English-Language Learners (ELL) are best described as students that are not proficiency in the English Language and their native language is not English. “English-language learner is often used interchangeably with limited English proficient student, but some school districts and states may define the terms differently for distinct classifications of students.” (The Glossary of Education Reform by Great Schools Partnership, 2013). However, the federal government and many state governments accept the use of both terms to refer to the same group of students, those with limited proficiency in English. The vast majority (77%) of ELL students in the United States are Spanish speakers; however, Samson & Lesaux, 2009 and McCardle, 2005 explained “that over 350 languages are used by ELL students in U.S. schools.” (Lerner, J. W., & Johns, B., 2014, p 362).
Although the main topic of this post targets reading for ELL, it is also important to present how we teach the English language to ELL students. There are four methods introduced in Chapter 11. English as a second language is one of them. It is a method to teach English to speakers whom native language is not English. Another method is the bilingual instruction. In this particular method, students receive part of the instruction in their native language and the other part in English. Sheltered English is another method targeting students that have some proficiency in English for them to learn the language faster using materials written in English. The last of the methods presented in Chapter 11 is immersion instruction which refers to extensive exposure to a second language. For ELL students that also present with a learning disability, the difficulties of learning the English language are even more compare to those of their peers. In addition, if these students have a language disorder in their primary language, this disorder will also be reflected in their second language as Samson & Lesaux, 2009 and Miller et. at., 2006 explained.
Regarding reading, the English language is more challenging that other languages due to different pronunciations. A single letter can have more than one sound; consequently, to learn to read in English requires a lot of practice even for those students for whom English is their native language. That means that for ELL is even more difficult. Hudson and Smith, 2011 recommended several methods to teach ELL students to read: 1. Building reading fluency which entails have students to reread orally two books that are familiar to them from past lessons; 2. Keep a running record of errors in which the teacher has a copy of what the student is reading and mark the errors to discuss them with the student; 3. Incorporate the writing into the lesson where the student writes what he or she has read; 4. Cut up the written story into sentences in which the student cuts the story in sentences and practices reading the sentences several times; 5. Write a new story is the last method in which the student reads a new book and writes a new story about what he or she has read in the new book. All these methods have proven to be effective.
As educators, we also need to meet the needs of our students with disabilities that are also ELL. As we already discussed, this is even more challenging not only for the students to learn but for educators to efficiently and successfully teach these students. “Given the responsibilities teachers have to help linguistically and culturally diverse ELLs succeed in the classroom and beyond, the field must prepare teachers to meet their unique needs.” (Yoder, Kibler, and van Hover, 2016, p 20). An important part of our professional development should focus not only in teaching students with disabilities but also considering the special needs and uniqueness of students with disabilities that are also English language learners. Researching evidenced-based methods and being proficient in them to teach the English language to these students should be within our professional goals to meet the educational needs of the growing numbers of ELL students in our schools.
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