This practical guide shows teachers how to introduce academic language
to young children, with an emphasis on appreciating and leveraging
linguistic diversity. New educational standards are asking students to
master content-area concepts and increasingly complex texts in earlier
grades. This practitioner-friendly text provides instructional
materials, sample dialogues, and assessment tools to facilitate academic
language use in PreK-3 classrooms. The authors describe the word,
sentence, and discourse levels of academic language, while encouraging
teachers and students to consider purpose, participants, discipline, and
context. Strategies are provided to help readers adapt language for a
variety of academic purposes across mathematics, science, play,
mealtimes, and ELA instruction. The text includes discussion questions,
reproducible activities, planning materials, assessment tools, and
handouts to facilitate smooth implementation into classroom practice.
From Words to Wisdom will empower teachers to build bridges to
academic success for all young learners.
Book Features:
- Expands teachers' understanding of academic language beyond vocabulary
to include syntax and discourse-level features.
- Includes specific strategies, activities, and suggestions for teaching
from and with academic language across multiple settings and
disciplines.
- Addresses all students, including multilingual and linguistically
diverse speakers.
- Incorporates user-friendly features, such as text boxes, vignettes,
assessment protocols, and sample teaching materials.
