Thing 35: Supporting English Language Learners

My school, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., School #9, has the largest Spanish-speaking ELL population of all the elementary schools in the Rochester City School District. We have two bilingual classrooms per grade level. So I eagerly turned to this topic to learn how the library could better meet the needs of the parents, students, and teachers.

The slideshow School Librarians Can Support English Language Learners made useful suggestions:

• Updated terminology: English as a Second Language = English as a New Language.
• Provide makerspace activities (such as origami) that do not require a lot of language skills.
• A database that is available to us that I had not noticed before

Some of the suggestions made in the slideshow I have seen proven to be true in our own library:

• Make connections to the public library. Last year we had a Latina children's librarian from a nearby public library come to our school to visit the classrooms briefly. As a result, we received over 100 new signed applications for public library cards!
• Use graphic novels to support ELLs. Two teachers providing intervention for a group of ELLs used the graphic novel, Roller Girl, with great success. They found the students could understand the text because of the pictures even though it was above their reading levels.

Jacqueline Jules' book series with Latino main characters (Sofia Martinez and Zapato Power) are very popular in our library. She presents some great ideas in her article on 10 Ways to Support ELLS in the Library: 

• Incorporate songs, choral responses and visuals during story time. In my experience, I do need books with lots of clear pictures and fewer words to keep the ELLs' attention.
• A list of recommended websites including National Geographic: Kids, Discovery Kids, Smithsonian Kids, etc.
• The International Children's Digital Library  includes ​4619 books in 59 languages. I was not aware of this resource. Our bilingual social worker is always looking for books to give to parents whose family has recently arrived from Puerto Rico. Maybe this resource could help fill that gap.

As a result of exploring this topic, I have added a link on the sidebar of my library homepage entitled "English Language Learners Resources."