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The Power of Storytelling

When I was a child, my father used to tell us stories as my siblings and I were getting ready to sleep. He had created a series of stories called “The Adventures of Booroo and Pooroo.” The two main characters, Booroo and Pooroo, would go on many adventures every single day and night. They were both shapeshifters and could change their appearance, size, and form in any way they wanted or needed to during each of the stories. One night they were pirates looking for hidden treasures; the next night they were astronauts going on space missions to save our planet from dangerous alien attacks; other times they were teachers, engineers, mothers, children, toys, trees, ants, pens, anything one can imagine, while doing heroic work to do good in the world.

What was fascinating was that my father would infuse what had happened to us either individually or as a family during the day into these stories. If I’d had a bad day in school, or my classmates, principal, or teachers were not fair or kind, he would make a villain based on those characteristics that Booroo and Pooroo had to confront. If he’d had a bad day at work, he would find a way to implement it into the storyline to summon the help of Booroo and Pooroo to help him solve the issue. Now thinking back on those experiences, I understand that it was a form of instilling life lessons in us and the “incubation process” for him and for us—looking at the issues from various angles and trying to solve the problems while letting the brain analyze, understand, and come up with either acceptance or plausible action plans (Elbow, 1981; Krashen, 2001; Wallas, 1926).

Along with these brain functions, he was also subconsciously helping our first-language acquisition. He had a wide range of interests in different domains of knowledge and would use words and technical terms from various fields throughout the stories. I learned a lot about mathematics, physics, and meteorology (which were all parts of his profession) as well as cooking, sewing, astronomy, mechanics, and electronics, among many other subject areas and essential life skills. Each adventure called for a variety of skills that Booroo and Pooroo needed to develop in order to accomplish the mission at hand successfully, and we the children, as the listeners, needed to know the vocabulary and structures to be able to follow along the adventures with them. It was an organic and continuous supply of language and knowledge that was comprehensible, compelling, rich, and abundant: the criteria for optimal input in first- and second-language acquisition (Ashtari and Krashen, 2020; Krashen and Mason, 2020).

Sometimes if he was too tired, my father would fall asleep in the middle of telling the story. However, because he had ignited the interest and curiosity in the stories, my imagination would go on creating the storylines, events, and dialogues between the characters for as long as I could keep my eyes open before eventually falling asleep. Now, decades later, as I have become an educator myself, I think about the power of those stories in my language acquisition and gaining knowledge bases in different areas in life. In the field of education, we say that one of the main goals of a good educator is to fan the flames of the fire that already exists within each one of our students, so that they can hopefully learn how to protect the fire in all conditions themselves and become autonomous in their own learning. This way we can help our students to become better equipped to create the best versions of their own stories in the pursuit and enhancement of their knowledge, skills, and career options. After all, similar to Booroo and Pooroo, we are all made of stories waiting to be unfolded and told.

References
Ashtari, N. and Krashen, S. (2020). “The Power of ‘Short and Simple Books’: How Mahmoud Hessabi acquired German.” Language Issues Journal, 1(1), 47–53. www.researchgate.net/publication/341477568_The_Power_of_Short_and_Simple_Books_How_Mahmoud_Hessabi_Acquired_German

Elbow, P. (1981). Writing with Power. New York: Oxford University Press.

Krashen, S. (2001). “Incubation: A neglected aspect of the composing process?” ESL Journal, 4(2), 10–11. www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/incubation.pdf

Krashen, S. and Mason, B. (2020). The “Optimal Input Hypothesis: Not all comprehensible input is of equal value.” CATESOL Newsletter, 1–2. www.researchgate.net/publication/341503469_The_Optimal_Input_Hypothesis_Not_All_Comprehensible_Input_is_of_Equal_Value

Wallas, G. (1926). The Art of Thought: Excerpts Reprinted in Creativity. P. E. Vernon (Ed.). Middlesex, England: Penguin, pp. 91–97.

Nooshan Ashtari could string together a list of words, titles, and places to describe her profession and expertise. However, the truth is that she is still in the middle of writing and reading her own story and shaping her multiple identities as a human, educator, and researcher.

Cervantes Extends Spanish in India

The Cervantes Institute is opening its first satellite center in India in Bangalore, a city of more than eight million people which is considered India’s Silicon Valley. The extension will begin teaching Spanish courses at the start of next year and be a satellite of the center in New Delhi. Bangalore, located in southern India and capital of the state of Karnataka, is home to numerous technology companies and research and educational institutions. It is also home to the Indian aerospace program and the Kannada language film industry (official in that state).

The technological, economic, educational, and demographic potential of Bangalore (India’s fourth most populous city, behind Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata) makes it the ideal place to open the first extension of the Cervantes Institute in India, since a strong demand for Spanish is expected. Related institutions such as the Alliance Française and the Goethe Institute confirm that it is the Indian city with the second-highest demand for foreign language classes. Inaugurated in 2009, the Cervantes of New Delhi exceeded 6,000 class registrations last year, more than many other centers around the world.

Researchers Tackle Universal Grammar

In their new book The Language Game, cognitive scientists Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater set out to identify the origins of human language—and the pair’s findings deviate from the traditionally accepted schools of thought on linguistic evolution.

Christiansen and Chater argue that, rather than viewing language as a series of rules hardwired in the human brain, we ought to view language as a sort of charades-like game in which individuals and communities attempt to understand each other’s points of view.

“In our new book, The Language Game, we argue that language isn’t about rules at all,” the researchers wrote in a column for New Scientist. “It is about improvisation, freedom and the desire to be understood, constrained only by our imaginations. This radical idea helps to explain long-standing mysteries about language—as well as how language evolved and why it makes humans special.”

The pair has worked together on several other research projects over the years, largely tackling problems regarding universal grammar, a popular theoretical framework in the field of linguistics that was originally proposed by Noam Chomsky. The theory of universal grammar essentially states that humans evolved a “language-specific biological endowment” wherein language is encoded within the brain as a series of rules and constraints that are activated according to an individual’s exposure to their first language.

The Language Game brings the duo’s research to a more approachable platform—rather than publishing in scholarly journals, they have published a more widely accessible, full-length book written in understandable language.

Several researchers have criticized universal grammar since its first proposal in the mid-20th century; Chater and Christiansen have been particularly critical of the theory, arguing that it is not “evolutionarily viable.” While Chomsky’s theory proposes that the human brain evolved such that it could produce language, Chater and Christiansen argue that language evolved to adapt to the constraints of the human brain.

Central to Christiansen and Chater’s thesis is the idea that words are ever-changing entities whose meanings vary across temporal and physical contexts—that is, their meanings are not static and preconstrained but change in order to allow humans to communicate different ideas at different times. Christiansen and Chater believe that viewing language in this way allows us to better understand how human language has developed.

“We view language itself as a complex and interdependent ‘organism,’ which evolves under selectional pressures from human learning and processing mechanisms,” the two wrote in a 2008 paper predating their most recent work.

“That is, languages themselves are shaped by severe selectional pressure from each generation of language users and learners.” AW

Plan to Promote French across Canada

The government of Québec is proposing the celebration of an annual Francophonie Day as part of a three-year plan to reinforce French across the country. The province’s Treasury Board chair, Sonia LeBel, said she is suggesting that March 22 be designated as Francophonie Day at the National Assembly, creating the opportunity for Quebecers to learn about other Francophone communities.

The proposal was part of an 80-point plan unveiled at a news conference last month where she outlined the role Québec could play in supporting other French-speaking communities. “We are a minority in Canada. I think we have a responsibility to get to know each other better, to support each other better,” said LeBel, while claiming that supporting French speakers would not diminish English communities but would serve as a reminder that there are two official languages. The government also pledged an additional CAN$8 million in funding over three years toward the promotion of the French language across Canada, making a total of CAN$24.5 million.

There are more than ten million Francophones in Canada, of whom 2.7 million live outside of Québec. On the International Day of La Francophonie (March 20), Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau issued the following statement:

“Today, on the 35th International Day of La Francophonie, we join Francophones and Francophiles in Canada and around the world in celebrating the richness of the French language—a cornerstone of our country’s history, identity, and heritage. This day also invites us to highlight the diversity of Francophone cultures and communities around the world.

“French is one of Canada’s two official languages—and the first official language of nearly a quarter of Canadians. French-speaking communities across the country are at the heart of our history and, through their many contributions, they continue to make Canada a more inclusive, prosperous, and vibrant country.

“Through the French language, our country maintains strong ties with Francophone communities around the world. As an active member of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), Canada works closely with its Francophone partners all over the world to promote the French language and the diversity of Francophone cultures, including in the digital sphere. Together, we also work to protect our shared values of democracy, peace, human rights, and solidarity.

“The government of Canada recognizes the importance of promoting French and strengthening the vitality of Francophone communities across the country. That is why, this month, we introduced an enhanced bill to ensure the substantive equality of status of English and French in Canada. This vision of our linguistic duality and our bilingualism, which includes setting targets for Francophone immigration outside Québec, is part of our commitment to modernize the Official Languages Act.

“We will continue to work to modernize Canada’s linguistic regime, to adapt it to today’s realities, and to establish a new linguistic balance in the country. Our proposal to strengthen the act is an important step in our efforts to help protect the French language, promote our two official languages, and revitalize minority communities and bilingualism across the country.

“This year’s International Day of La Francophonie is also an opportunity for us to express our support and solidarity with Ukraine, which has OIF observer status, as its people try to secure their future in the face of Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of their territory.

“On behalf of the government of Canada, I wish all Francophones and Francophiles in Canada and around the world a happy International Day of La Francophonie. I encourage you to learn more about Canada and La Francophonie, to share the hashtags #Francophoniedelavenir and #mon20mars on social media, and to take part in activities in your community to celebrate this important day.”

The University of Ottawa marked the day by announcing that it will be investing $5 million into the Francophonie on campus over the next five years to fund the hiring of new French-speaking professors and the development of new programs in French. The investment is being made to “provide an exceptional learning environment for Francophone students.”

Self-Selecting Success

Reading is Fundamental (RIF), the nation’s leading voice for children’s literacy, has a simple yet effective formula for increasing reading outcomes: choice + access = engagement. Why is engagement important? Reading engagement and motivation are strongly related to reading achievement (Wigfield & Guthrie, 2000). Increased volume in reading is correlated with improved oral language skills, spelling, comprehension, and general academic outcomes (Mol & Bus, 2011). Children are most likely to be motivated to read books that they have selected themselves (Fisher & Frey, 2018). For example, Edmunds and Bauserman (2010) found that 84% of children they interviewed talked about books that they selected themselves versus books that were assigned to them. In addition, Guthrie et al. (2007) demonstrate that book choice creates readers that are more intrinsically motivated to read. These elements are key to RIF’s flagship reading program, Books for Ownership, and the other programs and literacy resources RIF offers in communities nationwide.

Now that you know the simple formula, try out these tips to increase choice, access, and engagement in your classroom:

1. Start young! Reading aloud to children from a young age builds their print awareness and increases language, reading, and spelling outcomes.

2. Administer an interest inventory at the beginning of the school year to find out about your students’ interests. Then use the results to add books to your classroom library that align with your students’ interests.

3. Build time into your schedule for children to explore and select books in the classroom, school, and public libraries.

4. Introduce new books and authors and build excitement through Book Talks or check out which books have gone viral through the hashtag #BookToks.

5. Design a challenge to increase reading volume or take RIF’s Rally to Read pledge to read 100 books by Read Across America Day in March each year!

Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) is committed to a literate America by inspiring a passion for reading among all children, providing quality content to create impact, and engaging communities in the solution to give every child the fundamentals for success. As the nation’s largest nonprofit organization for children’s literacy, RIF has provided more than 420 million books to over 100 million kids in all 50 states, inspiring generations to read, learn and grow. For more information, please visit RIF.org.

References
Edmunds, K. M., & Bauserman, K. L. (2010). What teachers can learn about reading motivation through conversations with children. Essential readings on motivation, 47-60.

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2018). Raise reading volume through access, choice, discussion, and book talks. The Reading Teacher, 72(1), 89-97.

Guthrie, J. T., Hoa, A. L. W., Wigfield, A., Tonks, S. M., Humenick, N. M., & Littles, E. (2007). Reading motivation and reading comprehension growth in the later elementary years. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 32(3), 282-313.

Mol, S. E., & Bus, A. G. (2011). To read or not to read: a meta-analysis of print exposure from infancy to early adulthood. Psychological bulletin, 137(2), 267.

Wigfield, A., & Guthrie, J. T. (2000). Engagement and motivation in reading. Handbook of reading research, 3, 403-422.

Erin Bailey is director of Programs and Content at Reading Is Fundamental. Her role includes developing, curating, and managing literacy content for educators and families. Erin is a former classroom teacher, literacy specialist, and English language specialist in the US and abroad as well as a university instructor.

Misclassification of Ukrainian Sparks Outcry

Despite years of coverage on the language conflict in Ukraine in Language Magazine and many other media outlets, and a heartfelt, poetic explanation of the subjugation of Ukrainian, there are still commentators who question the status of Ukrainian as a language in its own right.

On April 19, ACTFL, the US association for World Language Educators, published an email newsletter titled: “Ukrainian — a separate language or dialect of Russian?” with a link to the corresponding article published in The Conversation.

The article by Joshua Holzer, assistant professor of Political Science at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, starts by remarking on the number of people taking up Ukrainian on Duolingo, and immediately asserts that, “Most of those who are taking up Ukrainian are probably unaware that there is a long-running controversy about this particular form of speech. One side views Russians and Ukrainians as “one people,” and the opposing side does not.”

It continues: “The former claim that Ukrainian is just a dialect of Russian, while the latter argue that it is a separate language. Who’s correct?

“Unfortunately, there isn’t a clear answer. The difference between a language and a dialect depends upon whom you ask.”

Dr. Ruslana A. Westerlund (author of What Does it Mean to Ask How Does Ukrainian Compare With Russian?), a US-based Ukrainian author, researcher, speaker, linguist, and activist, commented: “I am absolutely outraged at this that ACTFL would include that article into their newsletter without checking the source and giving even a slight consideration of how Ukrainians who are currently fighting for their existence would react to it. I am outraged not just the obvious title and the “it depends who you ask” answer, but I’m also livid because no one bothered to invite a Ukrainian linguist to contribute to this piece. It’s like British colonists in the 17th century debating whether Wanpanoag was a legitimate language without asking the Wanpanoag themselves. We must decolonize our view of Ukraine and whose voices are legitimate, and whose voices are heard and recorded in writing. We are so tired of being marginalized. Language organizations like ACTFL need to strategically seek out the contributions of Ukrainians to fill up the information space with the Ukrainian narratives which have been pushed out for centuries and replaced by the Russian ones. We invite ACTFL and other organizations to publish information about the linguicide of the Ukrainian language which was carried out through dozens of attempts to eradicate the Ukrainian language in all spheres of society over the span of at least 300 years. If ACTFL is interested in publishing on dialects, we invite you to write the history of surzhyk, a dialect in Ukraine which was born as a result of the Russificiation efforts mentioned above.  We invite you to write about the burning of the Ukrainian books and firing of Ukrainian teachers in the annexed Crimea. By writing about the Ukrainian language and its fight for survival, organizations like ACTFL will help raise the status of the Ukrainian language because it deserves to be studied widely.  It will help Ukrainians themselves who are are exhausted from answering questions how does Ukrainian compare with Russian? (while no one is asking How does it compare with Polish?) Is that Russian that I heard you speak? Is that accent of yours from Russia? We are tired of proving our worth to the world and our existence in our own right.”

Dr. Corinne A. Seals (author of Choosing a Mother Tongue: The Politics of Language and Identity in Ukraine, 2019, Multilingual Matters), a Ukrainian-American New Zealander and senior lecturer of Applied Linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), was likewise indignant, “It is shocking to see an article published by The Conversation and shared by ACTFL that ignores the ethics of modern research. No article should be published about a group of people, including their culture and language, without proper consultation and co-research with said people. Not only was this ethical requirement not adhered to, but the author also wrote as an authority on a linguistics issue while not a linguist himself. The question of whether Ukrainian is a language or a dialect is not even a question to linguists. Ukrainian is a language according to Ukrainians themselves and has a documented linguistic history separate from Russian dating back to the 10th century, with Modern Ukrainian existing since the 17th or 18th century. To ignore these facts and to so flippantly remark that whether it is a language or a dialect ‘depends’ shows a clear lack of knowledge and understanding about Ukrainian linguistic history and modern language politics. It is deeply disappointing that The Conversation and ACTFL would give airtime to such a flawed piece, ethically and factually.”

AUTHOR’S RESPONSE:

I mentioned that Dr. Max Weinreich, a Yiddish linguist, popularized the notion that “a language is a dialect with an army and navy.” In other words, governments can call just about anything a language if they pass appropriate legislation and/or make the necessary changes to their constitution. As such, the difference between a language and a dialect is just as much about politics as it is linguistics.

I build upon the quip Dr. Weinreich made famous by arguing that “a language with an army and a navy can call other languages mere dialects.” To illustrate this point, I discussed how the People’s Republic of China “has long promoted a language unification agenda” by arguing that Cantonese and other forms of speech are mere dialects of Standard Chinese—even though many would disagree.

If Russia wins the war and annexes Ukraine, there will be zero countries on Earth where Ukrainian is the sole official language. Ukrainians, at that point, could find themselves in a situation similar to those who speak Yiddish. While Yiddish has a long and proud history, its speakers are scattered throughout the world, and in no country is Yiddish the only official language. Given these realities, Yiddish is often derided as a corrupt dialect of German. This does not mean that it’s true, but without an army and navy providing backup, it can be hard to argue otherwise.

Far from being anti-Ukrainian, my article highlights how this war is not only a fight for Ukraine’s territorial integrity but also for “the independence of a unique and distinct cultural community.”

If Ukraine wins, it can continue to maintain a safe space for the Ukrainian language to flourish. However, if Ukraine loses, Ukrainians could end up as another diasporic people without a place of their own, and arguments that Ukrainian is but a mere dialect of Russian—however unfounded and inflammatory they may be—will likely only become louder.

Joshua Holzer is an assistant professor of political science at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. He has a PhD in political science from the University of Missouri and an MA in teaching from the University of Southern California. He is a former US Army analyst and studied Chinese at the Defense Language Institute. He has been certified by the state of Missouri to teach Chinese at the K–12 level and has recently become enamored with Esperanto.

Cuba Introduces Secondary Chinese

Over 100 seventh graders from Fructuoso Rodríguez school in the central Havana district of Plaza de la Revolución will start Chinese classes during the new academic year. “I am opening the doors to my future,” Samuel Zayas, a twelve-year-old secondary student, told Chinese news agency Xinhua. “China is a very important economic power in the international arena. Learning Chinese will be difficult in the very beginning, but I feel I have made a wise decision.”

Chinese ambassador to Cuba Ma Hui said the two countries had taken a significant step to develop their relations through culture and education. “Learning a foreign language is very important,” he said at the opening ceremony of the course. “I am fully convinced that knowing about Chinese culture and language will bring many opportunities for students in the future.”

Via its embassy in Havana, the Chinese government is supplying the school with textbooks, dictionaries, and handbooks, as well as traditional Chinese toys to be used as teaching aids.

School principal Carlos Camejo voiced his enthusiasm for the program, telling Xinhua, “China and Cuba have a solid brotherhood. I do not doubt that Chinese language classes will be very positive for the intellectual development of our students.” More schools across the country are expected join the initiative in the coming years.

Interest in studying Chinese has grown in the island nation as Cuba–China relations have continued to strengthen over the last few years.

Reading Foundations


Educators are often left unprepared to meet the unique needs of the increasing number of English learners (ELs), especially when it comes to literacy. As their number continues to grow, it is critical that teachers are equipped with the proper resources they need to connect with EL students. There is also a need for schools and districts to provide additional means and resources for the students and their families.

Just like non-EL students, EL students come into the classroom with varying reading proficiency levels and diverse backgrounds and abilities. Each has a different way in which they learn and a different home environment that could involve living with multiple generations of family who may or may not know English. These combinations present unique challenges for educators in getting to know their students and creating an effective instruction model to equip all students with the knowledge they need in order to succeed.

Professional Development and School Support
There is a need to provide ongoing learning opportunities and skills development, like teacher training, and other resources to encourage and support educators. Investing in resources and professional development empowers educators to be agents of change toward equitable literacy instruction. It also helps them build confidence in knowing they are equipped with the proper skills and training for teaching EL students to read and write in English, paving the way to achieving better reading outcomes in schools and districts.

Additionally, resources like translation and interpretation services must be provided for the students and their families to ensure they feel supported. Hiring bilingual staff and having resources available at all times allows families who are not proficient in English to have access to written documents, meetings with teachers, and schoolwide events in their native languages.

Building Connections between Languages
In addition to arming teachers with the knowledge needed to help EL students learn how to read, we should encourage educators to make connections between students’ first languages and the English language. This does not mean the teacher must become fluent in every language represented in their classroom. There is, however, a benefit to knowing the general structures of those languages and determining if there are structural similarities between the students’ native languages and English.

One way to find out if there are connections in languages is to identify cognates.1 A cognate is a word whose appearance and meaning are the same in two or more languages. The Romance languages—Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, French, and Spanish—all evolved from Latin. Between them, one can notice words that share common roots (aqua, flor) or prefixes and suffixes (contra-, dys-).

English, which is not part of the Romance language family, belongs to the German language family. Even though these languages belong to different language families, there are many shared cognates between English and Romance languages. For example, the English word academic and the Spanish word académico have similarities in spelling, pronunciation, and meaning.

While cognates exist across many languages, there are fewer cognates in languages as the gap between their origins and alphabets widens. For example, even though English and Chinese don’t share cognates by definition, they have loanwords—a word adopted from a foreign language with little or no modification. One instance of a loanword is the English word pizza and the Chinese word pīsà/bǐsà.

By being able to identify and understand cognates, loanwords, and other similarities across language structures, teachers are able to help ELs make those connections and aid the students in learning to read and comprehend English.

Another way to help ELs is for educators to consider the writing systems of each language represented in their classrooms. Does the student’s first language use a similar alphabet to the English alphabet, or does it use a writing system based on characters and symbols? EL students with first languages that use a writing system based on characters and symbols face a greater, less common challenge and may need more in-depth instruction. These students are not only learning new words and grammar rules but also learning a whole new alphabet and the sounds of each letter that makes up the alphabet.

Establishing connections between a student’s first language and the English language not only can help them achieve success in English literacy but also allows them to continue to build upon that success using their native language.

Educators should encourage parents to read books to their children in their first language and to continue to engage in experiences and language-rich conversations in their native language. This encouragement not only helps students to develop proficiency and fluency but also allows them and their families to stay connected to their cultural origins, an important component in finding identity.

It is also critical that teachers do not deter or interfere with the spoken language in children’s homes. Families should not be expected to support English language proficiency, especially if they themselves are not English proficient.

The Structured Literacy Approach
Schools should form a strategy around the instructional methods their teachers use. In some US classrooms, only the targeted language is used and the focus lies heavily on speaking rather than grammar. Another common approach to teaching English is inquiry-based learning, in which students are expected to solve problems by participating in tasks and projects, with the teacher simply serving as a facilitator.2 The challenge with these methods is that they require children to engage in speaking and comprehension activities when many of these students don’t even know the sounds, alphabet, or words that make up the English language.

Structured literacy differs from other approaches used for teaching students how to read and has proven to be effective for EL learners.3 Structured literacy is a term created by the International Dyslexia Association in 2016 to help unify the names of the researched approaches to reading, including Orton-Gillingham, phonics-based reading instruction, systematic reading instruction, and synthetic phonics.

Phonological awareness, which is a major component of structured literacy, is a phonics-based reading instruction that helps children understand the alphabetic principle (letters have names and sounds that form words).4 Not only is phonological awareness the foundation for reading but it is also the most important aspect to a child learning how to read, because it lets children recognize and work with the sounds of spoken language, for example by picking out words that rhyme, counting the number of syllables in a word, and noticing sound repetition (“Susie sold six salami sandwiches”).

Structured literacy also emphasizes the structure of language through:
• Sound–symbol association—the relationship between sounds and symbols
• Syllables—words or parts of a word that contain one vowel phoneme
• Morphology—the study of the forms of words
• Syntax—sentence structure
• Semantics—the meaning of words

The types of instruction used to teach the elements of structured literacy include:
• Systematic and cumulative—lessons are organized and built upon previously learned concepts
• Explicit—instruction is direct and intentional
• Diagnostic—assessment is ongoing (formal and informal)

Implementing structured literacy is one of the most effective ways to help students achieve reading success and to improve overall literacy rates among EL learners.

As we continue to see the EL student population grow, so too does the need for the involvement of teachers, schools, and districts in helping ELs achieve reading proficiency. This means expanding resources for children and their families and equipping educators with the skills and knowledge needed to teach children to read through professional development, like structured literacy training. This joint effort will afford EL students the same opportunity as English native students in learning to read and to prosper in life.

Links
1. www.thoughtco.com/what-is-cognate-words-1689859
2. https://dyslexiaida.org/what-is-structured-literacy
3. https://journal.imse.com/what-is-structured-literacy
4. https://journal.imse.com/how-to-teach-phonemic-awareness

Silvia Gonzalez-Powers is an educator for Boston Public Schools and a level-five Master Instructor at the Institute for Multi-Sensory Education.

Potential Genetic Factor in Specific Language Impairment

A team of researchers at the University of Kansas has identified a possible genetic factor underlying specific language impairment (SLI), a communication disorder whose cause has long stumped researchers. SLI typically entails delayed language development in early childhood. School-aged children with SLI often begin speaking later than the average child and may struggle with comprehension of spoken language, and utterances may appear somewhat stunted and immature. The disorder can be difficult for clinicians to properly diagnose; however, a recent study published in Brain Sciences suggests that a particular variation of the gene BUD13 could be implicated in its diagnosis.

“It can be hard to identify these children, but they might face problems speaking and learning grammar and not be very talkative—but they’re otherwise typical children,” said M. Hashim Raza, a co-author on the study. “If we talk about their nonverbal IQ level, they fall into the in-the-average range, and sometimes we see their nonverbal IQ level is even higher than in average people.” Somewhere between 7% and 10% of kindergartners are estimated to have SLI, according to the researchers. While it can be difficult to diagnose individuals with SLI based on a child’s performance on linguistic assessments alone, the discovery of a potential genetic marker could make diagnosis a bit more straightforward.

The recent study focused on an individual family with higher-than-average prevalence of SLI. Of the ten children in the family, seven had SLI (this family is also part of another larger, ongoing study of potential genetic factors underlying the disorder). After identifying a mutation in BUD13 among the family members, the researchers then compared the variant with the gene of 175 unrelated individuals with a prior diagnosis of SLI.

By examining BUD13 in the other subjects, the researchers identified 15 other variants, indicating that the gene could be involved in the development of SLI. Another recent study has also implicated BUD13 in language development and communication disorders. Given that early diagnosis and intervention for children with SLI can help significantly mitigate the effects of the disorder, the researchers believe that future research into BUD13’s role in SLI could be particularly useful for streamlining the diagnosis process.

“Based on the genetic evidence in our family-based study and previous reports, we suggest BUD13 regulates the expression of other genes, predominantly neuronal genes, and is an essential new target gene for SLI,” Raza said. AW

Take Action to Support English Learners! FY23 Title III Funding

Take action to support English Learners! Ask your Representative to join Reps. Langevin, Craig, García, and Leger Fernandez in sending a letter to Chairwoman DeLauro and Ranking Member Cole on the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee requesting $2 billion for Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in FY23. This funding is critical to address the needs of English Learners (ELs), their teachers, and their families.JNCL/NCLIS is coordinating an effort to attract as many bipartisan co-signers as possible to the Title III Dear Colleague letter before the April 25th filing deadline. Please send an email to your Congressional Representative to ask for their signature as soon as possible.
Take Action

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