When students come to District 91 Schools speaking a language other than English, they may benefit from the Transitional Program of Instruction (TPI) offered by teachers holding English Language Learning licenses. These teachers are skilled in promoting both growth in conversational English as well as deeper understanding of academic content.
At Betsy Ross, Ms. Vanessa Reyes teaches TPI. She works with students both in their classrooms and in a small group setting to build basic English skills, enhance understanding of curriculum, and develop vocabulary so that students can be successful in their general education classes. All of that is hard work, but Ms. Reyes makes it fun for her students. Recently, her second grade students studied fairy tales in their classrooms. Ms. Reyes gave her students the opportunity to study additional culturally diverse fairy tales as they worked on English vocabulary and Common Core literacy standards related to genre. The fairy tale unit is always a favorite, and the students in TPI loved sharing even more fairy tales together.
