School #6 offers a part-time “pull-out” Polish bilingual resource room for students in grades 1 through 5. For Kindergarten students, a “push-in” model is followed in collaboration with the Tools of the Mind program.
In grades 1-5, a bilingual-certified teacher, assisted by a highly qualified teacher’s aide, provide the students with a minimum of one period of developmental reading instruction and support in math, in addition to their regular ESL instruction.
Two certified ESL instructors utilize a combination of the “push-in” and “pull-out” models to offer students a daily developmental second-language program based on students’ needs. The ESL teacher pushes into the general education classroom in grades K-5 to co-teach with the Language Arts teacher for a minimum of of 30 minutes daily during the differentiated small group instruction time of the ninety-minute Language Arts balanced literacy block. This period is dedicated to literacy instruction and development of oral proficiency in concert with the balanced literacy program.
In addition to providing literacy support in the mainstream classroom during the Language Arts block, an ESL teacher also pulls out ELLs for instruction according to grade and proficiency level. During this time, the ESL teacher follows a curriculum based on the WIDA standards and provides instruction to strengthen the students’ language in all four domains: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
The ESL students are provided with the same material as the general education students. In addition, the ESL teachers may use the following materials: The Trophies ESL Kit, ELL Library, and the Rigby On the Way to English Program.
