Literacy Instruction for Language-Minority Students: The Transition Years

Teachers of language-minority students face the daunting task of simultaneously building literacy, developing written expression ability, and enhancing English language growth. This task can be increasingly complicated during the years that language-minority students make the transition from instruction that has been provided primarily in their native language, to instruction that is provided primarily in English. In this article I discuss results from a research project in which my colleagues and I examined language arts and literacy instruction for language-minority students in 18 urban classrooms for 2 years. As a result of this research, I delineate a framework for identifying critical instructional practices that appeared to facilitate both learning and language development for language-minority students. Several examples of these practices, as observed in classrooms, are presented within the discussion of this framework.