Special Collection
 


English as a Second Language
for Children and Their Parents

This Special Collection is intended for children learning English. There are many books and workbooks for parents to work with their children or even study themselves. For the more advanced student of "English as a second language" (ESL), in particular those studying for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), please see another of the library's collections, English as a Second Language.

All materials in this collection are organized by topic. For help finding any of these materials, please talk to the children’s librarian on duty.


General Resources for Parents

Games for Writing: Playful Ways to Help Your Child Learn to Write by Peggy Kaye: This book offers more than 50 ways to help your child become a better writer. Children can maneuver through mazes to improve their handwriting, learn the alphabet by baking pretzels, play rhyming games to stretch their vocabulary, and crack secret codes while practicing spelling.

Hands-On English by Fran Santoro Hamilton: This is a user-friendly guide for upper elementary students to become better writers.

Book Bridges for ESL Students: Using Young Adult and Children's Literature to Teach ESL by Suzanne Reid: This is a great book to use as a guide for helping your child pick literature that he or she will enjoy reading and also enforces reading skills. It also offers advice to parents on strategies to improve comprehension.

Kids Come in All Languages: Reading Instruction for ESL Students edited by Karen Spangenberg-Urbschat and Robert Pritchard: Although this book is intended for teachers, it also makes a great resource for parents. The book offers current student demographics in the U.S., instructional approaches and procedures teachers may be using, self esteem issues, and ways of selecting materials for ESL students.

English Daily: This website provides topics such as conversation, common mistakes in English, American slang (kid friendly), and grammar.

English as 2nd Language: This webpage offers games, quizzes and other useful links pertaining to ESL.

Dictionaries

The Little Dictionary: An illustrated dictionary that includes "Wordplay" activities.

The Visual Dictionary of Everyday Things by Dorling Kindersley: Text, "exploded view" photographs, and labels reveal everyday objects and their parts, including the telephone, camera and bicycle.

Scholastic Dictionary of Synonyms, Antonyms, Homonyms: Synonyms and antonyms are located in the same entries with a list of homonyms at the back.

The Hello Reader! Picture Dictionary compiled by Gina Shaw and Kimberly Weinberger: Based on the popular Hello Reader! series of books, this picture dictionary includes more than 650 useful words and pictures used in the series.

Phonics

The Graphic Alphabet by David Pelletier: This elegant alphabet is for those who have mastered their letters and enjoy beauty in unexpected places.

The Super Book of Phonics Poems: 88 Playful Poems with Easy Lessons that Teach Consonants, Vowels, Blends, Digraphs and Much More! by Linda B. Ross: Teach your emergent reader the excitement of learning to with this book, loaded with fun activities.

Word by Word Primary Phonics Picture Dictionary by Steven J. Molinsky and Bill Bliss: A phonics-based presentation of over 1000 English words through illustrations, including an introduction to phonemic awareness, decoding and word recognition, and vocabulary concepts and skills development

Grammar

Grammar Is Great! by Ruth Thomson: Focus on early grammar skills, through colorful illustrations, writing tips, games and activities.

Go Further with Grammar by Ruth Thomson: The same format as Grammar Is Great! and reinforces primary skills while also introducing more advanced parts of speech, punctuation, and so on.

Getting to Grips with Grammar by Martin Manser and Alice Grandison: Bright, humorous illustrations fill every page and the grammar concepts are shown in the context of real life situations.

What Is a ______? by Brian P. Cleary: These clever picture books use bright illustrations and rhyming words to show examples of kinds of words and their meanings.

Grammar for Children: This video series is suited for kindergarten through fourth grade. The videos are 25 minutes in length and make a nice multimedia complement to the book series by Brian P. Cleary.

Schoolhouse Rock: 3rd and 4th Grade (CD-ROM): Disc 2 has a section on grammar and reading. Kids can learn while playing fun-filled games and activities

Wordplay and Workbooks

Important Note: Most workbook publishers allow photocopying which can be done in the library’s copy center. Please do not write in the actual book.

My Teacher Likes to Say by Denise Brennan-Nelson: The English language is full of idioms, proverbs and cliches that come from many different sources. Once understood, they can be an excellent (and fun!) example of the power of language.

Tricky Tongue-Twisters by Joseph Rosenbloom: An illustrated introduction to tongue twisters, both familiar and new, grouped by the letter of the alphabet featured in each.

Traffic: A Book of Opposites by Betsy and Giulio Maestro: Text and illustrations introduce words with opposite meanings such as over and under, big and little, and front and back.

Bug in a Rug by Joanna Cole and Stephanie Calmenson: Includes simple stories and poems, labeled pictures, and rebuses to help young children discover the pleasure of reading.

Building Your Vocabulary by Marvin Terban: This book provides tips and activities for kids to learn new words and use them in conversation.

Get Ready, Get Set, Sing: Songs for Early Childhood and ESL by Sarah Barchas: Side one of this music CD features songs of alphabet, people, family, feelings, colors, clothes, days of the week and numbers from 1 to 20. Side two has songs of farm and pet animals, body, shapes, foods, months, riddle rhymes, school and transportation.

Spelling Made Simple by Stephen V. Ross: This guide will help students avoid all those tricky words that are “the exception to the rule.” Activities and quizzes follow each section.

For Here or to Go? by John de Szendeffy: This is a collection of short stories written in first person by ESL learners from a variety of cultures, languages and backgrounds. The readings provide models of native fluency by demonstrating vocabulary, structure, mechanics and rhetorical patterns in English.

The Sound Sleuth: More than 80 Phonics Activities for K-2 by Kylie Dunn: The Sound Sleuth helps young children recognize letters, investigate single sounds, decode letter combinations, demystify words and word building and build basic grammar skills.

Easy & Engaging ESL Activities and Mini-Books for Every Classroom: Terrific Teaching Tips, Games, Mini-Books & More to Help New Students from Every Nation Build Basic English Vocabulary and Feel Welcome! by Kama Einhorn: This workbook is packed with ideas, games and activities for the ESL student. Topics include: new to school, ABCs, numbers, food, time, and more.

The Great Big Book of Fun Phonics Activities by Claire Daniel: More than 350 pages of instant activities, games, take-home books, fun skill pages, picture/word cards, and much more to build early reading skills.

Bilingual Storybooks

These are kept on separate shelving in the International Languages Section which is next to the New Book Stand in the Children’s Department. There are also International Language DVDs, CD-ROMs, and bilingual storybooks accompanied by audiocassettes and CDs. Musical CDs sung in different languages are also available in the CD cabinets under the heading "CD-FOLK AND ETHNIC."

Bilingual Storybooks and Sing-a-Longs on Audiocassette

This collection is housed with the other stories on audiocassette in the multimedia section of our Children’s Library. The language materials are hung at the end of the stories on cassette section, separated by language. We have books on cassette in many of the languages listed above.


This Special Collection last updated on May 15, 2008.