Currently, teachers don’t object to ESL instruction. They do not realize that Latino students from Spanish-speaking homes are not acquiring their literacy skills at the same rate as their English-only speaking counterparts. This delay comes from the ESL interruption identifying English-only ABC visual references.
Until teachers realize that the English and Spanish alphabets share letter sounds, literacy progress will be slow. By strengthening the current ABC instruction methods and the benefits of cognates, we can make it easier for Latino students from Spanish speaking homes to become more literate.