My students need magnetic letters, vocabulary flash cards, picture dictionaries, and books for emergent readers. They need language building games and activities.
Imagine you are starting school in a country where you do not speak the language. How would you feel? Confused? Lost? Terrified? This is how our newcomers feel. Our goal is to help them feel comfortable, while building their English skills and helping them transition into their classroom routines.
My students are in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program in grades K-5.
There are 22 languages at our school besides English, with Spanish, Arabic, and Somali as our top three languages. Students join us with a wide variety of English language skills. The students who have just moved to the US from another country are called our newcomers, most of whom come to us with very limited (if any) English skills, and a wide range of educational backgrounds. Newcomers often come to us straight from a refugee camp. Some have had several years of school in their country of origin, whereas others have never stepped foot inside a school. Many newcomers have also been impacted by poverty or traumatic experiences. Newcomers can have difficulty participating in the regular classroom lessons due to language barriers. Within the past six months, we have received newcomers from Iraq, Cuba, Somalia, Congo, and Mexico. I am looking for ways to better support these students in their classrooms.
My Project
I will create kits of materials to help our newcomers communicate in the classroom and engage in learning. The kits will be designed to allow the students to work with the materials independently or with a classmate. Working with a classmate will not only build the basic academic skills of our newcomers, but also their English social language. Materials such as picture dictionaries and vocabulary flashcards will help the students build their vocabulary. Magnetic letters, letter tracing activities, and letter games will help increase their letter identification, since many of our newcomers come from language backgrounds with a different print. Emergent reader books will help the newcomers gain concepts about print and academic vocabulary. I envision English speaking classmates taking turns in working with our newcomers with these activities. I can assign specific activities based on individual newcomer needs.
This project will help our newcomers feel engaged in the classroom and decrease the stress and anxiety they may feel from being in an unfamiliar setting.
It will help them build academic skills and language, as well as social language through interaction with peers. As a result, the students should have a faster transition to being able to participate in the mainstream classroom lessons in a more meaningful way.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Madryga and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
