New students, little schooling

teachnj · Post by **teachnj** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 1:21 am

I am a bilingual teacher and I have a lot of new students that have had very little schooling in their own countries. A majority are non readers in Spanish. If anyone has this situation, how are you helping these students?

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 8:30 am

Teach them to read in Spanish first. There are so many skills to reading and trying to learn all of them is English when you don't know the language is really difficult. If you don't speak Spanish get a volunteer. It won't take them long because Spanish is such a "true to its alphabet sounds" language. It will pay huge benefits in background knowledge of how to read and how to learn.