Welcome! This page provides resources for families of English Learners—students in public schools who were not born in the United States or whose native language is not English. Under federal law (20 USC 7801(20)), English Learners are children and young adults, ages 3 through 21, who may face challenges in speaking, reading, writing, or understanding English. These challenges can impact their ability to meet academic standards, succeed in classrooms where English is the primary language of instruction, or fully participate in the community. If your child is learning English as a second language and needs support developing literacy skills, you’re in the right place! Explore our resources to help your child thrive in their educational journey.
What does it mean to be an English Learner?
Watch video in English
Watch video in Spanish
How do I know if my child needs support learning to read and write in English?
Many parents worry that their children, who are new to the US, are not speaking in class. This is common, and not all English Learners require special support. To see if your child needs extra help with English, they can take the WIDA assessment, which evaluates their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in English.
Native English speakers learn to read by mastering each literacy skill one at a time:
Native English speakers learn literacy skills from the time they are born. They learn step-by-step, beginning with oral language, then phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and finally comprehension.
English Learners learn to read differently:
Unlike native English speakers, English learners learn to speak and understand English at the same time.
If English learners can already read in their home language, they can use what they know about comprehension and vocabulary from that language to help them learn these skills in English.
These students develop phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency like Native English speakers, but often need extra help because English has more letter sounds and some unique sounds that differ from other languages.
Oral language is at the center of learning to read in English. When a child understands spoken English, it becomes easier to build all the other literacy skills needed to be a confident reader in English.
Specific strategies for building English literacy skills
- Encourage your child to speak in English at school.
- Watch TV shows in English with subtitles in your native language and practice speaking in English at home.
The English Language has 44 letter sounds. Learn these by watching this video and practice making these sounds by looking at your mouth in a mirror.
- The English Alphabet has 26 written letters. After you learn the letter sounds, practice sounding out each letter in a word slowly (c-a-t), then saying the whole word quickly (cat).
- Next, learn how letters combine to create unique sounds, such as combining /s/ and /h/ to make the /sh/ sound.
- Practice memorizing a sentence in English and saying it back.
- Repeat reading English words, sentences, and stories.
- Try reading along with an audio recording of a book in English and your native language. This site has free books you can listen to in English and your home language!
- After you read a story in English, close the book and or retell part of it to someone else in your home language.
- Learn about the topic before reading, such as reviewing new words or looking up a short video on the topic.
- Read a book in English and re-read it in your home language to check for understanding. This site has free books you can read in English and your home language!
- Cognates are words in English that sound similar to words in your home language and have the same meaning. About 40% of English words have a matching word in Spanish. For example, “Family” means “Familia,” “Center” means “Centro,” “Radio” means “Radio,” “Class” means “Clase,” and “Gorilla” means “Gorila.”
- You can use lists like this to explore cognates in English and your home language.