A quick guide to the Lone Star State’s latest textbook adoptions for English learners
1/ Writing Coach (Pearson Prentice Hall) is a personalized writing and grammar program for middle and high school students. It incorporates a newly developed technology that provides targeted feedback on a paragraph by paragraph basis. This interactivity helps students grow into strong, independent writers.
With Writing Coach, every struggling and ELL writer receives point of use feedback and personalized instruction to provide support through the entire writing process. The paragraph level input ensures that students create well-organized essays from idea to topic support and organization. In addition, easy to use tools and strategies provide solid assurance that students will remember and apply these strategies long after they leave the classroom.
Writing Coach is embedded in Pearson’s signature learning management allowing teachers to easily customize lesson plans, upload tests, writing prompts and materials that best meet individual classroom needs. This customization then integrates seamlessly with the Writing Coach content. With its immediate, personalized feedback, it is estimated that Interactive Writing Coach can help save teachers over 500 hours each year evaluating essay drafts.
For those who prefer printed materials, the full curriculum is also available in print format. The low price of this product enables teachers to give access to this new tool to every student.
2/ Longman Cornerstone and Longman Keystone for Texas are especially designed to help English learners in grades K-8 master the Texas English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) and key content area standards (TEKS) in English Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies. Through explicit, intensive, and focused instruction that accelerates students’ language acquisition, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and oral and written communication skills, students will quickly begin achieving greater academic success in their coursework across the curriculum.
Cornerstone and Keystone blend rigorous, research-based reading and language skills instruction together with a balance of content-area readings and age-appropriate, high-interest literature. In addition, this series incorporates the focused and purposeful instructional principles of Understanding by Design, which allow students to demonstrate their understanding and mastery of skills through multiple formal and informal assessment opportunities. Through this process, students will be equipped with the key transferable skills and strategies necessary for lifelong academic success.
To facilitate and enhance instruction, the clear, easy-to-use lesson plan format in the wraparound Teacher’s Edition provides a straightforward roadmap that guides teachers through each lesson, ensuring explicit and purposeful instruction. The student edition is provided in print and in digital formats so that students have multiple means of accessing the material. The programs also offer a host of teaching resources — including print, audio, video, and electronic materials — which provide a rich array of needs-based reinforcement and support.
3/ BIG DAY for PreK (Scholastic) is a comprehensive early learning program that embraces children’s natural curiosity and encourages them to explore and connect to the world around them. The program incorporates the most current research on child development into a curriculum that celebrates early learners while preparing them for success in kindergarten and beyond.
The program includes eight engaging and child-friendly themes, with four weeks of instruction per theme. Each theme includes materials and activities that build knowledge, skills, and concepts that foster integrated learning. The program has 100 percent English/Spanish equity. Teaching Guides feature side-by-side English and Spanish pages to maximize ease of use by teachers.
It includes five “elements of success.”
A curriculum is organized around “Big Experiences,” whole-group instruction that integrates all learning domains, including social-emotional, academic, as well as physical development.
Explicit opportunities for Meaningful Conversations embed the foundations of oral language and vocabulary development in every theme, week, and day of instruction.
The largest collection of literature and nonfiction books — more than 550 books and titles give children and teachers access to the best literature and non-fiction in a variety of genres and media.
Scholastic’s innovative, web-based technology is a dedicated part of the program. Teacher Space makes classroom management, monitoring and home communication easier for teachers. BookFlix and Family Space extend learning into every child’s home and promote school to home connections.
4/ Shurley English is a dynamic, innovative curriculum for
grades K-8 that supports proven methods of learning and teaching language arts from a publisher known for their unique way of making the connection between grammar, skills, and writing. It is a rigorous curriculum that brings back student-teacher interaction, promotes higher-order thinking skills, and provides students with a successful base from which they can achieve far above their expectations. It incorporates a part-to-whole and a whole-to-part philosophy for grammar and writing. Student retention from year to year is improved by memorable jingles and their “Question & Answer Flow,” which becomes second nature to students. Mastery, retention, and enthusiasm for English are distinguishing characteristics of Shurley English students.
5/ ESL ReadingSmart is a Web-based learning environment for ESL students and teachers. It offers individualized, content-based instruction to develop English language proficiency with emphasis on literacy and academic language development. It provides a newcomers’ program and a multi-genre, multicultural reading program written on four levels of difficulty: Beginner (Level 1), Intermediate (Level 2), Early Advanced (Level 3), and Advanced (Level 4). Genres include myths and legends, poetry, short stories, biographies, and articles. A built-in placement test creates an individualized learning path for each student. Alternatively, teachers can select the starting level for each of their classes.
The online program provides a multilevel reading program and curriculum that supports ESL classroom instruction from upper elementary to high school. The program is designed to be highly flexible to meet the needs of all schools, regardless of the format of the second language program. Teachers use the lessons and complementary reading selections to enhance the existing program or design their own reading and language arts (ESL/ ELD) curriculum.
ESL ReadingSmart is divided into two components or sections — one for teachers and one for students. Teachers may access both sections, students can only access the student component. The student component includes a recommended order of lessons, multi-genre reading selections, vocabulary and comprehension activities, cross-curricular resources, and an on-demand report card. The teacher component has diverse instructional materials including lesson plans, web resources, a class management system, and student assessment results.
ESL ReadingSmart has been adopted in Texas under Proclamation 2011 for grades 5-8.
