Keyword: Dual Language Learners
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Working with Interpreters
This list provides early childhood educators and administrators resources on collaborating with interpreters in order to communicate with families who speak a language other than English.
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Building Relationships with Refugee Caregivers During Home Visits
Many adults and children from other countries enter the United States with the goal of creating their homes here every year.
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Refugee Families
n and their families.
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Resources to Help Serve Dual Language Learners (DLLs)
Across Illinois, early childhood programs serve a very culturally and linguistically diverse group of children and families.
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Choose Good Books That Accurately Reflect Cultures and Home Languages
When teachers and child care directors are seeking new books to add to classroom libraries, it’s important to think intentionally about the children and families who will be reading those books.
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Let’s Write a Grocery List
Caregivers can engage children in early writing experiences such as list making to support their early literacy skill development.
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Language Development, Communication, and Literacy
This Early Learning Moment provides an overview of the Language Development, Communication, and Literacy domain of the Illinois Early Learning Guidelines for Children Birth to Age 3. This section of the guidelines describes how infants and toddlers learn to understand and communicate about the world with other people. This section also describes how children develop…
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Get Ready to Read
Set your young child up for reading and writing by building knowledge, skills, and habits that create a strong foundation for future literacy.
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Preventing That Summer Slide
Increasing young DLLs’ language skills and vocabulary in their heritage language is important for learning future academic skills.
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Retelling “Caps for Sale”
Children gain great comprehension and communication skills when they have the opportunity for rich discussion during read-aloud times. Stories read aloud also can provide opportunities for children to use their memory skills and retell stories with their peers and teachers.
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Talking About Numbers and Letters
In this video, 4-year-old Martín plays with letters in a bilingual prekindergarten classroom, where teachers provide instruction in both Spanish and English.
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Maintaining Home Language Is a Great Gift
Young children are like sponges and take in a lot of information from their environment and process it to learn new things.
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Children’s Play – More than Fun and Games
This list contains a variety of resources which can aid teachers, parents, and caregiver in providing a diverse selection of play options for children which promote skill development.
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Welcoming Latino Children and Families to Preschool Programs
This list contains a variety of resources associated with welcoming Latino children and families to preschool programs.
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Supporting the Literacy Development of Diverse Language Learners in Early Childhood Classrooms
This list contains a variety of resources associated with supporting the literacy of development of diverse language learners in early childhood classrooms.
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Repeated Readings Can Build Literacy Skills
Story reading and retelling the story is one important way for young DLL children to develop strong language and literacy skills.
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Parallel Talk: A Simple Way to Provide English Vocabulary
Children’s families are a strong source of support for promoting the home language in classrooms and other caregiving settings.
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The Tamale Project
Domenica AguileraAnn Reid Early Childhood CenterNaperville, Illinois The title of this project was “Making Tamales.” This project took place at the Ann Reid Early Childhood Center (ARECC) in Naperville, Illinois, where I have been teaching for two years. The children range in age from 3 to 5 years old, and they attend 2.5 hours in…
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Reading Partners: Sharing the Lead in Storybook Reading
Bilingual couples often hope that their children will grow up fluent in each of their languages. Reading storybooks in both languages can help support this ability. This clip shows the benefits of repeated readings of a familiar book in both English and Spanish.
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Dual Language Use During Choice Time
This video shows 5-year-old Imelda interacting in English with an adult visitor and singing in Spanish during choice time in her half-day bilingual classroom.
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Helping DLLs Learn in Two Languages During Early Childhood
Teachers and caregivers of young DLLs can support the development of both English and the home language through intentionally connecting with children’s families.
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“She Goes First”: Cooperative “Housekeeping” Play
In the clip, Victoria (age 5), Micaela (age 5.7), and Mandi (age 5.8) are engaged in what is sometimes called “housekeeping play.” Speaking in Spanish, they put some of their ideas about family life into action as they pretend to wash dishes, prepare food, and eat together.
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The Right Word: Conversation and Print During Pretend Play
This clip shows children don’t necessarily need structured activities to meet benchmarks. When teachers schedule large blocks of time for free play, children can learn in unexpected ways by engaging with each other and the classroom environment.
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One Morning at the Construction Table
When children build something, they often address physics problems related to keeping the structure together.
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Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley: Learning Through an Action Song
In this video, we see a group of children singing the folksong, “Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Grow” during a large group activity.
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Keep It Moving: Playing With Hoops
This video shows children playing with hula-hoops in a large space for motor activities at an early childhood center.
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Welcoming Parents of Dual Language Learners to Parent-Teacher Conferences
For families of dual language learners (DLLs), the parent-teacher conference may be a new experience.
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Children in Refugee Families Need Extra Care, Attention
Many refugees are settling in the United States as a result of wars in the Middle East, Africa, Central America, and Asia, and many arrive in Illinois as part of our nation’s formal refugee resettlement program.
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Learning Through Music and Movement
Summer events are a way for families and caregivers to have fun and share their favorite music with young children.
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Summer Language Learning in Community Settings
As the weather warms up, DLLs, their families, and caregivers have many opportunities to spend time together out in the community.
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Creating a Language-Rich Classroom for Young Dual Language Learners (DLLs)
As children learn English as a second language, they may not feel competent to respond to conversations with native English speakers. Attentive teachers and caregivers understand this and accept nonverbal responses during conversations.
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Celebrate Multicultural Children’s Book Day
It’s wonderful to have a special day to focus our awareness on multicultural children’s books and their authors.
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Rituals and Traditions in Programs That Serve Young Dual Language Learners
One of the wonderful aspects of early childhood programs is that the staff, together with children and families, can create rituals and traditions that build a sense of community within the program.
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Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month
Hispanic Heritage Month may be celebrated with songs, books, artwork, crafts, food, and field trips.
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Welcoming Immigrant Families to the Preschool Classroom
When immigrant families first arrive in a U.S. preschool setting, the classroom teacher should be aware that the family may wish more detailed information (preferably written in their heritage language) about U.S. preschool practices.
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Active Play Promotes Young Children’s Development
Active play provides opportunities for children to link their physical movements with the new words they are learning.
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Learning Math Words: Family and Caregiver Conversations
Having a strong math vocabulary in the heritage language helps young DLLs grasp these concepts when learning about them in English (often in preschool and kindergarten classrooms).
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Creating Books With Young Dual Language Learners
Young children love to hear and tell their own stories.
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Learning New Words Through Read Alouds
One of the delightful ways to engage with young children is through reading books aloud.
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Keep the Conversation Going With Young Dual Language Learners
Teachers and caregivers of young DLLs can engage children in meaningful conversations that teach new words and explain their meaning.
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Visual Schedules and Checklists
Grown-ups often use a daily calendar or checklists to remind them of their meetings and tasks. Children also benefit from simple schedules or checklists.
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Summer Family Time Can Help Build Heritage Language Skills
In the summer, families may attend neighborhood block parties, go to the pool, or visit together at community festivals. Sharing these special events with extended family members provides opportunities to engage young DLLs in conversations and introduce new words in their heritage language.
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Maintaining Home Language Is Key to Later Reading in English
One of the most important ways families, teachers, and caregivers of young dual language learners (DLLs) can promote development is by connecting words children have learned in their home language to words in English.
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A Mother’s Story: 3 to 5 years old
I shared my experiences with my son Joshua’s early years in the last blog. I will continue talking about his experiences in school as a dual language learner (DLL) in this blog
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A Mother’s Story: Birth to 2
What I would like to share with you now is about the hat I love the most, being the mother of a dual language learner (DLL), Joshua, who started kindergarten this year. I will talk about his birth to very early years here and share my experiences with his later years in the next blog.
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Helping Preschoolers Learn in Two Languages
Here are some ways that teachers who are not fluent in their preschoolers’ home languages can help.
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Teachers and Families of Dual Language Learners (DLLs): Partners from the Start
For young children who are DLLs adjusting to the first few weeks of prekindergarten can be stressful. Teachers can ease some of the stress during this transition period by forming a partnership with the families before school begins.
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The Arts Lesson Addressing Benchmark 26.B.ECa
Snow had fallen on the playground and the children in Ms. Jones’s and Ms. Hernández’s classroom ran to the window to see the snow falling on the trees. The children were excitedly talking about how the snow on the branches covered the tress. When the sun came out, the children were excited to see the…
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The Arts Lesson Addressing Benchmark 25.B.ECa
Ms. Jones and Ms. Hernández are planning for their school year. One of their goals is to engage the children in hands-on investigations of nature. Their school is next to a park, and they plan to use that space to extend their learning outdoors. They decide the seasonal changes in the park trees could be…
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Physical Development and Health Lesson Addressing Benchmark 23.B.ECb
The classroom’s pretend grocery store is a popular play area. In other adapted lesson plans, the children have taken a field site visit to a local grocery store and reflected upon their trip with photos (16.A.ECa), learned a silly song about grocery stores (25.A.ECc), and built a pretend grocery store where they exchanged money for…