit assessment is included.