Winter Break Writeups

As winter break approaches, teachers meet it with mixed emotions. The time off does wonders for you, but when your students come back hyped up on holiday treats—and their concentration completely derailed—it sometimes makes you wonder what happened.

Deter their mental meltdowns with six fun assignments designed to keep student literacy skills fresh over the break.

• Keep a holiday diary. Even if they just write one sentence a day about what they did, this will get them spelling words and composing sentences, and they’ll have the memories on record.
• Make a traditions list. Have them keep track of everything they do every year—or things they wish they’d do again next year.
• Read to a grandparent, younger sibling, or someone who could use the holiday cheer. Not only will they feel good for helping someone else but they’ll get good practice and probably some encouragement too.
• Choose books to read from a class list. When you give your students a list of books to read over the holidays, they may not read them all, but at least they’ll have an idea of where to go when they’re in the mood. Check out the Children's Choice books here.
• Complete a reading journal. Give them a fill in the blank printout, with prompts like, When I first saw the cover, I thought this book was about ___ and My favorite part was ___.
• Make up a carol. As they combine rhythm and melody, they may actually be humming when they write the lyrics down.

Four Months for Lizdalys

In September of this year, five-year-old Lizdalys Santiago of Puerto Rico entered Jackson Elementary feeling scared and alone. A recent immigrant to Mississippi, Lizdalys didn’t know any English or anyone’s name. With so many new faces and customs, the only thing she was sure of was that she was far from home.

After only four short months of using Imagine Learning English, Lizdalys has undergone a dramatic transformation. She not only can participate in class but now uses her newly acquired English skills to translate for another young girl who also recently emigrated from Puerto Rico. Though this fellow classmate doesn't yet speak any English, she's not alone. Lizdalys is by her side to show her the ropes and give her hope of what is to come. To watch a video on this remarkable story, click here.

Otay Elementary: An Update

Six months ago, Otay Elementary School of southern California received accolades for their ELL population’s improvement, made possible, in part, by Imagine Learning English. To see why teachers and administrators alike attribute this success to Imagine Learning English, and to see how Otay Elementary continues to improve today, click here.

Rhyme on a Dime

As part of your Imagine Learning English package, two guides are included to make your life easier. The Resource Guide (for Level 1) and the Supplemental Guide (for Level 2) are each packed with printouts and activities to use in the classroom. Access them through the Imagine Manager icon on your desktop.

Look for future Resource Reminders in Imagine This! to highlight dozens of fun activities—all readily available and in your Resource Guide. This month’s reminder: rhyme books. They’re hands-on for your students and handy for you.

Rhyme books are a fun, easy, and inexpensive way to teach vocabulary and word families. Students learn principles of print as they fold their printouts into mini books with four rhyme sets each. Once students go through each rhyme book, they can create an original book using the same layout. See what kind of rhymes they can come up with on their own!



Download rhyme book printout

Letter Shapes and Sounds that Stick

Whether your students are learning letters in pre-K, in kindergarten, or as English learners later on, you know how tricky those letter shapes and sounds can be.

Letter charts with coordinating icons, ranging from apples to zebras, teach by association. But, according to Marilyn Adams' book Beginning to Read, this method achieves relatively slow progress. Rather than stick with something slow, try a new method—one that works overtime by incorporating sight, sound, formation, and speech.

Name, or No?
The original battle in teaching letters was whether or not letter names should be taught. Should the first letter in the alphabet be introduced as ‘A’ or as /ă/? Teaching the letter name is convenient, thanks to alphabet songs, but it also adds to the amount of information a student must learn—information that is at times counterintuitive. (If B is “bee” and D is “dee,” why isn’t F “fee,” and where did “aitch” come from?)

Dropping the letter name from curriculum may eliminate this confusion, but it introduces its own problems. Many letters have several sounds associated with it, so which phoneme becomes the identifying sound for each letter? Also, if some letters aren’t given a name or title, addressing them becomes problematic. (How do you refer to ‘Q’ or ‘X’ by sound?) Chances are high that someone—teacher or peer—will refer to letters by name, so students need to learn them or be left in the dark.

New Method
In their study, Pictoral Mnemonics for Phonics, Ehri, Deffner, and Wilce discovered that both beginning and struggling readers made the best progress using the very same method taught in Imagine Learning English. In Level 1, students are introduced to a letter that is formed by an object or animal that begins with the target letter sound. They see turtles in the shape of a ‘T’ and a zipper in the shape of a ‘Z.’ Then students trace the letter, hear the letter name, and say it out loud.

This method incorporates both the letter name and letter sound philosophies while adding another visual and tactile element. As noted by Adams, when students see the letter later, “they will automatically be reminded of its pictured keyword which will, in turn, evoke its sound and reinforce its shape.”

Check out Letter Shapes and Sounds in the Level 1 Review Menu to see this method in action. You’ll start to see those letter shapes and sounds really stick.

Afterschool Enhancer

With winter coming quickly, the days are just getting shorter. So why do your school days only feel longer? After school programs and extended day programs keep some students in school for an extra hour--sometimes even more. When the average child needs a new activity to focus on every twenty minutes, it may be a struggle to fill the time with productive, worthwhile learning.

That's why teachers around the country are putting their afterschool students on Imagine Learning English.

The ILE classroom summary reports make it easy to track and compare the progress of all students in an afterschool program. And the best part? You don’t have to purchase a new license for students to use after school if they already use the program during the day in another class.

Simply login to Imagine Manager as an administrator, and create a new class for your afterschool students. Place any students already using the program in this new class, and they will have access to the program during both class periods. Like a driver’s license, each student’s information follows them from classroom to classroom. No matter when or where they login, their individualized instruction will pick up right where it left off—seamlessly and effortlessly—as one continuous learning experience.

And the best part? It’s fun! Rather than dragging their heels, students will eagerly anticipate the afternoon. The perfect motivator, Imagine Learning English captures student attention with fun games, music, and animations, and it provides teachers with printouts of graphic organizers, journal responses, story text, and, for your younger students, letter practice printouts, sight word flashcards, and much more.

So say goodbye to those afterschool blues, and let Imagine Learning English take a turn teaching.

Make a Difference with Differentiation

For Halloween, some kids stick to scary, dressing up as goblins or witches. Others try a hand at heroism, becoming Spiderman or their favorite Disney princess. No costume looks quite the same, and that’s because every child is different. Their instruction should be too.

It would be nice if all your students responded the same to each lesson plan, but you don’t teach in a cookie-cutter classroom. When you differentiate instruction, you tailor it to fit the learners’ needs. You react responsively to individuals. It is a powerful tool, but one that teachers struggle to use as they face a classroom full of learners—typically spanning five years in reading ability. In this month’s final recommendation in our six-part series, Sorting Out EL Software, Dr. Paul McCarty reminds us how meaningful differentiated instruction is in the classroom, and how valuable is it in your EL software.

When a teacher differentiates instruction, she tailors it to fit the learners’ needs: she reacts responsively to individuals. She recognizes students’ varying background knowledge, readiness, language, preferences in learning, and interests and responds accordingly.

Differentiation is rooted in educational theory and research many years old. It is grounded in the work of Vygotsky, who described “the zone of proximal development” (ZPD). This is the range where the best learning takes place—the place slightly ahead of the student’s current level of mastery, where the student is able to profit from instruction rather than being either bored or overwhelmed. Researchers believe that in classrooms where students are performing at about 80 percent accuracy, they learn more and feel better about themselves and the subject they are studying.

Assessment can aid differentiation when it is used for more than just merely measuring instruction. It can identify a students’ “ZPD” and, when the assessment is computer-delivered, it can then identify appropriate curriculum. Imagine Learning English differentiates students’ instruction in at least four ways:

1. The placement test determines separate starting points in vocabulary instruction, literacy instruction, and oral language development.
2. It regulates or sequences instruction based on students’ performance. If, for example, a student has mastered a set of vocabulary words, three lessons in a row, the program will accelerate instruction, streamlining activities. On the other hand, if a student is not mastering a concept, the program will re-teach it.
3. The student can receive first language support which is strategically withdrawn as they become more familiar with each activity.
4. Students receive informative feedbacks tailored to their responses.

One way to view how Imagine Learning differentiates instruction is by observing a conversation between Imagine Learning English and an imaginary student named Miguel. Click here to see for yourself.

Imagine Island: On the Air and Online

The creators of Imagine Learning English are making a splash in the educational television industry with Imagine Island, a bilingual children’s program that will reach over 17 million viewers in South America. Though the program will only be broadcast to select regions in the US, the show’s interactive website can be reached worldwide.

At ImagineIsland.com, children can watch an episode of Imagine Island, listen to stories, and sing along to some of their favorite Imagine Learning English songs. Kids will enjoy learning fun facts about the show’s stars, Jack and Booster, and can even write their favorite character a letter. Who would have guessed Jack’s favorite food is cheese and honey sandwiches? Or that Booster is a party animal? Whether or not Imagine Island is broadcast in your area, the show’s website is an engaging, useful place where children can learn and practice English skills. So what are you waiting for? Surf on over to ImagineIsland.com, and let the fun begin!