Connecting Content and Academic Language for English Learners and Struggling Students, Grades 2–6

Book excerpt: In this supremely practical book, award-winning principal Ruth Swinney and college professor Patricia Velasco focus on the careful planning needed to develop the academic language of all students. For English learners especially, it is critically important to integrate language development with the content that the curriculum demands. What makes this book unlike any other is the detailed guidance it provides to: help students advance from social to academic language; encourage verbal expression in the classroom; plan language arts, social studies, and science lessons that connect language and content; and use shared reading and writing, read alouds, and conversation to teach language skills. Hands-on tools include graphic organizers, sample lesson plans, concept maps, semantic webbing, word walls, and worksheets, and everything teachers need to help emergent bilingual and struggling students master the academic language they need to excel in school.