Picture (again) that it is your first day
of kindergarten - except instead of being an eager five year old, you are the
parent of an English Language Learner who is starting school. You've read
articles about how to best prepare your child for this transition, but nothing
could have prepared you for the moment that you must let your child go into the
realm of the unknown, primarily English language speaking world.
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| Effective Elementary ELL Strategies for Learning |
Of course, the pedagogical strategies and
transitional techniques for providing an ELL student with the optimal success
in the mainstream classroom are all over scholarly websites. But what about the
parent who does not have access to the plethora of journals and peer reviewed
documents that are just beyond their reach? For these parents, the issues of
ELLs in the elementary school classroom are also represented in the popular
media. However, the divide between the reliability and depth of these popular
media sources compared to their scholarly counterparts is great. Therefore, through the use of this article, several
credible links will be made public, exposing the best ways to aid ELL students
in the mainstream classroom.
If one was to simply go by the popular
opinion on the subject of ELL students in the classroom, they would be
disillusioned by the broad and general solutions that are given for the aid of
their students. For example, according to The Atlantic writer Melinda D. Anderson, there are many new programs being put into place for ELL learners, such as different classroom dynamics as well as revamped curricular models. However, this article does not give the reader any specifics on grade level, student age, or student cognition levels who would benefit from these programs. Anderson makes broad brush statements, but does not provide specific research within these statements to make them applicable to specific sects or groups of the ELL community. From the parent perspective, this article does not provide a sufficient explanation of how to help their child and make their schooling experience valuable. Additionally, from an educator's perspective, if parents are not well informed because popular media is too generalized, then this also makes for more difficulties when trying to get the language of the discipline across to parents. Because of this, it is important to provide parents with the appropriate solutions and models that represent what their child needs in the classroom and at home, as well as how educational professionals are prepared to meet those goals.
When the access has been
granted to look at scholarly works of literature, the depth that one can go
into on a specific topic is much more helpful for parents and teachers alike. Sharon Vaughn et al. describes in an accessible scholarly article several different types of specific elementary-school geared interventions that can be used with students that may be at risk for reading difficulties. By describing in depth a study from beginning to end and explaining its outcome, parents can have a better idea of the steps that they may have to take with their child to help them navigate the English school system if this situation applies to them. Even more specifically, an excerpt from the Journal of Reading and Writing goes into detail on morphological and phonological awareness and the connection it has to reading comprehension in elementary aged students (specifically the fourth and fifth graders who were studied). This scholarly work evidently goes into much more detail on this subject that can be applied to a case of a student who may be having difficulty in that particular area.
Upon viewing just a couple of scholarly sources, the generalizations of the popular sources that cover the Internet seem less effective for parents and teachers with the interest of a student in mind. Using both of these sources together can be helpful, but by sticking to scholarly, it is inherently more beneficial for the educational progress of ELL students being guided by parents and teachers who have the correct knowledge to make their school experience better.
