In this study, we examine the unique and shared contributions of Spanish and English core academic language skills (CALS) to English reading comprehension in a population of Spanish-English dual language learners in Grades 4 and 5 (n = 165). We focus on cross-disciplinary CALS, operationalized as sets of high-utility lexical, syntactic and…

School accountability has funnelled educational practices into a path where teaching practices are heavily centred in Language Arts instruction. Focusing learning almost exclusively in the aforesaid area develops a one-dimensional process that could hold back certain students from a well-balanced education. This article presents a model of…

For the past five summers, the authors have taught summer school to recent immigrants and refugees. Their experiences with these fourth-grade English language learners (ELL) have taught them the value of using models to build scientific and mathematical concepts. In this article, they describe the use of different forms of 2- and 3-D models to…

The author works as a biliteracy teacher in a bilingual school that serves students from K-5th grade. She and her coteacher provide instruction in both English and Spanish to 4th and 5th graders. They have two language arts blocks so that students receive literacy instruction in both their native and second languages, and they teach math, social…