Study Group: Refining Biliteracy Practices

WITSTeachers

Biliteracy from the Start: Literacy Squared in Action

Rochelle Lee Teacher Award Study Groups are school-based professional learning communities. Study groups develop a goal to guide their learning throughout the school year, and meet monthly to discuss instruction and push their practice to reach their goal. Learn more about Frederick Funston Elementary School’s study group and what they learned about the components of a balanced literacy program.

School: Frederick Funston Elementary School

Text: Biliteracy from the Start: Literacy Squared in Action by Kathy Escamilla, Susan Hopewell, Sandra Butvilofsky, Wendy Sparrow, Lucinda Soltero-González, Manuel Escamilla

Study Group Leader: Meg Tanabe

Study Group Members: Lynaris Rosado, Jovana Madrigal, Gaby Torrenegra, Claudia Munoz, Celina Mosher

Goal: Our goal is to collaborate to clarify which biliteracy practices we use in each grade level, in each language, with what frequency, and in response to student levels of achievement.

At the end of this book study, we came to the conclusion that it helped us grow our dual language instructional practices and create a plan to share them with the whole school in order to create more coherence across subjects and between grade levels. We highly recommend Biliteracy from the Start for any teachers who teach ELs, especially bilingual teachers.