"Reading is a joy for my kids, and to swing in a hammock on a lazy summer day reading a good book just goes with summer."
-- Marcia Gay Harden
Schools nowadays often give reading and math assignments that students are required to do during their summer vacation. My school in Massachusetts had lists of books for each grade level, starting at Grade 3, and students had to choose 2 books to read and then complete 2 of the tasks from another list to show they’d read them. When school resumed in the fall, the work was collected, discussed in a Language Arts class, and a notation was made on students’ report cards if they had completed the assignments.
Talk about taking the fun out of summer!
I looked at the list of books each year and very few of them were appropriate for my ELLs. Even though each grade level had books at a range of reading levels, most were still too difficult for any but the most proficient ELLs.
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ELLs need to read & write in English during the summer but they can still have fun; source, The ESL Nexus |
What can be done to mitigate this? In our #ELLEdTech chat yesterday, lots of online programs, websites and apps were recommended. You can use the hashtag #ELLEdTech to search for the chat and find the 15+ tools that were recommended.
In addition, several suggestions to help teachers present a summer learning program to their students were offered. I’ve expanded on those ideas and created a checklist that you can use to help you organize learning opportunities for your students during their summer vacation. You can grab your free copy HERE.
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Click HERE to grab your free copy |
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See you in August! source: The ESL Nexus |