Wednesday, January 30, 2013

From My Dining Room Window

Today is a very typical Iowa winter day. Snow falling and what has already descended to the ground is taking another trip through the air thanks to the steady wind. Not a blizzard, yet. I'm lucky that my work can be done at home so I am safe and warm, happy to have a glorious view of the birds trying to get one more grain from the bird feeder. They are fun to watch, some very happy to share, others fight for their spot in the feeder. Some with short stubby beaks, others with long pointy ones. Kinda like some people I know both in looks and attitude.

One of the many things I should be doing instead of blogging is reading the book I started yesterday, "The Literacy Gaps, Bridge-Building Strategies for English Language Learners and Standard English Learners" by Ivannia Soto-Hinman and Jun Hetzel. This 2009 publication by Corwin Press is proving to be an interesting read. I have spent a lot of time reading and working with students learning English for the first time, even second generation ELs, some from literate families, others who have never been in a school. This book not only addresses ELs but also children in poverty, African American children who speak AAVE, rural Appalachian children, children with illiterate parents, our American born, English speaking migrant children, and on and on. We have homegrown children who are often overlooked or misplaced into special education when all they need is support in learning Standard American English, the language of our schools.
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This is one reason that I am so thrilled about the implementation of the Common Core, here it's the Iowa Core, in our schools. Finally the mainstream educational realm has listened to the ESL professionals. Every teacher is a teacher of English, every teacher is a teacher of reading, listening, speaking and writing. Now all we have to do is convince the teachers of this. Oh yes, and let's not forget our institutes of higher ed. If we don't prepare our future teachers to include the four domains of language in their content classes, our next generation of educators will be just as clueless as all of us before them. I did include myself in that last statement. For many years I was totally and hopelessly clueless as to why some kids got it and others didn't. It wasn't until I started my grad work in the TESOL field that things started to click. There's so many things that I'd change if I had them to do over.

For anyone who wants a refresher on teaching reading or help taking your first serious look at how you teach, I suggest this book. Call Corwin, maybe they will give you a sample copy.