Catching Up, Catching Gaps
The job of the ESL teacher is to look for the gaps in education. If the student has been in the country since kindergarten, it is almost certain that student will have kinder, first and second grade gaps later. As they were learning to speak social English, they were missing academic vocabulary and content instruction. I always find that my intermediate ESL students are missing concepts that were taught in primary grades.
As you're teaching, make note of any gaps you notice and re-teach with a mini-lesson. Stop, drop and deal. Don't let too much time go by before the mini-lesson. It's more effective if we take advantage of the "teachable moment."
For example, I'm working with a group of sixth grade LEP students in writing. While working on our writing, I noticed several students didn't know how to spell light. The next day we started our group with a short mini-lesson on the ight word family. We were then able to apply it to our writing. It's important to tie it back to the main lesson in order to make content comprehensible.
Happy Valentine's Day!!!
Peace and love.
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