One reality of today's classrooms is the limited help available to teachers trying to support English learners'
literacy skills. The educators and researchers who developed Words Their Way understand this challenge. Their
original text, a phenomenon in word study, provides the proven framework and application to allow students to develop
literacy skills. And now they apply this approach to teaching English learners.
Based on the same solid research, Words Their Way with English Learners helps you determine what your students
bring with them from their home languages, where their instruction in English orthography should begin, and how
best to move these students through their development.
Chapters 1 through 3 introduce you to the stages of spelling and reading development, the assessments to use,
and the best ways to organize your classroom for word study.
Each subsequent chapter focuses on a specific stage of spelling, outlining the most appropriate and effective
word study instruction for this audience, from the Emergent learner through readers and writers in the Derivational
Relations stage.
Each of these chapters closes with a rich bank of classroom-proven word study activities that promise to engage
your students, motivate them, and improve their oral and written abilities in English.
The Appendix at the back of Words Their Way with English Learners contains all the assessment tools necessary
to get word study underway and offers word lists in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Arabic; picture and
word sorts; and game templates to advance word study instruction in diverse K--8 classrooms.
Word study can be a powerful instructional method for teachers and their English learning students. With this
text, you can evaluate students' langage needs. Empower your students to grasp this new language at the word level,
building skills to understand how English differs from their primary language,and providing them with the skills
to predict word meaning through spelling. Words Their Way with English Learners will help you build vocabulary,
spelling, and word recognition skills in your English learners, giving them the foundation to master their new
language.