[EDLING:1552] fmhult at dolphin.upenn.edu has sent you an article from HoustonChronicle.com Leos praises Brownsville English acquisition program

[fmhult at DOLPHIN.UPENN.EDU]

 http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3850174.html

 BROWNSVILLE — Assistant Deputy U.S. Secretary of Education Kathleen
Leos praised the Brownsville school district on Monday for its program
for students who are learning to speak English.

Leos visited some elementary schools in Brownsville and observed
first-grade classes of the district's Success through Academic
Interventions In Language program on Monday. The program at Brownsville
Independent School District is part of a national study on English
acquistion funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

"The level of complexity of teaching strategies is really impressive,"
Leos said in a story in Tuesday's editions of The Brownsville Herald.
"We just came from a classroom at El Jardin (elementary), where the
first-grade classroom and the vocabulary level of the students in that
classroom is easily at a third-grade level."

As director of the Office of English Language Acquisition, Leos is
responsible for developing nationwide programs to improve the
achievement of non-English-speaking students.

"The secretary (of education) wants me to look at those specific
strategies and see what's working based on student results," Leos said.
"Then we say to the rest of the teachers in the country that these are
the things you have to include in your programs."

The SAIIL program, in its second year, was developed to boost the
language and literacy of Spanish-speaking children. Students in the
program were placed in either English or Spanish instruction in
kindergarten. Researchers will follow their development for five years
and have been developing instruction strategies with teachers.


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