Resources for Teaching Foundational Skills to Multilingual Learners

Are you a middle school or high school teacher of Multilingual Learners? Do you teach ELD or ESL and serve Newcomers or LTELs (Long Term English Learners)? 

If you do, you might realize that some of your students need more support with foundational skills in English. They may also not come to us with literacy in their home language. For our LTELs, this may be part of the puzzle for why they even became LTELs in the first place. 

No matter what situation you are in, there is one thing that is clear- you want or need more support in your learning for teaching your students these skills. I know that as a high school teacher, I did not get this learning. We are not equipped a lot of times in our teaching credential program or from our district to teach older students foundational skills. 

Here are some resource recommendations for teachers starting off or already in their own professional learning around teaching foundational skills for Multilingual Learners, or English Learners. The book recommendations came from my friend Dayra Gaitan Crespo of EL Literacy when she came to be a guest speaker inside of our secondary ESL teacher membership, My MLL Mentor: High School. She is a great resource as well.

 Books

• Uncovering the Logic of English by Denise Eide
• Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching by J. Richard Gentry and Gene P. Ouellette
• Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers by Louisa Cook Moats
• Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom by Jan Burkins and Kari Yates

  ~Side note for Shifting the Balance- Dayra and I did not discuss this one, but it is one that my district provided us with along with access to the authors' online course. If your district has funds for you to attend this course, it was great! I plan on returning to the materials they provided over and over again, as well as the book.

Podcasts

• Sold a Story

          ~I devoured this podcast! As someone who had no clue about the details
           of the reading wars, this podcast was intriguing to say the least. 

• Melissa and Lori Love Literacy
• The Six Shifts

           ~This is a podcast by the authors of Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring
​             the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom.

• ​The Science of Reading by Amplify Education
• Boosting Achievement: The ESL Podcast by Carol Salva, Episode Literacy for Older Newcomers, What is Practical and Effective

These are just a few resources out there that are either free or the price of a book (minus the Six Shifts course). I hope these resources are helpful for your reading foundations journey for your ELLs and MLLs. 

If you would like to continue this conversation with us, check out our high school ESL teacher membership to listen in and for more resources and support. 

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