“One bilingual student who was hesitant to write began producing complete sentences in both English and Spanish after regularly using the writing center materials.”
-Claudia Becerra
Longfellow teacher Claudia Becerra has received a 2024-2025 teacher grant from PEF to support her first grade classroom. With the funding she received, Claudia was able to achieve her mission of supporting early literacy skills in her bilingual class.
“Through engaging activities focused on phonemic awareness, decoding and bilingual literacy, students showed noticeable growth in both English and Spanish reading and writing skills. These tools helped make learning interactive and meaningful reinforcing foundational literacy concepts in developmentally appropriate ways.”
By including more hands-on, multisensory learning activities into her curriculum Claudia was able to better engage her students. Claudia used fun items like toy phones, word mats, and white boards to give these children a chance to practice in a supportive environment. The students had fun with these additional activities, using them to practice and build their confidence with early language skills.
“…many students who initially struggled with identifying blends became more confident through the use of tactile phonics tools like magnetic letters and sound boxes. One bilingual student who was hesitant to write began producing complete sentences in both English and Spanish after regularly using the writing center materials. Overall, students were more engaged during literacy lessons, participated more actively, and showed measurable growth in decoding and writing skills. The hands-on approach helped make abstract concepts more concrete, especially for emerging bilingual learners.”
Claudia plans to continue using these tools in the coming years to further help her students learn about English and Spanish.
