If it worked with my Ahiskan students it will work with most ESL kids!

Many Ahiskan families had to immigrate to USA as refugees from Russia couple of years ago. Most of the kids didn't go to any school in Russia and didn't know how to read or write even though they were 7,8 or 9 years old. My students in 3rd and 4th grades didn't know how to read and write in their first languages when they enrolled our school. They started to forget Russian while struggling with English. Now they don't know either of the languages very well. Many research say that second language is learned best when a child is mastered in her native language first. So what to do with these new students was a big question in my mind when I first started to teach these kids. I will be sharing my experiences with my ESL students in this blog. I hope you will get some new ideas and see the benefits very soon. It might be helpful to review this blog before you plan a route to success for your ESL students - especially the ones that just arrived the USA- and set your goals for them.