Reading to Learn for ELs: Motivation Practices and Comprehension Strategies for Informational Texts

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. This doesn’t have to happen, researcher Ana Taboada Barber explains, if we support EL’s reading of informational texts by pairing motivation practices with explicit reading comprehension instruction. Taboada Barber shows us that When we make motivation part of reading instruction, we show ELs that education is about identity and agency; we acknowledge who they are right now and invite them to grow through and by reading. The comprehension strategies and motivational practices discussed in this book help us identify tools to use with informational texts that foster curiosity rather than frustration.

In Reading to Learn for ELs, 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.