Improving Teaching for English Learners
Dina Castro, director of the BU Wheelock Institute for Early Childhood Well-Being
Improving Teaching for English Learners
New study provides professional development for prekindergarten educators
A five-year grant will support the Institute for Early Childhood Well-Being at BU Wheelock in studying ways to improve the quality of teaching for young English learners. The Nuestros Niños project will work with Boston Public Schools’ Universal Prekindergarten Program, ABCD Head Start in Massachusetts, and school districts in Colorado to provide professional development to prekindergarten lead teachers, assistant teachers, and paraprofessionals.
Nuestros Niños will be led by Dina Castro, a BU Wheelock professor of early childhood education and the director of the Institute for Early Childhood Well-Being, alongside Cristina Gillanders of the University of Colorado, Denver. It is funded by the US Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition. Participating teachers will earn an academic certificate in Teaching Young Dual Language Learners.
Support for teachers and parents
The first goal of Nuestros Niños is to improve the teaching of language and literacy in young English learners in prekindergarten classes by providing teachers with two years of professional development training. The training includes four online courses and place-based coaching sessions. It also provides supplemental instructional materials for use in the classrooms.
The project will explore ways to enhance parents’ ability to promote their children’s language and literacy development. It will also support teachers in strengthening home–school partnerships and through grant-funded book giveaways and extra instructional materials to be used at home.
Recruitment for Nuestros Niños will start in spring 2023. After that, the project team will start gathering data about the feasibility of the program in schools that serve young English learners to learn whether schools in other states can replicate the results. School districts in Massachusetts and Colorado will share data with the research team, including early language and literacy assessments.