As you go through this course, you will find that the suggested activities are appropriate not only for young English language learners, but actually are effective practices for all children. Whatever the home language of the family, children acquire and build literacy skills in the same basic way. This is why the strategies and experiences used for English language learners also support the needs of all the children in your classroom.
The content of this course will also help you meet the expectations of theFlorida Early Learning and Developmental Standards for Four-Year-Olds (2011) (Standards for Four-Year-Olds), adopted by the state of Florida to demonstrate what four-year-old children should know and be able to do when they complete the VPK program. Throughout the course, reference will be made to the specific standards that most directly relate to the content in that section. This will help you link the activities planned for English language learners with the expectations of a high-quality VPK education program.
Also referenced throughout the content will be connections to the Emergent
Literacy for VPK Instructors course that is available online through
the Florida Department of Education, Office of Early Learning at http://www.fldoe.org/
earlylearning.
If you have not taken this course, you are encouraged to do so since
it provides the research behind each of the language and emergent literacy
standards and is designed to help you understand the critical, age-appropriate
instructional and environmental strategies that will prepare all children
to succeed in kindergarten.
You will find that many of the ideas in this course will help you understand the characteristics and language learning experiences of colleagues, staff, and the children’s families who are English language learners. If you are an English language learner, you will find examples that will describe your own learning experience as well.
The course is organized into five sections: Introduction, Who Are English Language Learners?, Culturally and Linguistically Supportive Classroom Environments, Working with Young English Language Learners, and Resources. A Director’s Corner that includes additional information or strategies most useful for directors of VPK programs is included in specific sections as appropriate. In addition, there is a Glossary that includes definitions for pertinent terms or concepts.
Our expert for this course is María Elena Argüelles, Ph.D. Dr. Argüelles is an educational consultant who provides support to states, districts, and schools in their implementation of effective reading instruction for young students. Dr.Argüelles is a member of the Governor’s Secondary Reading Advisory Panel, a board member of the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence-Special Education Standards and Research Associate of the Florida Center for Reading Research. Dr. Argüelles is the co-author of several publications and a consultant to publishers developing programs for struggling readers and English language learners. She will be featured in Section 4 of this course when we discuss Working with Young English Language Learners.
Video clips are used throughout the course. The photographs and video clips are actual VPK classrooms and include interviews with instructors and directors in VPK programs across the state of Florida. To view the video clips you will need:
- PC: Pentium 2 or higher with 128 MB of memory running on Windows 2000 or later.
- MAC: G3 or higher with 128 MB of memory running on OS X or later.
- Apple QuickTime 7 or later (Download the latest QuickTime Player)
- Macromedia Flash Player 9 or later (Download
the latest Flash Player)
Please contact Florida Center for Interactive Media if you experience difficulties viewing the clips.
