Breaking Through: Effective Instruction and Assessment for Reaching English Learners, May/2012

Breaking Through is the eighth book in the Leading Edge™ series, which invites education authorities from around the globe to confront an important issue that profoundly affects teachers and administrators, and therefore student success. Breaking Through provides K–12 educators with a whole-school approach to helping English learners (ELs) achieve academically as they learn English.

Breaking Through differs from other books about English learners in that it attempts to look at ELs from a larger perspective and to provide guidelines and recommendations for a whole-school approach to helping ELs achieve academically while learning English. These recommendations stem from a new body of research, including field studies. Beyond the evidence base, the contributors explain the importance of making a moral commitment to ELs—and to all other chil¬dren who may be struggling in our schools.

About the Editor:
Margarita Calderón, PhD, is professor emerita and senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. Her research, training, and curriculum development for teaching language, reading comprehension, and content knowledge to K–12 English learners has been supported by the New York Carnegie Corporation Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Institutes of Health, and the Texas Education Agency. Her work has focused on effective instructional processes, two-way and dual-language programs, teacher learning communities, and professional development for schools with language minority populations and striving adolescent readers.

The author of more than one hundred articles, chapters, books, and teacher training manuals, Dr. Calderón’s most recent professional book is Teaching Reading to English Language Learners, Grades 6–12. She also developed RIGOR (Reading Instructional Goals for Older Readers), a series of intervention resources for older students reading at preliterate–Grade 3 levels. RIGOR is being used in New York City, Boston, Houston, Louisville, Salt Lake City, and other major cities.

Dr. Calderón has also created and directed her own international institutes for administrators, teachers, and parents. She is an experienced classroom teacher, bilingual program director, professional development coordinator, professor of educational leadership graduate programs, and teacher supervisor.

Born in Juárez, Mexico, Dr. Calderón was educated in Mexico and the United States, receiving a BA in English and MA in linguistics from the University of Texas at El Paso and a doctorate from Claremont Graduate School in Pomona, California.