Gaining knowledge from informational texts is an essential academic skill. Yet for too many English Learners, this skill is not developed sufficiently and as they move from elementary into middle school, the reading gap becomes a knowledge gap. In Reading to Learn for ELs, author Ana Taboada Barber provides models of her instructional framework for reading informational texts so that reading teachers, content-area teachers, and ESL teachers alike can take on the work of teaching English Learners how to succeed and gain knowledge through reading informational texts.

In this video, Ana says knowing your students is key, especially knowing their interests helps in catering to a student’s motivation. She says start with one strategy and to use the tools provided to help assess a student's skill. 

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To learn more about Reading to Learn for ELs, and to download a sample chapter, click here. 

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Ana Taboada Barber is Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on the psychology of literacy from a cognitive and motivational perspective. She explores classroom contexts and student processes that affect reading engagement and motivation to read, both, in native English speakers and in English Learners. She also taught in Grades 1-8 in bilingual schools in Buenos Aires, before coming to the United States as a Fulbright scholar.