Teaching Vocabulary Skills to Bilingual Students

My capstone project focuses on the vocabulary development of dual language learning 5th graders whose parents are primarily Spanish speakers. These students have low-income parents. Bilingual students juggle two languages at once, which can lead to challenges in English vocabulary development. Since the parents primarily speak Spanish, the children are not getting much exposure to English vocabulary at home. Also, they may not have opportunities to use the English vocabulary they are learning at school. Students who have low English level language, have more trouble reading and comprehending (Wasik & Hindman, 2018). Therefore, there is a need for a vocabulary program in elementary school so that bilingual students improve their reading and writing development in class. I created lessons on vocabulary learning for bilingual 5th graders at Oasis Charter Public School in Salinas. The 5th-grade students are Hispanic. This vocabulary program is distinctive because the students are going to speak Spanish and English. I created three lessons on strategies for remembering new words, how to use an English Dictionary, and how to use a Spanish/English Dictionary. This will help students understand English vocabulary more and it will help when the students go to 6th grade. Also, it is going to help them while reading