Bilingual Special Ed

Yesterday September 22, 2012 the Huffington Post reported on the following gains of a dual language school in California. The article entitled Education Nation: Finding Classroom Success In Bilingual Mix Of Spanish, English can be found by clicking here.

The main points of this article are the following:
1. Children learn best when they can use the mother tongue/native language as they become bilingual
2. Hispanic children/students are successful learners like ALL other students including than Anglo students!
3. Bilingual and bi-literate students has the power to gain more over the professional career
4. Bilingual and bi-literate programs support cultural diversity and prepares children to participate in a multi-cultural America
5. Investing in our students pay off despite legislation that outlaws the use of bilingual programs!
6. Dual language programs are communities that engaged all parents and have more respect for diverse cultures
7. Dual language programs prepare children for a global economy
8. Often times students in dual language programs outperform students, including Anglo and Asian students, when learning in dual language programs
9. Anglo students also outperform their peers in monolingual English only programs

Don’t we all want this for our children?

Thank you Education Nation for highlighting this very successful school.

I am happy I can be a parent, researcher, and education consultant working with dual language programs in Boston. See
Joseph J Hurley K-8 school.

What a great article on the outcomes of Latinos in our nation. This researcher from John Hopkins University shares that when looking at children over time, first generations immigrant children outperform US born students. Read more …http://nbclatino.com/2012/09/11/study-first-generation-immigrant-children-do-better-in-school-than-us-born-kids/

The state of North Carolina conducted an evaluation of the Dual Language Programs in their schools districts. The results are more evidence that there are ways to help ELLs succeed and close the achievement gaps among our children. Equal opportunity! Please link to the following report
http://esl.ncwiseowl.org/resources/dual_language/
Below are the main points:
Dual language instruction is favored across all groups and situations.
Effect sizes are consistent with other large-scale research studies.
1. Dual language programs appear to substantially raise test scores of ELLs and African American students
2. Reading and Math scores of students in two-way dual language education are higher for all students regardless of race/ethnicity, socioeconomic, LEP or special education status.

I just finished reading the article Progress Monitoring to Support Science Learning for All Students by my colleague Kimberly Vannest and co-authors. In this article she presents a progress monitoring strategy for science and perhaps even a way to think about it for social studies/history, etc. The idea is simple lets identify the key words by grade level from state standards, curriculum, and experts in the field and create a probe that would allow the teacher to measure how well the students are learning those concepts over the year. Yes, this is called curriculum-based measurement and it works. In fact it has 30 years of research backing it up. To read the how to article please visit the Council for Exceptional Children website and under the publications look for Teaching Exceptional Children journal -July/August 2012 vol.44 (6) pages 66-72.
Dr. Vannest also has developed a free online web tool that will help you create this method for progress monitoring using key words so visit her free website Data to Knowledge (D2K)at http://d2k.tamu.edu/index.php
Thanks Kimber– great work!

USC Rossier Online

Great find in Pinterest– I love the one where all Latinos want everyone to learn English– really!

One of the biggest challenges that educators deal with today is serving students who are learning English and who may have a learning disability. In this interview I share some strategies that educators can use when addressing this concern– do this child have a disability or it just part of the process of learning English– read more
at http://www.edc.org/newsroom/articles/intersection_sped_and_ell

Hi Everyone here is information directly from the the national spelling bee organization on the bilingual spelling bee. Please share it with your schools:

Spelling Bee Goes Bilingual
CONTACT:
David Briseño
(505) 238 6812
nmabe@suddenlink.net

Albuquerque to Host Second Annual Santillana National Spanish Spelling Bee

ALBUQUERQUE, 7/17/2012:

The National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, will host the Second Annual Santillana National Spanish Spelling Bee on July 21, 2012.

The Second Annual National Spanish Spelling Bee is again being organized by the New Mexico Association for Bilingual Education (NMABE) and the Alliance for Multilingual Multicultural Education (AMME). The Bee is modeled after NMABE’s annual state Spanish Spelling Bee, which has been held in New Mexico since 1994. David Briseño, executive director of NMABE, is leading the effort with the assistance of a local planning group.

The event offers the opportunity for all Spanish-speaking kids across the nation, be they mother-tongue speakers or children who are learning the language, to showcase their command of Spanish spelling.

This year’s event will bring together 19 students from 7 states to compete for the honor of being the Santillana National Spanish Bee champion. “We have grown a little from last year’s event,” stated Briseño. “We have either more students participating this year from 7 states. That is up from the four states represented last year.” The 19 students will come from the states of California, Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Oregon.

Although Spanish is considered a “morphophonemic” language in which it is relatively easy to spell, the Spanish Bee challenges native and non-native speakers alike to excel in important academic arenas within the language arts. Beyond the act of actually spelling, Spanish diacritical marks are also a challenge for students. It is much more than just memorizing spellings.

As contestants prepare for the National Bee, they accrue valuable skills for academic learning. For example, they develop dictionary skills as they look up definitions, building greater understanding of the language. Word origins are also analyzed, and since thousands of Spanish words come from Greek, Latin and Arabic, the contestants increase their lexical repertoire which helps in many areas of study, such as math, science, literature, etc. Finally, Spelling Bees not only validate and give equity to the Spanish language, but also contribute greatly to the development of a positive self-image for the contestants.

For more information contact David Briseño at nmabe@suddenlink.net or visit www.nationalspanishspellingbee.com

This recent article by the National High Schools Center looked at Early Warning Indicators (EWI) of English language learners to identify graduation trends for these students. Edweek has published a recent article on this report and it highlights :
1. How well 9th graders perform in their courses predict whether they will graduate– more telling that their English language profiency.
2. Grade point average
3. Attendance

These 3 indicators can accurately predict the high likely of dropping out of high school. As part of a multi-tier system of support (MTSS) or an Response to Intervention (RTI) model we can used this information to provide a strong core that engages students and keep them coming and completing their work at Tier 1 level. It can also serve to identify Tier 2 and Tier 3 needs and interventions so that they can perform in their courses and be successful in 9th grade thus increasing the probability that will graduate. This is a great link between this two frameworks with promising practices for teachers and administrators.
Here is a link to the article in Ed Week

Here are 6 great website with a variety of activities that support Spanish language. Great for Dual Language Programs and ESL students learning English

Spanish Resources here are a few that are excellent and have families pages in addition for resources for teachers etc.

Colorin Colorado: http://www.colorincolorado.org/families/
Esta pagina de web en Español ha sido diseñada con el fin de brindarles información útil para ayudar a sus hijos a convertirse en buenos lectores y en estudiantes de éxito en contextos bilingues.

Ñanduti : http://www.cal.org/earlylang/benefits/benefits_of_being_bilingual.html
Esta pagina de web tiene informacion sobre las ventajas de ser bilingue.

Spanglish Baby: http://www.Spanglishbaby.com
Esta pagina de web a sido diseñada por dos madres apasionadas de que sus hijos hablen sus dos lenguas.

Discovery Kids en Español: http://www.discoveryfamilia.com/juegos/
Esta pagina tiene juegos para niños en Español que les deja practicar sus habilidades de lectura y matematicas

Libros en Español para comprar: http://astore.amazon.com/spangl-20

Cervantes Virtual Books a differente niveles: http://cvc.cervantes.es/aula/lecturas/inicial/lectura_05/texto/
Aqui pueden encontrar libros virtuales en tres niveles en Español

Recursos para la lectura en Español: http://wellstone.spps.org/Recursons_en_Espa_ol.html

En esta pagina de web pueden encontrar cuentos en Español y otros recursos para ayudar a sus hijos.

For researchers and teachers this page is also very informative: