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.