Is Your Child Really at A2? How to Place Young ESL Learners Accurately

Placing a child at the wrong CEFR level does more damage than having no level at all. A child working below their ability switches off within weeks. A child working above it starts avoiding the language entirely — reading becomes a chore, and speaking becomes a source of shame rather than pride.

Most placement decisions are made from a teacher's gut feeling or a publisher's placement test designed to sell a course book. Neither is reliable. This guide gives you a set of specific, classroom-tested signals to look for — and a process for confirming what you observe informally.

Global Warming Reading Comprehension, Worksheets, Flashcards

The issue of global warming has been widely discussed at the highest governmental and scientific levels recently. The issue is indeed very serious. It threatens with a lot of negative consequences for nature and humans. We can only hope that the future generation will be more wise and inventive than us to successfully mitigate the effects of global warming. Our children’s and grandchildren’s well-being is largely dependent on how well they understand the problem and the ways to tackle it. As a teacher and a mother I simply cannot ignore the dangers of climate change caused by human-induced global warming. I ought to educate my students about the issue and the related risks they will have to face and hopefully find a solution to eliminate or reduce those risks. There are not enough teaching materials on the topic adapted for the classroom that can be found on the Internet, so I decided to create my own printable global warming kit for my English classes. The kit is based on short reading comprehension passages and also includes a few worksheets and a set of printable flashcards to be used for vocabulary introduction and discussion of the topic.

BUY THE WHOLE GLOBAL WARMING KIT IN HI-RES PRINTER-FRIENDLY PDF FORMAT

---

---

Reading Comprehension Passages

The global warming kit is built around three reading comprehension passages. The first and the largest one introduces the global warming issue in general, and the other two briefly tell about the greenhouse effect and the problem of ocean acidification caused by the increase of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. The texts are followed by questions and assignments.

The printable global warming kit is based around reading comprehension passages.

How Early Is Too Early to Teach a Child to Read?

Blog author’s note: this is the second guest article on my blog. And just as the first one it tells about reading with kids. I hope parents and teachers will find this information useful.

---

Learning how to read is an important step in a child’s life, and it’s often the parents’ responsibility to start teaching their children how to read. Because this task is placed in the hands of parents, it’s often questioned when a child should learn how to read. Some parents think they should wait until their child is in school while others feel like it’s something that can be taught before their child has reached their first birthday.

Image by Marc Levin

So when it comes to deciding the right time to teach your child how to read, how early is too early?

Why Are Interactive Books So Good for Kids?

Blog author’s note: I’ve made a decision to accept guest posts from other educators and businesses offering children’s educational products & services. I believe such articles will help me share a collective experience of many experts in the most efficient and progressive ways of teaching and bringing up kids. This is the first article I would like to bring to your attention.

---

These days it seems like more and more of the toys our children scribble the name of on their Christmas and birthday wishlists are electronic devices. From games consoles and computer games, to radio controlled cars, electronic board games and learning devices, everything is being updated for the modern age with the addition of a battery or a plug.

For parents who were brought up playing with Barbies, action figures and puzzles, it seems a bit of a shame that youngsters are no longer using their imagination in the way they once did. It seems like you’re more likely to find your child playing games on a tablet computer than you are to spot them running around in the garden or building dens.

Unfortunately there’s not much we can do about the rise of electronic toys, but there is one way to encourage your kids to sit down and read instead of staring at a screen, and that’s with interactive books.