by PRP Group, on 03/18/2024
When I began teaching English as a second language (ESL), I had anywhere from seven to 13 different languages in my classroom because our district was in an area with a lot of recent immigration. It was an entry point for me to begin thinking about what a rich profession teaching is, along with how students develop their early reading skills, especially when they are learning multiple languages at once.
Today, I am the director of Literacy First, a program that the University of Texas launched almost 30 years ago with the mission of teaching students to read in the early grades. Literacy First fulfills its mission by offering a variety of support services, with a particular focus on achieving successful outcomes for growing readers, including one-to-one literacy interventions, teacher and staff training, instructional coaching, data-centered advising, and bilingual and culturally sustaining reading resources and interventions. One of the things I’ve learned a great deal about along the way is how to run an effective summer reading program for emergent bilingual students.