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Building Success in Math for ELLs

Aha!Math for Spanish/ELL Edition provides a comprehensive solution for educators seeking an effective supplemental math curriculum for native language instruction and native language support of ELLs. With all the same rich, research-based student content as Aha!Math, this version for English Language Learners also provides:

• Spanish curriculum for grades K-2
• Spanish/English glossary to focus on academic and schema vocabulary
• ELL strategy guide that gives teachers assistance using Aha!Math to help students in language acquisition and mastery of academic vocabulary
• Journal activities for teachers to create math and language literacy exercises for students to use in English, Spanish or both.

We've designed this ELL solution to meet both the needs of the bilingual educator with the need for native-language content instruction in the early primary grades, and the ELL instructor who provides English language instruction with native language support.

Research-based design
Aha!Math’s instructional design is ideal for use with ELLs and native English speaking students:

• Contextualized learning — thematic settings provide familiar contexts that are culturally neutral.
• Use of keywords in context — supports academic vocabulary is supported by the context, used with repetition, and the placement in the instructional content scaffolds the linguistic load.
• Visual modeling — concrete representations of math concepts provide students with cues for understanding the language-based instruction.
• Paired modalities — math instruction and vocabulary are connected with both visual and auditory cues - students hear the vocabulary while seeing the visual representation of its meaning.
• Repetition of language structures — repetition of the language of math with modeled grammatical forms aids students in acquiring not only the content objectives but also the academic language needed to communicate and understand these objectives.

Teaching strategies and guides
We recognize that some ELL instructors may have expertise in teaching ELL but not in teaching math, while others have significant experience as math teachers, but less as ELL instructors. Aha!Math provides the resources to build teacher capacity in math instruction for ELLS.

In grades K-2, digital coaches instruct students in Spanish to provide native-language instruction in math to Spanish-speaking students.