My colleague Lesli Maxwell, who covers English-language learners, has an interesting blog post up about how best to educate young students who are still developing English proficiency:
Young English-language learners who are still developing oral and literacy skills in their home languages benefit most in early-childhood programs that regularly expose them to both languages. That's one of several major takeaways in a new federally funded analysis of the large, and growing, population of dual-language learners, ranging from birth to 5, already enrolled in, or headed for, early-childhood-education programs. The analysis, released today, also underscores that dual-language learners develop language skills differently than their monolingual, English-speaking peers. Young dual-language learners, who are using two separate language systems, will take longer to reach proficiency in both languages than their peers learning only one.
The full post includes interviews with the study authors and some discussion about what these findings mean for state and federal policymakers.
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