Myths and Realities : Best Practices for Language Minority Students

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good book.
Review: I really enjoyed the book especially when it quoted laws on the right to an education for immigrant students. I am aware of many districts who photocopy green cards and passports. Many are callous and unaware that they can not do that. Some districts have refused service to immigrants without immigration papers but who have met the residency requirement. I even know of a district that wanted to charge tuition.
On another hand, I have yet to see Bilingual education pan out in most schools. Second language educators deny this at their peril. I noticed that the book refers to ESOL children placed into monolingual classrooms as "sink or swim". It is important to note that no child can be denied placement in a regular education classroom solely because they need differentiated instruction. Sink or swim isn't allowed anymore, and ESOL students learn English well in monolingual classrooms with ESOL, Title I and differentiated instruction in their classrooms.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and extremely informative!
Review: This book was a required text for one of my graduate classes dealing with teaching language minority students. Most required texts I find to be less than stimulating and exciting, but I thought that this book was wonderful. I read even the chapters that weren't required reading because I found all of the information to be very interesting and extremely informative.

The book was short and easy to read, but had a ton of great information. I especially liked the myth/reality format of the book, and the statistics, court cases, etc. that the author used to back up the realities. I also liked the descriptive scenarios and "discussions" about the scenarios, because they help put some of the information into real-life situations.