The current issue of Social Policy Report, includes a peer-reviewed, American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed, qualitative review of over 100 studies related to multilingual children: Multilingual Children: Beyond Myths and Toward Best Practices. A short synopsis and interview with the lead author is posted on Education Week’s Learning the Language blog: Multilingualism an Advantage to Nurture, American Academy of Pediatrics Says.
Category Archives: In the News
Too Many Oregon Students Unready for Kindergarten
Betsy Hammond’s Oregonian recent article, Too Many Oregon Students Unready For Kindergarten, State Officials Lament, discusses the results of Oregon’s kindergarten readiness assessment, which was administered statewide for the first time ever this fall. It highlights patterns found among racial groups, gender, and socio-economic status. Megan McClelland of OSU is referenced in regards to her research about self-control and interpersonal skills as indicators of school success. Surprisingly, the article doesn’t reference English learners, and although it laments the small number of children in Head Start Programs, it doesn’t show evidence that children in Head Start fared better on the assessment.
Second Language Acquisition by the Numbers
The Huffington Post, with Middlebury Interactive, recently presented an infographic: Second Language Acquisition by the Numbers. It makes a compelling case for increasing language instruction in the United States with facts about the languages most studied, language learning advantages, U.S. world language learning in comparison with the European Union, and the percentage of U.S. schools offering world language instruction.
Considering the number of English language learners (ELLs) in our schools, it is always surprising how few people in the U.S. are bilingual or multilingual. We continue to have huge numbers of ELLs losing their home language rather than becoming truly bilingual, and we have far too few English-dominant students who ever study another language beyond two years in high school.
Education in Indian Country
Education Week has a new multimedia presentation, including articles, commentary essays, photographs, and videos, about education from an American Indian perspective. They focus particularly on the Oglala Lakota Sioux nation in South Dakota and the Morongo Band of Mission Indians in California. As one of the articles states, “Between 2005 and 2011, American Indian and Alaska Native students were the only major ethnic group to demonstrate virtually no improvement on the 4th grade reading exam administered as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.” Read about these tribes’ efforts and struggles to improve education: http://www.edweek.org/ew/projects/2013/native-american-education/.
Teaching Tolerance Staff Picks
Have you made a winter break reading list yet? Teaching Tolerance posted staff picks of recently published “culturally aware literature and resources” for teachers of all grades: http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-45-fall-2013/department/what-we-re-reading?elq=f48bbd2862a6452d8090bc04f35adb25&elqCampaignId=186. Warning: This is a interesting list that may inspire to rush off to the library, Grass Roots Books, the Book Bin, or your other favorite source of new books. Finish finals first.