English Language Learners

This kid came in to special class midway through semester and was put at fourth grade level. He could not read and was very frustrated. He was given some spelling words to memorize. He could do that. But he didn’t know what the words meant and could not use them in a sentence. He could not read!

His parents were probably itinerant workers because he talked about various states he had been in – Oregon, New Mexico, Texas as well as the country of Mexico.

ELL students don’t understand nouns like quart or lap and verbs like pat. They understand what a quarter is, but a quarter to ten? The concepts are too advanced.

I found out that the math teacher was reading the word problems to students. She was gone one day and I was in charge of her group. It nearly drove me crazy. They raised their hands and said, “I need help!” I would go over and they would point at the words and expect me to read to them.

Even though they were second language learners, they understood English. They just could not read it. Or they could read it but not know what it said. They could say the words on the page and make it sound like they were reading. You could probably do the same thing with a Spanish book. Try it sometime.

Even spelling workbooks where student had to fill in missing words were too hard for them because they couldn’t read any of the other words in the sentence.