Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model Book

This was a textbook that was required for a graduate class (i.e., SEI)--a grad class that I have to take in order to keep my job. So, because I did not choose to read this text, my experience with it might be different than others'.

The book is filled with 30 strategies (or "features") for teachers to use with their English Language Learners. The good news is that they are also solid techniques to use with all students. The three stars, however, stem from the fact that few of what is offered in this text (as part of the SIOP teaching model) are new ones. In fact, just about all of them are ideas most educators would have already gleaned from other professional development texts. They're just repackaged as the SIOP model. Which is like most "new" ideas in teaching.

With that said, if I were a teacher just starting out--or one who hasn't done a whole lot of reading on current best practices, this could be a gold mine. It's just that many teachers taking the SEI grad course are not at the beginning of their careers. For anyone who has taught for even five years, few of the strategies will be new ones.