Effective Teaching Practices for Academic Literacy Development of Young Immigrant Learners

Abstract

Immigrant children are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population. According to the U.S. Department of Education (2008), young immigrant learners represent 5 percent of all school-aged youth in the United States, and nearly one in four speaks English with difficulty. Furthermore, young immigrant learners are a diverse group. Some are born in the United States, while some come from other countries. Some are at grade level and educated in their native language, while others are not. Consequently, they offer complicated educational challenges because of their differing linguistic and cultural proficiency levels in their native languages as well as in English. With these considerations in mind, how do we effectively educate this growing group of learners in our schools? In particular, how do we effectively develop their academic literacy? The purpose of the study is threefold: 1) to identify the academic literacy needs of young immigrant learners, 2) to identify and categorize the pedagogical strategies the teachers used for meeting these needs and the underlying second language acquisition, literacy, educational theories, and 3) to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation of these strategies.