ESL Resources

This video from ReadWriteThink features a first-grade teacher talking through the steps that she uses to select a complex text for her class. The strategies that are described are easily adapted to adult EL classrooms.

ATOS for Text is used to calculate the readability level for shorter text passages such as magazine and newspaper articles, test items, and other classroom materials. Results that you will receive from this analysis include: ATOS Level, Word Count, Average Word Length, and Average Sentence Length. The Academic Word Finder from Achieve the Core (found in the Reading library) is a text analysis tool that pulls the most useful academic vocabulary words from a given text that is copied and pasted onto the homepage.

In this paper, the authors demonstrate how English learners can be provided with strategies for accessing complex texts, such as closely examining one sentence at a time, and argue that instruction must go beyond vocabulary and should begin with an examination of our beliefs about language, literacy and learning.