Strategies and Tools for English Learners
Use these strategies and tools to help English Learners in your classroom expand their vocabulary and comprehension within computer science:
Illustrated vocabulary slides: All vocabulary words are accompanied by a clear image associated with the word to support comprehension.
Vocabulary Word Wall: Display the vocabulary words used in current and past lessons for students to see and look back at as they work through their current project.
Think-Pair-Share: When a discussion question is presented to the class, give students time to think about their answer, pair up with a partner, and share their ideas. Students can practice discussing new concepts leading to a deeper understanding.
Pair-Programming: Pair students with a partner who can help guide them through the code, or can be guided by them. Partners can switch roles throughout the project.
Sentence Frames and Starters: Provide sentence frames and starters to help students construct their responses. For example, “In this code, the loop does ___ because ___.”
Act-it-Out: Give students a simple sequence of code and have them act out what happens. This will allow them to demonstrate their understanding kinesthetically before they may be able to verbalize their thinking.
Read the Code: Give students a sequence of code and have them read it, as if it were directions written in a list or a paragraph. This will develop their ability to talk about what each part of a program does.
Code Block Language Settings: In Scratch, students can set their preferred language for the code blocks. ScratchJr’s blocks are pictorial and do not require literacy to be able to understand.
Printable Code Instructions: A printable version of slides containing instructions for building the program is provided for all coding lessons.
Spanish-language Support
We provide Spanish-language resources for Spanish speakers. You can change the language preference settings for each student in the settings for their section. This will change the starter code that students see so that the content is in Spanish.
CodeHS Resources Available in Spanish
Spanish slides: You can present these slides to students or provide them with a link to follow along as you teach.
Printable Code Instructions: A Spanish version of the code instructions is provided for all coding lessons.
Handouts and Activities: View the Resources section to find the Spanish version of Interactive Activities and lesson handouts. (Note: You will need to share the Spanish Interactive Activity link directly with students via your own LMS or link-sharing tool)
Still have questions? Contact our team at hello@codehs.com to learn more!
CodeHS Elementary Curriculum is included with an Elementary License. If you believe you should have access to the Elementary Portal, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or send an email to hello@codehs.com.