The Foundations of Language

A Guide for Parents of ELL Students

Learning to read and write in a brand-new language is an incredible superpower! For young children, learning English text happens right alongside learning to speak and understand the language. Research shows that the best way to help them succeed is to build their speech, listening, and print skills all at the same time.

Here are the four key areas I will focus on to give your child a strong start.

1. Talking and Understanding (Oral Language & Vocabulary)

Before children can read or write a word, they need to know what it means when they hear it or say it.

• Building a word bank: Learning the names of everyday items, actions, and feelings using real objects and pictures.
• Using “twin words” (Cognates): Finding words that sound similar and mean the same thing in both English and your native language (like taxi and taeksi).
• Language for real life: Learning how to ask questions, share needs, and talk with friends in English.

2. Training the Ear (Sound Awareness)

Children must be able to hear the individual, tiny sounds in spoken English before they can match them to written letters.

• Spotting unique sounds: Learning to hear English sounds that might not exist in their native language (like the short /a/ sound in cat or the /sh/ sound in ship).
• Telling sounds apart: Playing listening games to hear the small differences between very similar words (like sheep and ship).
• Playing with words: Practice blending separate sounds together into a whole word aloud (hearing /b/ /a/ /g/ and saying bag).

3. Connecting Sounds to Letters (Phonics & Reading)

Once your child can hear the sounds of English, I teach them exactly what those sounds look like on paper.

• The letter-sound link: Learning that written letters are actually just codes for the spoken sounds they have been practicing.
• Sounding words out: Learning to read words smoothly from left to right instead of guessing based on the first letter.
• Instant words: Memorizing tricky, common words that cannot easily be sounded out (like the, said, and of) so they can read smoothly.

4. Building English Sentences (Writing & Structure)

Writing in English requires learning how sentences are put together, which can be very different from other languages.

• English word order: Learning how English sentences are built naturally (for example, putting the description before the object, like “the red apple”).
• Team writing (Dictation): Having your child tell me their thoughts out loud in English while I help them write the words down on paper.
• Labels to lines: Starting by drawing pictures and writing single-word labels, then slowly growing into writing full, independent sentences.