Renewed resolve to help ELL Students

The political climate is a tangled mess of rights and wrongs.  It reflects a broken immigration system.  It doesn't matter how it got this way-that is in the past... what matters is that it get fixed.  That's really all I have to say about that.
My business is relevant to this current state of affairs.  My passion to help children who want to learn to read; especially children who want to learn to read in Spanish.  As a bilingual teacher, I experienced the day-to-day struggle to help children who are thinking in Spanish to learn to read in English.  It was like putting the cart before the horse.  As research, theory and practical experience came to prove, when students are thinking in a language, and learn to read in that language, the second language learning is smoother, faster and has a basis on which to build.  It really makes sense when you stop and reflect. 
Therefore, I continue to push onward and upward to find a place where our program, Lee con Ángel, can help.  Any place where children have access to a computer or device, Lee con Ángel could provide a respite, a retreat, an escape to a learning place.  It is just a way to practice and learn so that kids can develop literacy skills. 
We all know the importance of being able to read.  Lee con Ángel has games, songs, stories and activities that teach skills in sequential order from simple to the more complex so that children can develop literacy independently.  We expect that children walk away from the program inspired to continue learning, having a feeling of accomplishment. 
If you know of any place where Lee con Ángel could be of help, please contact us!
We will offer the program free via the internet.  Anywhere. 
www.leeconangel.com
contact@leeconangel.com

Sincerely,
Lori Morris
Owner
Kishmorr Productions, LLC

Bilingualism and Biliteracy for ALL students!

Educational Philosophy confirmed by ELA/ELD Framework

Promoting Bilingualism and Biliteracy

Recently at a California Conference, a colleague asked: "Whose research do you follow?”  That was such a good question; I didn't know how to answer exactly. There is so much. As a Bilingual Teacher, I know personally how important brain research is to understand how language acquisition occurs. We need to teach children how to learn. The question still remains, "What research do I follow?" I don't want to reference something I read long ago, no matter how relevant. How do I answer that question appropriately?

The California ELA/ELD Framework references a lot of the prominent researchers. I am so surprised to find my educational philosophy and the actual mission of our program to be outlined in this document! I guess my philosophy can be summed up by this simple statement: "For all students, bilingualism is a cognitive and linguistic asset."

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/rl/cf/documents/elaeldfwchapter2.pdf

In this Chapter 2, it gives specifics of what educational programs should be focusing on and how these goals are supported by research.  Really good  research. For ELL's the most impact is made when educators apply brain research and language acquisition--talk about BEST Practices!

For years I have been promoting the idea that what we learn in one language strengthens and improves our second language.  Whether you are learning Portuguese and Spanish, Arabic and English, or English and Spanish; the language order doesn’t matter.  Language skills are language skills.  Of course, languages are different, but the WAY that we learn languages is not.  Look back to brain research.  We know that our brains are trying to make sense out of new concepts.  As humans, we are constantly trying to understand what we see, hear and read.  Educators must be informed about brain research and language acquisition since most every field addresses the acquisition of a new language.   Whether it is jargon in the sciences, grammar terms, or mathematical concepts with labels that aren’t familiar to students; for ELL’s all of this is new language. 

“English learners come to California schools w with a valuable resource— their primary language— which enhances rather than detracts from their learning of English (August and Shanahan; Genesee, and others 2006. Language and literacy skills and abilities (such as phonological awareness decoding, writing, or comprehension skills) can be transferred from students’ primary language to English. Teachers facilitate this transfer in many ways and help ELL’s develop English through strategic use of primary language resources.”  

Yes!  This is it!

I recommend that all Bilingual/Dual Language educators and anyone who works with any ELL's refer to this document to review what California is setting in place. It is more than a step in the right direction; it is a basis for an educational philosophy.

Lori Morris, Kishmorr Productions, LLC

Founder/Owner

Lee con Ángel- Spanish Reading Program & App

Lee con Ángel & ESGI - get your Beginning of Year testing done in a flash!

Bilingual and Dual Language Pre-K, Kinder and First Grade Teachers,

You have lists upon lists of things to do, so knock out that data collection/testing process super quick!
www.ESGI.com   and www.Leeconangel.com  are two sites that will become your favs!
ESGI stands for Educational Software Guided Instruction and offers hundreds of tests you can use to monitor progress and collect data.  Many schools use this as their Report Card generation tool!

Lee con Ángel is a Spanish Reading program online and an APP for iPads designed to help children ages 4-8 learn to read in Spanish.

Additionally, Lee con Ángel has Spanish Reading Tests in the ESGI test bank for you to use when collecting data for monitoring Spanish Reading literacy!

    Two companies started by teachers to help teachers!

Details about ESGI and Lee con Ángel for back to school:

• Sign up for a free 60-day trial using promo code A1305 
• Offer good until  September 30, 2017.
• New users to ESGI
• Save $40 on the purchase of a license using promo code A1305
• Enter into a raffle to win one of ten $50 Amazon gift cards
• Email:  contact@leeconangel.com  for details about a free trial to Lee con Ángel  or register online at www.leeconangel.com.  The app is for iPhones/iPads in the iTunes store too!

Children feel like they are playing when working with Lee con Ángel on the iPad or computer.  They can practice at their own pace on the secure site or download the app for iPads.  

Teachers who have used ESGI know how easy it is to use and how quickly testing gets done with this valuable tool!  Students ask to be tested!  

We want 2017-2018 to be a great year for you and using these two tools will energize your students and help you by saving you time!  Contact us today!!!

Back to school time with Lee con Ángel!

We'd love to see your students sing one of our songs using those classroom instruments!

What a great way to review what they learned last year, and have an engaging start to a new school year!  Get a free year's subscription to Lee con Ángel too!!

Check out this video for inspiration!

 https://laughingsquid.com/jimmy-fallon-muppets-the-roots-play-the-sesame-street-theme-song-on-classroom-instruments/

Sesame Street Muppets sing with the Roots and Jimmy Fallon on Classroom Instruments

Get your students excited about learning and choose one of four original songs in Lee con Ángel to perform with your students singing and playing rhythm instruments!  Upload a video clip with the # Angelstarstudent to YouTube, Twitter or Instagram  for a free subscription for a whole year for the computer in your classroom!

Songs featured in Lee con Ángel:  Desfile de Animales con sonidos de las letras

                                                        Las vocales en español
                                                        El Canto de las letras y sonidos en español
                                                        Forma sílabas con los animales y vocales

En el programa Lee con Ángel escucha esta canción cuando hace clic en los globos en la clase.

¡Queremos ayudar a sus alumnos aprender a leer en español!  Lee con Ángel es un programa en el internet para estudiantes de Pre-Kinder hasta segundo grado.  Tenemos juegos interactivos, canciones y cuentos animados para mejorar fluidez y comprension.  Se puede encontrar la aplicación en iTunes.   Lee con Ángel wants your students to be "Star Students"!

Teacher Appreciation Gift from Lee con Ángel!

The 2016 -17 School Year has been a great run and lots of fun!  We hope your students have learned a lot from working with Lee con Ángel on the iPad or on the computer!

There are at least 24 schools in 8 districts across the country now using Lee con Ángel to develop literacy skills.  
Kishmorr Productions wants to thank the teachers who have been our "star teachers" as we get started in the Educational Technology field.

So, as a token of appreciation, we are offering a free IPad to the teacher who gets the most ♥'s on Twitter for posting a video of students singing one of our songs!
Choose from the Parade Song, the Vowel Song, the Syllable Song, or the Alphabet Chant!

Post your video to twitter using either of the hashtags:   #Angelstarstudent      or        #estudianteestrellar
We will monitor who will win a FREE, NEW iPad and make that announcement on 5/26/17.
Just in time for the first weekend of summer!

That way, you can use the iPad all summer and be better equipped in the 2017-18 school year!

We have created a pattern for a paper bag puppet of Ángel.
Email us at:  contact@leeconangel.com and we will send you a copy of this so kids have a puppet to sing along or read with them!
 

¡Leer es divertido cuando Lee con Ángel!

Lee con Ángel and ESGI: Where technology and best practices meet.

10Oct

Lee con Ángel and ESGI: Where Technology and Best Practices Meet

“Necessity is the mother of invention.” That's how Lee con Ángel got its start. Bilingual teachers are painfully aware that there are more resources in English for children than there are in Spanish, but we don’t want to accept that. “We need an online program that helps kids develop literacy skills in Spanish!” said Bette Kish and Lori Morris, two Bilingual teachers from the Houston, Texas area who created Lee con Ángel.

The online program started as songs and games. Later, stories and comprehension questions were written in Spanish. Soon Lee con Ángel, the app for iPads and a web version for desktops were ready for bilingual classrooms.

Dual Language teachers started using this supplemental program in their classrooms. It works!! Everywhere children are using Lee con Ángel, teachers report their students making excellent progress. Reading gains, language development, verbalization…light bulbs are going on everywhere! Special needs children jump with excitement when playing the interactive games. First graders donned with earphones sing along with the songs, completely engaged in the content of the program. Timid, non-verbal Kindergartners begin to communicate and read along with Ángel as their guide. This is the kind of progress every teacher dreams about for their young ELLs.

Not surprisingly, Lee con Ángel has been caught up in the process of proving research regarding language acquisition and Bi-literacy. For decades, bilingual teachers have known the research. 
What a student learns in one language is transferred and applied to the second language. As teachers, we also know from experience, that as one learns a second language, the first language is strengthened. This usually was the case for bilingual students learning English as a second language. Now, we have students learning Spanish as a second language with Lee con Ángel. The same premise applies, only now the languages are reversed!

How exciting to see all children of any race or ethnicity learning Spanish as a second language and developing Bi-literacy or multi-literacy in the process! 

ESGI has played a crucial role in this journey because it hosts the digit versions of Lee con Ángel tests. Teachers who use ESGI Software for assessment purposes have the best of the digital age. Teachers we have met use ESGI for parent reports, report cards, RtI data disaggregation, test-item analysis to create small groups, and classroom management. Combine ESGI with Lee con Ángel in the classroom and you have a winning combination!

Lee con Ángel can be used for teaching:

• Spanish concepts of print in mini-lesson format
• comprehension practice (similar to standardized online tests)
• fluency-building stories that help students jump levels of reading
• interactive games to develop phonemic awareness
• original songs that bring all the sounds of the Spanish language to life

Suddenly the classroom has become a place where students work independently to gather and practice skills, while teachers work with smaller groups to pinpoint specific skills.

Kishmorr Productions, LLC has completed one successful pilot in a Dual Language Program within a suburban school district near Houston, Texas. View the white paper HERE. 

This data was collected using ESGI making the process painless, quick, efficient and the data so easy to analyze. All thanks to the user-friendliness of this software. The second pilot is underway in another school district near the border of Mexico-Texas. ESGI is playing a vital role in the collection of this data. We are eager to share the results of how well students learn to read using tests that are already on the ESGI software that coordinate with Lee con Ángel. In the future, we expect to show how skills are strengthened in the first language as the students develop literacy in Spanish using Lee con Ángel. Having so many tests in ESGI allows teachers to add to their ‘tool bag’ of instructional strategies. We know that the future is bright for students learning to read in Spanish. It's even brighter for teachers who use ESGI Software and Lee con Ángel in the classroom!

Interested in becoming part of the Bi-literacy movement? CHECK OUT: www.sealofbiliteracy.org

Get your free trial to Lee con Ángel by emailing: contact@kishmorrproductions.com 

Mention ESGI to us at the TABE Conference in October in Galveston, Texas OR – find us at La Cosecha Dual Language Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico in November and win a six-month subscription to Lee con Ángel.

Research mentioned: Collier, V. & Thomas, W. (2004). The astounding effectiveness of dual language education for all. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 2(1). 
Cummins, J. (1996). Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society. (Ontario, CA: California Association for Bilingual Education).

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Apreciamos Maestros

We do appreciate teachers and are reminded to say so on National Teacher Appreciation Day.  However, it is the Bilingual ones, the ones who have to think, plan, speak, write and prepare in two languages that are near and dear to our hearts.  Thank you…Gracias….Merci!

We can relate to the times when you have to be so much to so many and still try to leave some for yourself.  Look into the eye of most teachers and that tired, guarded glint is there.  It is trying to balance everything and stay on their toes.

We salute you- we appreciate you- we support you and feel that you are the unsung heroes of education. Not because you do so much more, Coaches are dedicated too, so many teachers are doing such great work, but the Bilingual and Dual Language teachers are truly keeping a culture  alive by speaking two languages.

Nosotros apoyamos y apreciamos a ustedes los maestros y maestras de estudiantes aprendiendo en dos lenguas…¡Viva BI-Literacy!